JACKSON, Tenn. — There’s an app that aims to bring safety to residents.
Three years ago, Governor Bill Lee placed an executive order for the Tennessee Department of Homeland Security to release the SafeTN app. Here are all the ways this app will help the average Tennessean.
The SafeTN app is free for users and available on Apple’s app store and the Google Play store for download. This app allows users to anonymously report any threats made to a community. Part of the reason this app was created was because younger people are less likely to report threats.
“What some of the National Threat Assessment Center studies told us is that kids that wanna report will want to do so differently. Not everybody’s the same. Some kids will talk to a coach or a parent or a teacher. Some kids aren’t talking to anybody. But they’ll be happy to text or put it on an app,” said Gregory Mays, deputy commissioner for of Homeland Security at the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security.
Aside from threats, this app can be used to report planned violent acts, physical injury to a large group, sexual misconduct, bragging of planned attacks on platforms or the individuals and it’s available 24/7 for all ages.
“We know from past incidents [that] almost every case of school violence: people know ahead of time. Someone was aware of it before it happened, they just didn’t have a way to report it. Or they didn’t feel comfortable reporting it to someone else. The SafeTN app gives them that way to report in an anonymous environment where they know someone will get that information and then act upon it,” said Brice Allen, supervising agent at the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security.
From tragic events that have occurred throughout the state in recent years, there has been a need and importance for residents to utilize this app.
“Our staff will get the information we’re going to get and substantiate the information as best as we can. Then we’re going to contact the applicable agencies that can respond in order to deal with that matter whatever it will be,” said Allen.
One leader shares that the most dangerous reports are those that no one shares.
“So, people ask me what kind of threat concerns me the most and it’s I always the one I don’t know about,” said Mays.
This is not only for those in school but for those that see threats for public spaces.
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