MIAMI – The Miami-Dade Schools Police Department is preparing for college kids and lecturers to head again into the classroom subsequent week.
CBS4’s Nicole Lauren sat down with Police Chief Edwin Lopez to focus on security measures officers are taking.
Lopez mentioned that security is all the time paramount every faculty yr and he understands the concern mother and father have as they ship their youngsters to faculty.
“God forbid we have an incident. We know time is of the essence. We have seen what happened in Parkland. We have seen what happened in Uvalde. It’s troubling and I want parents to know that we are doing everything we can in Miami-Dade County to ensure that our schools are safe,” he mentioned.
Lopez gave Lauren a tour of their command heart the place officers and employees monitor cameras, observe faculty buses, and reply emergency calls.
“We remotely monitor over 18 thousand cameras at school sites. We GPS track every single school bus in Miami-Dade County. We have a system called ShotSpotter which is a military-grade ballistic technology system,” mentioned Lopez.
The ShotSpotter can detect when gunfire is close to a Dade faculty campus. The tech may even present regulation enforcement what number of occasions pictures have been fired.
On top of this know-how, Lopez mentioned that coaching is completely vital to mitigating a risk on campus. He mentioned conducting drills, like an energetic shooter state of affairs, is a multi-agency partnership and it is necessary for these companies to be on the identical web page.
Lopez additionally spoke concerning the present security measures in place relating to doorways and gates locking.
“In Miami-Dade County, we have a policy that requires teachers to lock their doors, teachers, faculty, and administrators to lock gates of schools. We have an officer at every school,” he mentioned.
Lopez additionally mentioned faculty threats emphasizing the “see something, say something” mentality.
“We’re not there to arrest kids, that’s not our primary mission. Our primary mission is to prevent incidents and build relationships to mitigate incidents. But, unfortunately, there are signs that are being overlooked by people who live in their own house,” he mentioned.
Lopez defined that they do danger assessments of faculty campuses to resolve the place to conduct their large-scale energetic shooter drills. They have drills month-to-month.
