Marietta schools to install 'panic buttons'

As of Thursday, February 21, 2013
© Copyright 2013 Gwinnett Daily Post

MARIETTA — School officials in an Atlanta suburb are working with police install "panic buttons" in the buildings.

Marietta police Officer David Baldwin says that if teachers, administrators or others press the button, it immediately alerts the 911 center. He said the system is designed so that police do not have to rely on someone calling 911 for officers to be dispatched.

Marietta is the first metro Atlanta school system to install panic buttons.

Baldwin says police and school officials had been discussing security upgrades before last year's mass shooting at a Connecticut school, but that crime and others caused them to step up their plans.

Twenty students and six educators were shot to death on Dec. 14 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

Gwinnett Daily Post