The White House administration said it is planning to spend up to $45 million to have armed police officers inside schools across the country.
The move was advocated by the gun rights group the National Rifle Association following the massacre last December in an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.
The Justice Department announced on Friday it was giving close to $45 billion to pay for over 350 new resource officers for schools. The funding will be provided through grants from the Community Oriented Policing Services office, known by the acronym COPS.
That grants will fund two resource officers’ positions said the AG.
Democrats had initially criticized the NRA for focusing on security at schools and rejecting the measures for gun control. In December of last year, after 26 people, including 20 elementary students, were killed by lone gunman in Newtown, Wayne LaPierre, the CEO of the NRA called for the installation of armed officers in all schools across the U.S.
In the guns rights advocates’ first public comments of any kind since last December’s shooting, the NRA CEO argued that if both banks and members of the U.S. Congress could be given protection, then schools across the U.S. should be afforded security as well.
Last month, the Justice Department authorized the spending of $2.5 million more in the Connecticut town to help pay for overtime by police, security and forensic work since the mass shooting.
The sole gunman, who prior to the massacre, killed his mother in her home, killed himself when police approached.
Since January, police have received praise at the Sandy Hook Elementary were students now attend. The high school in the town and one middle school also now have resource officers.
John Reed the acting school superintendant at the district decline to make a comment on Friday, on the announcement by the Justice Department, who said no one had notified the school about funds.
