DALLAS — Actor Chuck Norris is promoting a tool that Texas leaders are leaning on to prevent the next school shooting.
With students headed back to class across Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott rolled out a public service campaign for iWatch Texas that featured the "Walker, Texas Ranger" star.
In the new PSA, Norris — who starred in the TV series from 1993 to 2001 — said he loves “bringing bad guys to justice.”
“But law enforcement can’t stop the bad guys if they don’t know who they are,” he said in the ad campaign. “That’s why I wanted to tell you about iWatch, a website, phone app and service that allows Texans to report suspicious activity.”
The reporting system allows anyone to anonymously report suspicious activities or behaviors that could indicate criminal, terrorism or school safety-related threats.
The online form allows an individual to select a school and report incidents ranging from concerns about a specific student such as anger issues or bullying to suicide threats, sexual misconduct or a planned school attack. Other “activities” tipsters can report include depression, eating disorders and theft.
Abbott issued a statement noting that nothing is more important than keeping schools and communities safe.
“We ask Texans to utilize iWatchTexas to report nearby suspicious activity to help our law enforcement quickly and effectively respond to any criminal, terroristic, or school safety threats,” he said in the statement. “If you see something, say something and together we can protect our children, teachers and communities.”
In June, Abbott called for ramping up awareness of the system after the May shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde that left 19 students and two teachers dead.
The iWatch system was put in place after a shooting at Santa Fe High School outside Houston in 2018.
After that shooting, state leaders gave districts more money for security and demanded better planning and training if someone arrived on a campus with a weapon. Abbott’s staff drafted a 40-page list of recommendations, which informed state policy through the resulting Senate Bill 11 and included the launch of iWatch Texas.
Like most Texas Republicans — who have steadily chipped away at gun restrictions in recent years — Abbott hasn’t indicated a willingness to institute new gun control measures. Instead, Republican state leaders have focused on the idea of “hardening” campuses. Some suggested limiting school entrances and arming more teachers.
In a letter to the Texas Education Agency, Texas Department of Public Safety and Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, Abbott charged the director of the Texas School Safety Center to work with the state agencies on implementing the safety checks.
Abbott also asked lawmakers to convene special legislative committees to examine what action might be taken to prevent school shootings.
About half of Texas voters support arming teachers, according to a new Dallas Morning News-University of Texas at Tyler poll, which surveyed 1,384 registered voters across the state Aug. 1-7.
Of those polled, 57% said they supported allowing teachers and other school officials to carry guns in schools, including 38% of Democrats.
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