Named after Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Mascot, EAGLES Act leverages the Secret Service program to identify potential threats of violence. Photo by Sharon Aron Baron.
By Sharon Aron Baron
A bipartisan group of lawmakers in both chambers of Congress reintroduced the EAGLES Act, named for the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Eagles.
If enacted, the act would expand the U.S. Secret Service’s National Threat Assessment Center to focus on school violence prevention on a national level.
Introduced in the House of Representatives by U.S. Representatives Ted Deutch, D-Fla, and Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., Senators Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., Marco Rubio, R-Fla, Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., Rick Scott R-Fla., Maggie Hassan D-N.H. and Susan Collins R-Maine, introduced the Senate companion.
The NTAC provides research and training for threat assessment and targeted violence, including school shootings and other school threats. This legislation creates a national program on targeted school violence prevention. It expands the NTAC’s research and training on school violence and its dissemination of information on school violence prevention initiatives.
Rep. Deutch, who represents both Coral Springs and Parkland, where many of the MSD victims lived, said the federal government has a role to play in school safety, and we should be leveraging our best resources to keeping our kids safe.
“This plan is called the Eagles Act so that we are always reminded of the 17 lives lost at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and of the importance of preventing any more tragedies like it in the future,” he said.
Tony Montalto, President of Stand with Parkland and father of Gina Montalto, one of the 17 people murdered in the 2018 Parkland shooting, was grateful to Congressmen Ted Deutch and Mario Diaz-Balart for working together to introduce the Eagles Act with bipartisan support.
“The National Threat Assessment Center has been essential to thwarting mass shooters and targeted violence since it was created in 2000. The EAGLES Act is a critical expansion of the program that prioritizes school safety and directs key funding to prevent the next mass school shooting.”
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