TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - A Florida Senate committee has endorsed a proposal to put law enforcement officers in every school in the state.
Only slightly more than half of Florida's more than 4,000 public schools have the resource officers. They are sworn law-enforcement officers and allowed to carry a weapon on a school campus.
The Senate Education Committee voted Tuesday to include the requirement in a sweeping education bill that is now moving through the legislature.
The proposal is expected to also be part of a comprehensive gun bill that Senate Republicans plan to release later this week. GOP leaders have drafted the legislation in response to the shootings at a Florida high school that left 17 people dead.
Meanwhile, the state House has voted down a motion to take up a bill that would ban assault rifles, effectively killing the measure for this session.
