NRA-Backed School Safety Review Recommends Arming Educators

WASHINGTON - A task force backed by the National Rifle Association has put forth a slate of recommendations to improve school safety, including a proposal to arm school personnel and train educators on how to police school campuses with the aim of reducing the response time during a school shooting.

Under the protection of armed private security guards at the National Press Club in Washington today, Asa Hutchinson, the director of the National School Shield Program, unveiled the panel's eight recommendations, including a proposal to create a model training program for armed school personnel: essentially resource officers trained in weapons retention, coordination with local law enforcement and battling intruders.

Hutchinson said the task force recommended arming school personnel, including teachers, provided that they pass a background check and complete a comprehensive training program.

"Teachers should teach, but if there is a personnel that has good experience, that has an interest in it and is willing to go through this training … then that is an appropriate resource that a school should be able to utilize," Hutchinson said.

The review not only analyzed practices already in place at some schools, but also examined how changes to technology and surveillance could improve school safety.

"We looked at the interior and exterior doors, access controls, architecture and design of the schools, and then we looked at the armed officers," Hutchinson said. "We believe that they make a difference in the various layers of security that add to school safety."

Mark Mattioli, whose son, James, was killed at the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn., late last year, praised the work of the task force and called on policy makers to put politics aside in the interest of the children.

"As parents, we send our kids off to school, and there are certain expectations, and obviously, in Sandy Hook, those expectations weren't met," Mattioli said. "I hope this doesn't, you know, lead to name- calling, but rather, this is recommendations for solutions, real solutions that will make our kids safer, and that's what we need.

"I'm putting it on you," he continued. "I'm putting it on the experts out there to do something with these recommendations, to implement solutions so people don't have to go through what I'm going through."

Hutchinson, a former U.S. Representative, U.S. Attorney, and Under Secretary for Border & Transportation Security at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, announced the task force's findings at a news conference in downtown Washington today, where he was guarded by a noticeable security presence.

"If you have the firearm on the presence of someone in the school that can reduce the response time, it will save lives. That is the objective," he said. "The presence of an armed security in a school is a layer that's just as important as the mental health component. If you have a mental health component without having other security, it's inadequate, and if you have the armed presence there without having locking doors, it's inadequate."

The NRA created the National School Shield Program last December in the wake of the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting through its Education and Training Emergency Response Program. Since then, some critics have complained that the gun lobby has slowed efforts in Congress to enact new gun control legislation, including an assault weapons ban and universal background checks.

Rep. Mike Thompson, who chaired a Democratic House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, agreed that school safety is a critical element to reduce gun violence, but in a statement, he called for an inclusive approach to reduce gun violence.

"We should do everything we can to keep our kids safe, and that includes having school resource officers in those schools that want them, and urging our communities to develop safety plans in case of emergencies," Thompson, D-Calif., stated. "However, arming school personnel and training them for shootouts will only exacerbate problems."

The NRA reacted to the findings in a brief statement but declined to immediately endorse any of the recommendations.

"We need time to digest the full report," the NRA statement read. "We commend Asa Hutchinson for his rapid response in the aftermath of the Newtown tragedy, and we are certain the contributions he and his team have made will go a long way to making America's schools safer."

The National School Shield panel also recommended that states enact legislation to allow firearms to be carried by school personnel, schools implement an interagency agreement with local law enforcement to determine the difference between criminal offenses and routine school disciplinary issues, and an online self-assessment tool created by the task force where educators can scrutinize school safety performance and uncover gaps in their own security posture.

"This online assessment tool is available for any school, parochial, private or public school, free of charge on the website whenever it is deployed, and it will not be something the principal can fill out," Hutchinson said. "They'll be asked questions on access control. Are classroom doors kept locked during instructional times? Does the school enforce its visitor sign in and access control? Has a school staff been trained to question or challenge a visitor that's not properly badged? What actions are taken when authorized visitors are detected?"

Hutchinson also recommended that states implement education adequacy policies not to mandate what a school should do, but rather that they do something in terms of assessment and the development of an adequate plan. He also called on federal policymakers to improve federal coordination, which he said is burdened by overlapping and duplicative programs across the Departments of Education, Justice and Homeland Security.

"They need to have a lead agency and they need to have greater coordination," he said. "On the funding side, our recommendation is that the federal role is greater support for innovation, for technology and training grants."

The panel also put forward a recommendation for the National Rifle Association, calling on the National School Shield to transition into "an umbrella organization to advocate and support school safety across this nation" through a free web-based assessment.

Finally, the panel's eighth recommendation is to launch a pilot program on threat assessment and mental health to encourage information-sharing, produce a climate that reduces incidences of bullying and anti-social behavior, identify threats, and offer counseling support.

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NRA-Backed School Safety Review Recommends Arming Educators

WASHINGTON - A task force backed by the National Rifle Association has put forth a slate of recommendations to improve school safety, including a proposal to arm school personnel and train educators on how to police school campuses with the aim of reducing the response time during a school shooting.

Under the protection of armed private security guards at the National Press Club in Washington today, Asa Hutchinson, the director of the National School Shield Program, unveiled the panel's eight recommendations, including a proposal to create a model training program for armed school personnel: essentially resource officers trained in weapons retention, coordination with local law enforcement and battling intruders.

Hutchinson said the task force recommended arming school personnel, including teachers, provided that they pass a background check and complete a comprehensive training program.

"Teachers should teach, but if there is a personnel that has good experience, that has an interest in it and is willing to go through this training … then that is an appropriate resource that a school should be able to utilize," Hutchinson said.

The review not only analyzed practices already in place at some schools, but also examined how changes to technology and surveillance could improve school safety.

"We looked at the interior and exterior doors, access controls, architecture and design of the schools, and then we looked at the armed officers," Hutchinson said. "We believe that they make a difference in the various layers of security that add to school safety."

Mark Mattioli, whose son, James, was killed at the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn., late last year, praised the work of the task force and called on policy makers to put politics aside in the interest of the children.

"As parents, we send our kids off to school, and there are certain expectations, and obviously, in Sandy Hook, those expectations weren't met," Mattioli said. "I hope this doesn't, you know, lead to name- calling, but rather, this is recommendations for solutions, real solutions that will make our kids safer, and that's what we need.

"I'm putting it on you," he continued. "I'm putting it on the experts out there to do something with these recommendations, to implement solutions so people don't have to go through what I'm going through."

Hutchinson, a former U.S. Representative, U.S. Attorney, and Under Secretary for Border & Transportation Security at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, announced the task force's findings at a news conference in downtown Washington today, where he was guarded by a noticeable security presence.

"If you have the firearm on the presence of someone in the school that can reduce the response time, it will save lives. That is the objective," he said. "The presence of an armed security in a school is a layer that's just as important as the mental health component. If you have a mental health component without having other security, it's inadequate, and if you have the armed presence there without having locking doors, it's inadequate."

The NRA created the National School Shield Program last December in the wake of the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting through its Education and Training Emergency Response Program. Since then, some critics have complained that the gun lobby has slowed efforts in Congress to enact new gun control legislation, including an assault weapons ban and universal background checks.

Rep. Mike Thompson, who chaired a Democratic House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, agreed that school safety is a critical element to reduce gun violence, but in a statement, he called for an inclusive approach to reduce gun violence.

"We should do everything we can to keep our kids safe, and that includes having school resource officers in those schools that want them, and urging our communities to develop safety plans in case of emergencies," Thompson, D-Calif., stated. "However, arming school personnel and training them for shootouts will only exacerbate problems."

The NRA reacted to the findings in a brief statement but declined to immediately endorse any of the recommendations.

"We need time to digest the full report," the NRA statement read. "We commend Asa Hutchinson for his rapid response in the aftermath of the Newtown tragedy, and we are certain the contributions he and his team have made will go a long way to making America's schools safer."

The National School Shield panel also recommended that states enact legislation to allow firearms to be carried by school personnel, schools implement an interagency agreement with local law enforcement to determine the difference between criminal offenses and routine school disciplinary issues, and an online self-assessment tool created by the task force where educators can scrutinize school safety performance and uncover gaps in their own security posture.

"This online assessment tool is available for any school, parochial, private or public school, free of charge on the website whenever it is deployed, and it will not be something the principal can fill out," Hutchinson said. "They'll be asked questions on access control. Are classroom doors kept locked during instructional times? Does the school enforce its visitor sign in and access control? Has a school staff been trained to question or challenge a visitor that's not properly badged? What actions are taken when authorized visitors are detected?"

Hutchinson also recommended that states implement education adequacy policies not to mandate what a school should do, but rather that they do something in terms of assessment and the development of an adequate plan. He also called on federal policymakers to improve federal coordination, which he said is burdened by overlapping and duplicative programs across the Departments of Education, Justice and Homeland Security.

"They need to have a lead agency and they need to have greater coordination," he said. "On the funding side, our recommendation is that the federal role is greater support for innovation, for technology and training grants."

The panel also put forward a recommendation for the National Rifle Association, calling on the National School Shield to transition into "an umbrella organization to advocate and support school safety across this nation" through a free web-based assessment.

Finally, the panel's eighth recommendation is to launch a pilot program on threat assessment and mental health to encourage information-sharing, produce a climate that reduces incidences of bullying and anti-social behavior, identify threats, and offer counseling support.

Also Read

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Insight: Pope to review Vatican bureaucracy, scandal-ridden bank

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis, who has said he wants the Catholic Church to be a model of austerity and honesty, could restructure or even close the Vatican's scandal-ridden bank as part of a broad review of its troubled bureaucracy, Vatican sources say.

Francis, who inherited a Church mired in scandals over priests' sexual abuse of children and the leak of confidential documents alleging corruption and infighting in the Vatican's central administration, is mulling his options as he sets the tone for a reformed and humbler Holy See.

One of the tests of his papacy will be what he does about the bank which has regularly damaged the Vatican's image over three decades and faces growing calls for reform.

Last year a European anti-money laundering body found that the bank - formally called the Institute for Works of Religion and known by the Italian acronym IOR - had failed to meet some of its standards on fighting financial crimes.

"Certainly if the pope wants to, he can close the IOR," said a senior Vatican official, a prelate who had years of experience of directly dealing with the bank. The future of the IOR was one of main issues Francis would have to confront now that the whirlwind of his surprise election was slowing, he said.

Any significant reforms of the IOR would not come for some time and would probably be made after changes at the Secretariat of State, the central Church department which was at the center of a "Vatileaks" scandal that rocked the Holy See last year.

These changes would include the replacement of its head, Cardinal Tarciscio Bertone, who is number two in the Vatican hierarchy and has widely been blamed for failing to prevent the many mishaps and infighting in Church government during the eight-year pontificate of Pope Benedict.

"It will take time (to change the bank)," said another Vatican official who is not a prelate. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity.

The second official believed it was more likely that the bank, which manages money for the Vatican, international Catholic religious institutions and orders of priests and nuns, would undergo "serious restructuring" rather than being closed.

"But I would not exclude anything, including closing it down the line. Francis is doing surprising things every day," he said.

Both officials said the new pope might, as a first step, set up a committee to advise him on possible changes to the Vatican's financial structure.

The first sign of change would be a new secretary of state. "It's not a question of if but when Bertone leaves," the senior prelate said. "It remains to be seen who the pope chooses as new secretary of state."

CRISIS IN THE CURIA

The basic failings of the Curia, as the Vatican's central administration is known, were aired, sometimes passionately, at closed-door meetings of cardinals before they retired into the conclave that elected Francis on March 13.

"The Curia did not come out smelling like a rose from those meetings," the senior prelate said, adding that many cardinals had demanded explanations of the scandals and information on how the bank is run and whether it should exist at all.

"The IOR is not an essential part of the ministry of the Holy Father as a successor of St. Peter," Cardinal John Onaiyekan of Nigeria told an Italian television station before the election of Francis. "The IOR is not fundamental, it is not sacramental, it is not part of (Church) dogma."

Anger at the Italian prelates who mostly run the Curia was one of the reasons that the cardinals chose the first non-European pope for 1,300 years at the conclave and quashed the chances of one of the frontrunners, Milan Archbishop Angelo Scola.

The next secretary of state, the senior source said, would have to instill a new style of "collaboration and service" among offices of the Curia, whose image was badly stained by the "Vatileaks" scandal.

Before he resigned, Benedict left a secret report for Francis on the scandal, in which sensitive documents alleging corruption and conflict over the bank's administration were stolen from the pope's desk and leaked by his butler.

The butler, Paolo Gabriele, was arrested and sentenced by a Vatican court to 18 months in prison last year but Benedict pardoned him and he was freed just before Christmas.

Bertone has been directly linked to the IOR's recent troubles. He was the chief promoter of Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, an Italian who headed the bank until last May when its board unceremoniously ousted him.

Gotti Tedeschi said at the time he was fired because he wanted the bank to be more transparent but board members said it was because he had neglected basic management responsibilities and alienated staff.

In 2010, when Gotti Tedeschi was still at the helm of the bank, Rome magistrates investigating money laundering froze 23 million euros ($33 million) the IOR held in an Italian bank.

The Vatican said the bank was merely transferring funds between its own accounts in Italy and Germany. The money was released in June 2011 but the investigation is continuing.

In February, the Vatican named a German lawyer, Ernst von Freyberg as new IOR president. But the appointment, made two weeks before Pope Benedict resigned, was clouded by Freyberg's past business links to a military shipbuilder.

At the time of appointment, the Vatican said Freyberg would contribute to the IOR's modernization and transparency in its attempts to meet international standards.

BAD IMAGE

"The Vatican Bank or IOR, is not unique. They are not the worst (bank), but certainly there are very serious problems that need to be addressed," said E.J. Fagan, advocacy coordinator at Global Financial Integrity, an organization that seeks to curtail illicit money transfers.

"Pope Francis has very clearly stated that he wants to fight poverty. Money laundering of illicit financial flows is a major driver of global poverty and the Vatican should set a clear example," he told Reuters.

The Vatican has been trying to shed its image as a suspect financial center since 1982 when Roberto Calvi, an Italian known as "God's Banker" because of his links to the Holy See, was found hanged under London's Blackfriars Bridge.

Moneyval, a monitoring committee of the 47-nation Council of Europe, said last July that the Vatican had failed to meet all its standards on fighting illicit cash flows, tax evasion and other financial crimes.

A report by Moneyval gave the Vatican an overall pass grade but failing grades on 7 of 16 "key and core" aspects of its financial dealings. It found major failings in the running of the bank, while acknowledging that the IOR was making changes to meet transparency requirements.

Five months before the Moneyval report, JP Morgan Chase closed the IOR's account with the Milan branch of the U.S. banking giant because of concerns about insufficient transparency.

Italian media have reported that the bank, which currently answers to a commission of cardinals and enjoys great autonomy, could be placed under the control of another Vatican department, increasing the oversight called for in the Moneyval report.

Famiglia Cristiana, Italy's leading Catholic weekly, called for the IOR funds to be administered by an independent "ethical bank" external to the Vatican.

"Total transparency would assure the faithful, who are continuing to offer generously, that the money they give to the Church, after the part used to guarantee the good running of the Church itself, would be destined primarily for the world's poor," the highly influential magazine said.

John Allen, author of several books on the Vatican and correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter, said there was talk among cardinals at the pre-conclave meetings "that the Vatican does not need its own bank, and getting rid of it would eliminate a perennial source of speculation and conspiracy theories".

Much of the estimated $7 billion managed by the bank, which was set up in 1942, belongs not to the Vatican but to religious orders and dioceses, who use it to transfer funds around the world.

Another option for the bank's future would be to scale it down so it manages only funds needed to keep the Vatican running, drastically reducing the number of outside accounts and making it less vulnerable to possible abuse.

"We could just say to the Jesuits, the Dominicans, the Franciscans: 'Sirs, you will have to take your business elsewhere'," the senior prelate said.

However, part of bank's profits have helped the Holy See balance its budget in the past, making up for deficits running into tens of millions of dollars.

This means that if the bank were to be phased out or closed, other sources of income would have to be found to fill the gap, the senior prelate said.

The Holy See would probably be careful, however, before relinquishing too much financial autonomy to outsiders so as to maintain its flexibility in emergency situations.

For example, before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the bank was able to move money to countries in the former Soviet bloc to keep Catholic Churches alive there in the face of communist repression.

(Additional reporting by Lisa Jucca in Milan; editing by Barry Moody and David Stamp)

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U.S. soldier accused of Afghan killings faces "sanity" review

By Laura L. Myers

SEATTLE (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier charged with killing 16 civilians, most of them women and children, near his Army post in Afghanistan is set to undergo a medical review on Sunday to determine his state of mind at the time of the killings and ability to stand trial.

The review, known in the military as a "sanity board," will be conducted by three doctors at the Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state, and will be completed by May 1, according to a U.S. Army spokesman.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Robert Bales, a decorated veteran of four combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan who is accused of gunning down the villagers in cold blood during two rampages through their family compounds in Kandahar province last March.

Army prosecutors say Bales, a 39-year old father of two, acted alone and with "chilling premeditation" when, armed with a pistol, a rifle and a grenade launcher, he left his base twice in the night, returning in the middle of his rampage to tell a fellow soldier: "I just shot up some people."

The shootings marked the worst case of civilian slaughter blamed on a rogue U.S. soldier since the Vietnam War and further eroded strained U.S.-Afghan relations after more than a decade of conflict in that country.

Defense lawyers have not set out an alternative theory of what happened on the night of the shootings, but have focused on Bales' fragile mental state.

Bales' lead civilian attorney John Henry Browne said in January that government documents showed Bales had been diagnosed as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and a brain injury before his deployment in Afghanistan in 2011.

After hearing preliminary evidence in November, military judge Colonel Jeffery Nance determined that Bales should face a court martial, which is due to begin in September.

At Bales' arraignment in January, Browne's team entered no plea and told Nance they were preparing a possible "mental health defense." Nance said such a defense would require a formal psychiatric evaluation, and ordered a sanity board review.

SANITY BOARDS COMMON

Sanity boards are common in military justice, said Army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Gary Dangerfield.

They may be ordered when a commander, investigating officer, government trial counsel, defense counsel, or military judge believes there is reason to question the mental responsibility of the accused at the time of the offenses or that the person lacks the mental capacity to stand trial, Dangerfield said.

The Army has not said which doctors will conduct the review, or what their specialties are, but such panels are usually made up of Army physicians and psychologists. There was no word on whether the judge had granted a defense request that Bales be examined by a neuropsychologist with expertise in traumatic brain injuries.

At a November pre-trial hearing, prosecutors said Bales had been drinking earlier in the evening of the attacks, and had used steroids on the Special Forces outpost. Defense attorneys also quizzed Bales' colleagues closely about his sudden explosions of temper in the days before the attacks.

Bales faces 16 counts of premeditated murder and six counts of attempted murder, as well as charges of assault and wrongfully possessing and using steroids and alcohol while deployed.

Military justice experts say a defense based on Bales' PTSD or deeper mental health problems may not be enough to avoid trial, but could raise serious issues over premeditation, which would make a death sentence less likely.

"Just because someone has a (mental) disease does not mean they're legally insane," said Victor Hansen, a professor at the New England Law Boston law school with two decades of military law experience.

"The board could uncover unknown components that could help the defendant claim diminished capacity," Hansen said. "To obtain death, you have to prove premeditation. Anything less than premeditation of murder, there's no death."

Defendants deemed unable to stand trial after a sanity board are typically referred for treatment at a government medical center.

(Writing by Bill Rigby; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Lisa Shumaker)

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