Glenn Ivey Grills Law Enforcement Officials On Claim That '94%' Of School Shootings Can Be Prevented

3 months ago

Last month, Rep. Glenn Ivey (R-MD) questioned law enforcement officials on school shooting prevention during a House Homeland Security Committee hearing.

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00:00 I'll recognize Mr. Ivey, the gentleman from Maryland, for his five minutes of question.

00:04 Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank you for calling this hearing today.

00:09 And I appreciate the panel of witnesses as well.

00:12 Deputy Commissioner Mays, I was especially impressed with your testimony. I thought it was

00:19 right up the alley of the types of things that we can do here on the committee and things that

00:24 we should hear about. Your points about the school shootings, I thought was very helpful.

00:29 And one thing I did have a question about, you mentioned, I think it was 94 percent,

00:34 there's an opportunity to preempt some of these shootings because we have information that

00:38 somebody's planning on doing it, and you know, 94 percent of the time. I wonder if you could

00:45 elaborate a bit on things that you think we could do, especially here in Congress, to help address

00:51 that. Thank you for that question. Those study numbers are compelling, and the NTAC, the National

01:00 Threat Assessment Center study that I referenced in my written testimony, is not the only one.

01:05 There are multiple studies, and again and again, they tell us that most attacks on schools targeted

01:12 violence, as it were, there is a pathway to violence, and if we can get involved and get

01:17 the shooter off that pathway to violence, we have a chance at stopping something from happening.

01:22 Unfortunately, there's no real shortcut. It's a roll up your sleeves and get out there and talk

01:28 to the person, an intervention. It's a multidisciplinary team approach. I think

01:35 certainly the United States Congress could help by more funding for those type of programs.

01:45 Just last year in Tennessee, the multidisciplinary threat assessment approach in each school prior

01:50 to last year was permissive but not required. A new state law has made that a mandate,

01:57 and so part of the governor's initiative to put a homeland security agent in each of Tennessee's

02:03 95 counties is specifically to help coordinate that multidisciplinary approach which is needed.

02:10 I hope that answers your question. It does. It does. I might follow up with you afterwards as

02:16 well. I did want to, actually I forgot to welcome our new member, Representative Kenney from New

02:22 York. I take the chairman's point that we're close to having a quorum for New York delegation

02:28 meetings here on the committee, but certainly welcome you. I did want to make a point too

02:36 with you Mr. Chairman and my colleagues here. I had a chance to go out and visit the Secret

02:41 Service facility which is in my district where they do training. Some of the training they do,

02:46 and I take the point from some of the testimony today about how important training can be.

02:51 I was quite surprised to see that our Secret Service doesn't have a facility for training

02:59 on protecting the White House. When they took me out to show me what they do,

03:05 they took us to an open field, literally, and they said imagine the tree line at the back is the

03:10 White House and the road that we're on would be Pennsylvania Avenue. Then they did the demo

03:15 with people coming in and the dog went out and intercepted them and all of that.

03:20 It was like playing pickup football. As a kid, the pine tree is the touchdown line.

03:27 That's what they're doing actually to prepare for attacks on the White House.

03:33 One of the things I'd like to ask at some point, not today obviously, but I hope that's the kind

03:38 of thing that we can take a look at and try and figure out ways to help them get some kind of

03:44 environment where they can do some training. The best they can do right now is Tyler Perry built

03:50 a mock White House for a movie or something. They fly them down there and use this mock White House

03:57 which obviously isn't the same thing as the real thing and certainly wouldn't be the kind of place

04:01 that you'd want to do training to protect the President of the United States and the family.

04:07 That's what they've got right now. I would love to have a chance for us to take a look at that

04:12 as a committee and see if there's a way to step up on that front. Then finally, let me end with

04:17 this. National Police Week. I thank the chairman again for holding a hearing on the topic. I thank

04:23 all of you for the service that you provide, the risks that you've taken, the sacrifices that you

04:28 and your families have made, and for police officers around the country and their families

04:33 as well. I was a local prosecutor. I first got elected in 2002. Before I took office,

04:40 two police officers were gunned down trying to serve a warrant for a mental health issue.

04:48 They was in the guy's parents' house. They didn't know that he had a firearm.

04:54 There's a guns issue. There's a mental health issue. I think all those are the kinds of

04:58 things we need to talk about more as we move through these. Thank you to you and law enforcement

05:06 officers around the country for the sacrifices you make and the work that you do to protect

05:11 the country and our communities. With that, I yield back.

Glenn Ivey Grills Law Enforcement Officials On Claim That '94%' Of School Shootings Can Be Prevented

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