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SALT LAKE CITY — Officials in Georgia said a new panic alert system was triggered during a school shooting earlier this week that they believed helped save lives, and Utah is looking to have similar systems in place.
"It's always tragic when anything like that happens, but what was effective in at least mitigating how long that lasted, and the intervention was the panic alert," said Chief Matt Pennington with the Department of Public Safety's State Security Division.
A new law in Utah, HB84, went into effect in May, and it requires teachers to have wearable panic devices and added other requirements for schools, such as armed guardians.
Officials in Georgia said teachers at Apalachee High School wore ID badges that have panic buttons attached to them. Pennington said the wearable panic alert buttons that were used to notify law enforcement of that school shooting worked the way they were supposed to.
"When an attack happens, we're already too late, right? We missed some things prior to that," he said. "What you're seeing out of Georgia is at least the response element of the panic (alert); the school going into a lockdown, and ultimately the (school resource officer's) quick response and then the suspect giving up when they're confronted."
This technology isn't necessarily new. Pennington said that some school districts in Utah already have panic alert systems in place.
The Weber County School District told KSL NewsRadio that 45% of its schools have wearable devices, but the cost, depending on the school, ranges into hundreds of thousands of dollars. The new law, however, prevents the public from knowing which schools have or do not have panic alert devices.
The School Security Task Force had stated funding would be available for schools to purchase these devices. Pennington said the task force is waiting for all schools to submit a needs assessment, which will identify any security gaps.
There is currently no deadline for when schools need to have the devices in place. The task force has also not yet recommended specific vendors from which schools can purchase the devices.
"There's a lot of stuff in the law now that is going to require a single point of entry … the security film on windows, hardening of the classroom for classroom defense. And as we saw in Georgia, the lockdown process works, and that's what it's designed to do," Pennington said.
