GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — A statewide school safety initiative is hitting record breaking numbers. In March alone, the OK2SAY program received 980 tips, which is more than last month's record by 300.
"An increase of 300 is significant," Sgt. Joel Roon with the Kent County Sheriff's Department said.
That's a record number for the second month in a row.
"I think it probably speaks to the desire for the student bodies and those who want to prevent bad things from happening to actually taking action now," Roon said.
It's something that law enforcement is dealing with right here in Kent County.
"We've investigated somewhere around 30 school shooting tips since the beginning of the year and prosecuted several of those," Roon said.
Roon said the complaints usually get filtered to the school resource officer and sometimes they handle five to 10 tips a week.
"We have school resource officers in almost every district," Roon said. "We would much rather have the information coming to us even it over taxes our system a little bit and overtaxes our resources, than not see anything at all."
The majority of the OK2SAY tips come from students.
"Anonymity in this day and age is so key to making people feel safe enough to come forward," Roon said.
Every one of those tips are looked into whether they're substantiated or not.
"There's that old adage that 'you don't know how many shipwrecks a lighthouse has prevented,'" Roon said.
Nonetheless, Roon wasn't expecting such a spike.
"These numbers on their face are a little surprising, I guess I didn't maybe think the numbers to be as high as they are today, but with that being said I think it shows that the program is working, people are aware of it, they're using it and as a result our officers believe that they're keeping kids safer," Roon said.
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