For Immediate Release:
Monday, April 26, 2021
Contact:
Laura Brewer (919) 716-6484
(RALEIGH) Attorney General Josh Stein today urged Congress to pass the EAGLES Act, a national program to prevent targeted school violence and keep students safe in school.
“We owe it to our children to do everything possible to keep them safe at school,” said Attorney General Josh Stein. “I urge Congress to pass the EAGLES Act, which would help federal, state, and local communities do more to prevent school violence.”
The legislation is named after the mascot of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where 17 people were killed on Feb. 14, 2018. The act would expand the U.S. Secret Service’s National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) with a greater focus on school violence prevention. The legislation contains research and training components, allows dissemination of evidence-based practices, and authorizes the NTAC to work with state and local officials to develop research and training to make schools safer.
NTAC was created in 1998 to provide information on threat assessment to the Secret Service and those who work in criminal justice and public safety. NTAC started studying targeted violence in schools after the Columbine High School Shooting in 1999, which led to the establishment of school threat assessment programs.
In the letter to the Chairs and Ranking Members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, the bipartisan group of 40 attorneys general write, “It is unfortunate we have to turn to the threat assessment expertise of the Secret Service in order to keep educators and students safe at school, but gun violence in schools has become all too commonplace.”
Attorney General Stein is joined in signing this letter by the Attorneys General of Tennessee, Illinois, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, N. Mariana Islands, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
A copy of the letter is available here.
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