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Hillsborough schools an early adopter of panic button credited with saving lives in Georgia school shooting

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Published  September 6, 2024 10:49am EDT
Hillsborough County
FOX 13 News

Panic button alert system wards off school dangers

Security technology notified law enforcement of the shooting at a high school in Georgia that claimed four lives, potentially saving more from being killed. FOX 13's Kellie Cowan unpacks the tech, Centegix, which Hillsborough County adopted in 2019 as the first county in Florida to do so.

HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. - Authorities in Georgia are crediting crisis panic buttons with saving countless lives at Apalachee High School in Georgia on Wednesday years after they were first thought of following the 2018 Parkland tragedy.

The Centegix CrisisAlert systems panic buttons, worn on a lanyard around the necks of teachers and staff, helped alert law enforcement within moments of the first shots fired in the school shooting that left four dead and nine people injured. And back in 2019, Hillsborough County adopted that very same technology in its schools, becoming the first Florida district to do so. 

READ: Apalachee High School shooting: Colt and Colin Gray make first appearances in court

The technology sends real-time location information to law enforcement so that responders can head directly to the threat in the event of a shooting.

FOX 13 spoke with the parent of a girl who was one of the 17 people killed in the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting. Since the tragic incident, she's become a prominent advocate for school safety.

"My heart goes out to the four families that had someone murdered that day," said Lori Alhadeff. "I know their pain because of my daughter Alyssa, who was murdered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, but I do truly believe that the fact that we were able to get law enforcement there faster absolutely helped to save lives."

Lori Alhadeff (left), her daughter, Alyssa (right)

As Alhadeff explains, the panic buttons can also be used to quickly put a campus in lockdown mode, so teachers and students can potentially get away from a school shooter.

She says this type of technology could have at least given her daughter a fighting chance. 

"Time equals life," says Alhadeff. "Lives absolutely would have been saved that day. My daughter, Alyssa, was in the first class on the first floor, and I truly believe that Alyssa would have been able to get out of the direct line of fire. She was taken very quickly by surprise, was right there, right in front of the door, and, unfortunately, was shot and killed."

Since her daughter’s death, Alhadeff has been at the forefront of advocacy for school safety and the adoption of panic buttons inside classrooms. Her work through her charity, Make Our Schools Safe, has led to Alyssa’s Law, which requires schools to use some type of silent, mobile panic alert system that directly links to law enforcement.

"Unfortunately, our School Resource Officer at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School froze," Alhadeff said. "He said he doesn't know where the shooting was coming from. That's why it's so vitally important to have clear communication in these life-threatening emergency situations."

Florida adopted Alyssa’s law in 2020, but one year prior, the Hillsborough County School District became the first in Florida to begin requiring teachers and staff in all of its schools to wear Centegix CrisisAlert badges.

Alyssa’s law has also been passed in New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah. While under consideration in Georgia, state lawmakers there have not yet passed Alyssa’s law.

Crucially, though, Apalachee High School had adopted the Centegix safety system for the new school year, and their teachers just began wearing the Crisis Alert buttons this week.

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"When I heard that the Centegix wearable panic button was used in the shooting in Georgia, for me, it gives validity in the sense of what I'm doing, how I'm proactively trying to help schools create that layer of safety protection so that if there is an active shooter, that we can get help on the scene as quickly as possible to save lives," said Alhadeff.