A bill has been filed in the General Assembly that would require campus police at the state's public colleges to be armed.
Currently police at Rhode Island College and the Community College of Rhode Island are unarmed. University of Rhode Island police do carry firearms.
“This bill is about nothing more than the safety and protection of the students, faculty, and staff at our public colleges. I know this is a difficult topic for some to discuss, but in a world of active shooters and terrible tragedies determined by seconds and minutes, it is completely irresponsible for us to fail our students and staff by having to rely on off-campus law enforcement if the worst-case scenario should happen on our public campuses. I’ve been told that the response time to RIC if an active shooting situation where to happen is 5 minutes and frankly, that is way too much time for death and destruction to occur. Our campuses need a faster response, and the only solution is armed campus cops,” said Representative O’Brien.
Representative William O'Brien says everyone should understand that mass shootings are something that we will have to deal with in this country.
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