Politics & Government

Anker's Legislation Aims to Improve Response Time to School Emergencies

School hotline will have direct line to 911 supervisor.

Suffolk County Legis. Sarah Anker announced new legislation to improve police response time to emergencies in our schools this week.

Suffolk County Police Department has created the SAVE (School Active Violence Emergency) hotline after a resolution by Anker directed the SCPD to study the efficiency of cost and implementing a system.

The SAVE hotline will be a direct phone line that in one or more locations throughout a school building and would be programmed to automatically dial the Suffolk County Police 911 center supervisor. The supervisor would have an instant display of the incident location and provide immediate verbal communication.

“We must do everything in our power to protect our children and with Suffolk County’s SAVE hotline we will provide schools with an additional cost effective option for school safety,” Anker said. “Time will be saved by providing a dedicated line for school emergencies, which will reduce response time."

Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone added, “The SAVE hotline will provide law enforcement with the real time information they need to effectively respond to an emergency."

This hotline allows the call to bypass the usual intermediate interview with an emergency complaint operator, and the plan has the unanimous support of the Executive Board of the Suffolk County School Supervisor’s Association. 

“This system will allow officers to get details on an emergency which will ultimately better protect our school children and first responders,” Suffolk County Police Commissioner Edward Webber.

Do you believe this is a more efficient way of keeping local school district's safe?


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here