One of the things the Broward County, Florida sheriff addressed during Thursday's press conference on Wednesday's deadly high school shooting in Parkland was the importance of speaking up if you think someone is capable of such violence.
Students and teachers in Michigan can do that and stay anonymous at the same time through the OK2Say Student Safety Program. It's been in place since the fall of 2014 and the number of tips that are received have grown every year since.
OK2Say has gotten more than 11,000 tips since September 2014 through January 2018. While a majority of them are about bullying and suicide, more than 200 tips have been about a planned school attack.
The hotline has also received dozens of tips about weapons in schools and other threats.
Once a tip comes in, specially trained technicians at the Michigan State Police screen and forward tips to the appropriate person or agency. That could be a school, local law enforcement, or a mental health organization. From there, each responding organization must complete an outcome report detailing the nature of the tip, how it was handled and whether the situation was resolved, or needs more attention.
State police say we all have a responsibility, to each other, to say something if we see something and this program has helped give students a place to do just that.
"It's an avenue for students to feel safe in reporting," says Lt. David Eddy of the MSP Intelligence Operations Center. "We found in Michigan that OK2Say has given them that avenue to confidentially report when they see something. And it's not so much the numbers or what could've been for us, but the fact our school kids are empowered now and are willing to say something when they do see something... that's most important."
To help make students aware of the program, state police and the attorney general's office visit schools often to give presentations about it. The OK2Say program is state-funded. Last summer, lawmakers passed a bill extending its funding through 2021. Tips can be submitted by text, phone, e-mail, online and through its own mobile app.
The OK2Say program was modeled after Colorado's Safe2Tell initiative. It was a direct outcome of a study on how to prevent another school massacre from ever happening again -- after 15 people were killed in the 1999 Columbine High School shooting. Since Safe2Tell launched in 2004, it has received more than 23,000 tips.
