The fundraising was recently completed for Dallas County Sheriff Chad Leonard’s plan to purchase School Emergency Alert Radio System (SEARS) equipment for school buildings around the County, and the radios are now in place and ready for use.

Leonard says the radios are simple to use, as people at the schools just have to press a red button and the dispatch center will be alerted immediately. He adds, the system is designed to combat active shooter situations, and was paid for exclusively by private donations. It cost around $68,000 to purchase and install the radios at 21 schools in the County, though Leonard feels the protection they will provide will make it well worth the cost. “We don’t have the resources to put an officer or two in every school in Dallas County. So every year, I guess I have a goal or a vision to provide one more resource for the schools to help them with this, because we’re not excluded from this, you know. I pray every day that this never happens to us, but I do owe it to the schools to help give them the resources that help them and get them thinking along the lines of safety for the students.”

Leonard says Dallas is just the second county in the United States to utilize such a system. His next goal is to include cameras at each of the schools with radios, which would feed to the dispatch center and allow radio operators to walk responders through the threats they’re facing. The camera system would be the first of its kind in the country. To date, there has never been an active shooter incident in Dallas County, and Leonard says he will continue to do his best to make sure there never is one.