BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA – Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey presents his four layers of protection plan for school safety that includes the Sheriff Trained Onsight Marshal Program (S.T.O.M.P.), Education and Awareness & S.T.A.R. Program, Hardening of Campuses and School Resource Officers.
HARDENING OF CAMPUSES
This initiative will focus on the Hardening of our campuses throughout Brevard County. Dr. Blackburn said that the overwhelming majority of this initiative was already in the process of being implemented, however, it is a significant and critical part of the overall strategy to protect schools.
“When we use the term “Hardening” what we are actually discussing is the ability to discontinue the perception and reality that our schools are a soft target, but instead, we will have a hard target design that serves two purposes,” said Sheriff Ivey.
“The first is the appearance of not being an easy threat free opportunity and the second is making sure that anyone who plans to try and target students have to penetrate an overwhelming amount of security features and measures to commit their crime. There is no doubt, these locations were specifically chosen because they are easy targets with victims who cannot defend themselves. Not anymore!”
Dr. Blackburn said the plan is to will continue to establish a fencing barrier at all schools, which will create “Single Points of Entry” that are a proven tool in combating various issues and assaults on campuses.
“In addition, we are installing monitored access controls on each and every campus that not only provide video recordings of incidents but also put the would-be attacker on notice that every cowardly action is being monitored and recorded in both in the school and District Security,” said Dr. Blackburn.
Sheriff Ivey said that measures in the area of Hardened School Environment is the “Strategic Response Plan” that was developed for each school following the school shooting in Sandy Hook.
“As a result of that incident, our School Security Team in concert with our SWAT Commanders from the various law enforcement agencies in Brevard County, have created and cataloged Strategic Response Plans for each school and its unique design and security dynamics,” said Sheriff Ivey.
Dr. Blackburn said that BPS wants to make sure that they have the potential to provide a locking mechanism for each and every door and classroom in the schools to keep the unwanted out.
“We are currently looking at different types of measures that will offer the kind of locking features that best accomplish the mission, as our overall plan is to eliminate access at all levels,” said Dr. Blackburn.
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