Sunshine State News: John Rutherford, Ted Deutch Want DOJ to Quickly Release Funds to Fight School Violence
The two Florida congressmen who led the charge in the U.S. House to pass the “Student, Teachers, and Officers Preventing (STOP) School Violence Act” are now calling on the U.S. Department of Justice for guidance on how to implement it.
U.S. Rep. John Rutherford, R-Fla., brought out the bill at the start of the year with U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla., as a co-sponsor. Introduced at the end of January, before the Parkland shooting, the proposal “would create a grant program to train students, teachers, school officials, and local law enforcement how to identify and intervene early when signs of violence arise, create a coordinated reporting system, and implement FBI & Secret Service-based school threat assessment protocols to prevent school shootings before they happen" and “would boost school efforts to develop violence prevention programs and coordinate with law enforcement to improve school.”
The measure passed the House back in March on a 407-10 vote with five libertarian Republicans like U.S. Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., and U.S. Rep. Walter Jones, R-NC, and five of the more left-leaning members of the Democratic caucus like and U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Tex., voting against it. Thirteen members did not vote and that includes two members of the Florida delegation--Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Democrat Frederica Wilson--who cosponsored the bill. Later that month, President Donald Trump signed it into law.
The bill had 100 cosponsors. Rutherford’s proposal reauthorized the 2001 Secure Our Schools program and send $50 million to schools around the nation for school safety.
Rutherford, who served as sheriff of Duval County before being elected to the House in 2016, Deutch and other congressional supporters wrote U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions on how the law would be implemented, calling on him to offer guidance about funds to be used school security grant programs
“As a former sheriff and career law enforcement officer, I know firsthand the importance of taking a multilayer approach to ensuring the safety of our schools and our communities,” Rutherford said on Wednesday. “That is why I am proud to have introduced the STOP School Violence Act, which provides funding for training students, teachers, and law enforcement officers to identify signs of violence and know how to intervene before violence occurs in our schools while hardening the target to increase school security and facilitating coordination with local law enforcement and mental health professionals.
“We now need the Department of Justice to act quickly to issue the necessary guidance for these grants and work with community partners so that our states, localities, and tribes know how to access these new resources available to them,” Rutherford added. “We must act quickly to prevent the horrific tragedies we have experienced in Parkland, Florida, and now again in Santa Fe, Texas. There is no time to waste. I want to thank the original cosponsors of the STOP School Violence Act, as well as Congressman Don Bacon, for their work to prevent these horrific tragedies from occurring in the future and keep our children safe in our schools.”
Besides Rutherford and Deutch, other signers from the Florida delegation included Republican U.S. Reps. Gus Bilirakis, Mario Diaz-Balart, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Ted Yoho and Democrat U.S. Reps. Lois Frankel, Alcee Hastings, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Frederica Wilson.
“The STOP School Violence Act will give schools and communities the resources they need to identify threats and prevent acts of violence before they occur so we can avoid tragedies like what transpired at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School a month ago today. I commend Rep. Deutch, along with our colleagues on both sides of the aisle, for working with us to make schools more secure,” Rutherford said when the bill was passed in March.
“I’m deeply grateful to Sandy Hook Promise for their tireless support for this legislation," said Deutch when the bill was passed. "When we first introduced this bill, I had no idea it would hit so close to home for me and my community. This vote is proof that Congress can take bipartisan action to keep our children safe. However, my colleagues should not be mistaken to think this is enough. We cannot tackle the rampant gun violence in our country without addressing guns themselves. Let’s move with this bipartisan momentum and pass meaningful legislation to make our communities safe.”
Rutherford and Deutch rounded up most of the Florida delegation to back the proposal as Republican U.S. Reps. Bilirakis, Vern Buchanan, Carlos Curbelo, Diaz-Balart, Matt Gaetz, Brian Mast, Bill Posey, Tom Rooney, Ros-Lehtinen and Dennis Ross and Democratic U.S. Reps. Frankel, Al Lawson, Stephanie Murphy, Darren Soto, Wasserman Schultz and Wilson cosponsored the bill.