Former Miami-Dade Schools Police Chief Edwin Lopez on keeping schools safe
DORAL - In the wake of the horrific shooting that took the lives of three children and three staff members at a Nashville school, the former school police chief for Miami-Dade schools says a number of innovative steps have been taken to make schools safer in the nation's 4th largest school district.
Edwin Lopez, who became Doral's Police Chief early this year after being Chief of Miami-Dade Public Schools for 5 years, told CBS4's Peter D'Oench, "In Miami-Dade, we have multiple police agencies contributing to the safety of schools which is an awesome situation to have as a parent. I am the father of 7 and 12-year-old students so I have a vested interest in the safety of schools in the county."
Nashville police said the gunman got into the Covenant School on Monday morning after shooting out a glass side door and crawling through an opening. The gunman was shot and killed 14 minutes after police received an emergency call.
Lopez said of Miami-Dade Schools, "We are very fortunate because we have an armed guard of police officer at every school and that cuts response time to absolutely nothing because cops are on campus in case God forbids an incident like this does occur."
In 2018, while he was schools police chief, he said the county launched an innovative program where schools are now monitored through 18,000 cameras tied to a command center.
"The people there do an amazing job monitoring the schools and looking for certain types of behavior," he said.
Lopez said it is also now mandatory for school police officers to receive year-round use-of-forced de-escalation and crisis intervention training.
"Collectively the officers receive a great deal of training to prevent these crises from happening," he said. "They look for these concerning behaviors prior to incident escalating. Preventing incidents from happening is paramount. Our officers are equipped with a unique skill set to work hand in hand with school administrators and parents to identify these behaviors."
Lopez also spoke about the fact that school administrators are required to have access to an Alyssa Alert Mobile panic button.
He said, "Those employees will have the ability to push a button and contact the 911 center in the county and say an emergency is going on and this is pinpointing an exact location through GPS."
He said "Kids are going to act up. That is part of the process and now kids are dealing with social media and sometimes cyberbullying over social media and the pressure to perform. As law enforcement, we need to get ahead of the curve and identify problems and have counseling services to students and go hand in hand with school administrators and mental services. This is critical to success."
