US Secret Service outlines guidance to help prevent school shootings & other violent attacks

WASHINGTON D.C. — It was November 30, 2021.

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“We heard screaming in the hall and then silence. It was so quiet,” said Aubrey Greenfield.

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Greenfield was a junior at Oxford High School in Michigan when a student shot and killed four people and injured seven others that day.

I don’t remember what it was like before the shooting that feeling before the shooting, because it kind of just feels like it encompasses every aspect of Oxford,” she said.

For more than 20 years, the U.S. Secret Service (USSS) has been analyzing school violence like the deadly shooting at Oxford High School.

Read: Jennifer Crumbley trial: Jury finds Michigan school shooter’s mother guilty of manslaughter

“Early intervention is key to prevention,” said Dr. Lina Alathari, chief of the USSS National Threat Assessment Center.

Her team at the National Threat Assessment Center helps school districts set up tip-lines to give students, teachers, and parents easy ways to report concerning behavior. The information goes to counselors and authorities.

The center encourages offering multiple methods like a phone number for calls and texts, a mobile app and email.

“A crucial component to reducing bystander hesitancy is offering anonymity and confidentiality to the person that’s reporting the information,” said Alathari.

National Threat Assessment Center research shows 67 school attacks were prevented between 2006 and 2018.

Read: Student brought loaded gun to Beauclerc Elementary School in Jacksonville, principal says

“In every one of those cases, that attack was prevented, because someone came forward with that information. Most often, those were other students, a classmate…and someone in authority acted on that information,” said Alathari. “Those plots represented a substantial risk of violence, and they were prevented, and tragedies were averted, because people came forward with the information.”

At least 28 states have these tiplines and a majority of the reports they receive are about bullying, drug use, and suicidal thoughts.

“What’s really important about these reporting mechanisms is that the students that are being reported are getting the help that they need, and very, very few of them are arrested or introduced into the criminal justice system,” said Alathari.

Read: Student belongings screened at Fletcher Middle School due to social media post threatening shooting

In Pennsylvania, some school leaders say initially there were concerns about prank calls flooding their official Safe2Say Something tipline. But they said there are now penalties in place to help prevent those calls.

“We accept and understand that if we’re getting something from safe to say that we need to take it seriously, Aaron Skrbin, director of safety and security at Allegheny (PA) Intermediate Unit. “I think the call takers are well trained and understand how to siphon out you know what is real and what is a prank.”

Since the launch of Safe2Say Something program in 2019, the tip line has received 113,683 tips. State officials say this number excludes any false reports received along with any test tips to the system.

Read: Social media post threatens shooting at Oceanway Middle football game, police investigating

“For all the negative that we see for the bad things that continue to happen. This, to me has been a step in the right direction, something that’s tried to help us to make schools safer and make our kids and staff safer,” said Skrbin.

Some students like Greenfield are learning about these tiplines at young ages. She said she was in middle school when she heard about Michigan’s tipline.

Now she believes students will take it more seriously as the Oxford community continues to heal from their own recent tragedy.

“It’s important just to keep reinforcing that it’s okay to report things like this, you’re doing something very good for the world by recording things that might be suspicious, or might be kind of out of the norm,” said Greenfield.

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The National Threat Assessment Center also holds free community safety training sessions. Officials said they trained more than 63,000 people last year alone.

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