Nov. 1, 2023 8:15p
(WGTD)---Dozens of public safety professionals, school officials and others from throughout southeast Wisconsin gathered at the Kenosha County Center in Bristol Wednesday to learn how to prevent targeted violence.
Presenters included people from the U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center.
Part of the day-long event focused on the School Threat Assessment Coalition of Kenosha, which uses the acronym, STACK. The multi-agency coalition—described as the first of its kind in the state—is made up of school districts and law enforcement and social service agencies. The group is dedicated to identifying threatening behaviors and responding in the most appropriate way to head off trouble.
Trish Kilpin, Director of the Office of School Safety in Wisconsin, says many acts of targeted violence are neither impulsive or irrational. "There are identifiable warning behaviors," Kiplin said in a phone interview. "When someone chooses to use violence to solve their problem or concern in their mind they start to progress down what we call a pathway to violence."
Kilpin says another challenge is to turn bystanders into what she calls “upstanders”---people who take threatening behaviors seriously and report what they see.
-0-