COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.—Gov. Bill Ritter signed legislation on Tuesday creating a resource center to help avoid a repeat of deadly shootings at Columbine and Platte Canyon high schools.
The Colorado School Safety Resource Center will help communities establish individual safety plans with help from experts in education, law enforcement, mental health and other fields.
The center will start work with five pilot communities chosen in the first year.
Ritter said no child, parent or teacher should have to endure the terror of the 1999 Columbine massacre or the 2006 shooting at Platte Canyon.
Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded 23 before killing themselves at Columbine in Littleton.
Duane Morrison, 53, took six girls hostage at Platte Canyon in Bailey, sexually assaulting them before fatally shooting one girl and killing himself.
“We owe our children the basic right of a safe school,” Ritter said in a statement.
Ritter signed one bill creating the resource center in the Department of Public Safety and another requiring the center to create a school-mapping pilot program that would give first-responders access to electronic maps and other schematic information about schools.
Sen. John Morse, D-Colorado Springs, said the center will provide “real world solutions and best practices from safe schools around the country.”
“Our children are among our most precious resources; there can be no exception to their safety,” he said.
