Queens congressman says Bush, GOP cut school safety program

[Judi Lynn]

Queens congressman says Bush, GOP cut school safety program
By RICHARD PYLE
Associated Press Writer

October 8, 2006, 6:54 PM EDT

NEW YORK -- President Bush and Republican lawmakers should restore funding for a federal program that put security officers in school hallways to guard against violent students and intruders, a congressman said Sunday.

Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., said the COPS in Schools program, set up after the Columbine High School massacre of 12 students and a teacher in Littleton, Colo., in 1999, over the past four years was reduced by Congress from $160 million annually to $5 million and then was phased out.

"But the threat of continued violence lingers," Weiner told a news conference outside Washington Irving High School in lower Manhattan. "Last week, real and fake guns were seized from New York City students in three separate incidents. Coupled with the recent shootings in Wisconsin, Colorado and Pennsylvania, it's clear that much more must be done to guard against tragedy here at home."

In the past month, school shootings killed one student in Bailey, Colo., a principal in Cazenovia, Wis., and five girls in an Amish one-room school in Nickel Mines, Pa. In the Wisconsin case, a 15-year-old student was arrested. In the other two, the intruders were men who killed themselves rather than be arrested, police say.
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http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--weiner-schoolpoli1008oct08,0,7026332.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork

[tanyev]

1. Hey, he's hosting a WH conference on school violence today.

Never waste money on real action when you can placate the people with the appearance of action.

(Karl Rove's principles of governing, #42)

[rodeodance]

3. I think it is tomorrow?

[rodeodance]

2. $$ for wars -not the kids