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SALT LAKE CITY — Sen. Orrin Hatch joined a bipartisan group of senators Tuesday to introduce a bill to expand the Secret Service’s ability to help communities lessen threats of violence at schools.
The EAGLES Act allows the Secret Service’s National Threat Assessment Center to focus more on school safety. The bill creates a national program on targeted school violence prevention and provides additional resources to expand research and training. It also requires the Secret Service to develop an expansion plan and to provide periodic progress reports to Congress.
"Last month, Congress passed the STOP School Violence Act to empower entire school ecosystems to play a stronger and more active role in violence prevention,” Hatch, R-Utah, said. "This proposal will help U.S. Secret Service leverage their own unique expertise in that same effort, and will save lives.”
Since 2002, the Secret Service has conducted 444 training operations for 93,000 school administrators, teachers, counselors, mental health professionals, school resource officers and other public safety officials.
Co-sponsors with Hatch are Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.
