Lee County STET team protecting our schools with cameras

There are cameras in our kid’s schools, dozens of them, but did you know that Lee County Schools sends those live video feeds to the sheriff’s office, and it’s someone’s job to watch them?

“As we’ve seen, unfortunately, in the past, in school shootings, there were signs before the shooting, there were flags, and we’re not going to ignore that here,” said Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno.

The School Threat Enforcement Team, or STET, does more than watch and react.

Right now, STET is tracking 540 students in Lee County schools.

Maybe they made a threat? Or a school resource officer gave them a heads-up? Or did the team see a questionable post on social media?

“Everything gets treated real until proven otherwise,” said Marceno.

No matter the reason, these highly trained deputies take their mission to heart.

This school year alone, STET has identified:

• 390 threat assessments
• 59 criminal threats of violence
• 298 detective home visits
• 88 social work visits
• 804 threat rechecks
• 105 arrests

Dave Newlan, Executive Director of Safety Security and Emergency Management, said whenever there is a threat identified at a school that could pose a safety concern, the sheriff’s office is contacted.

“That team is what works with us very closely addressing anything that may happen at a school location that could be a threat at a bus stop or even on a bus,” he said.

Marceno told WINK News he believes the STET team stops violence before it starts.

“Once they’ve made that list, we’ve been working with the parents, we’ve been working with the families, our counselors are out making contact with the house, also looking at, you know, all their firearms in that house; do we need to do a risk protection order?” said Marceno, “I mean, we protect everyone’s constitutional rights.”

The deputies investigate five to 50 threats a week, and parents WINK News talked to say they are OK with LCSO monitoring students.

“I personally think it’s excellent. I mean, you know, rather than having kids do that, and then maybe they wouldn’t ever do something later on, but there’s the chance that they would, why not be proactive with it?” said Molly.

“No, no, not at all. It’s just a safety precaution,” said an anonymous parent.

“I would determine the age of the child and also their family life, their behavior,” said another parent. “Is there a record of their misbehaving, not obeying? You just can’t randomly take every little thing a kid says and do that.”

This is why children who make the list are monitored for a year or more.

“So we have mental health professionals that go out into the field, and they try to help and assist people that need help,” said Marceno.

“A lot of times you had to have students that are looking for a way to reach out for help, maybe not sure how to do it,” said Newlan, “and I have seen that by giving them attention to addressing their concerns, find a way to … get them back on track.”