JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. — The electronic visitor pass system installed at each Johnson City school is doing what it was designed to do. Robert Atwell, Jr. of Missouri was arrested at South Side Elementary School on the first day of class in violation of sex offender registry rules.
"They're made aware of all these rules that go along with being on the sex offender registry,” Johnson City Police Sgt. Mike Adams said. “He was aware that he wasn't allowed to be on the school property."
The school uses RAPTOR to manage visitors. Every person who visits for the first time will have their driver's license scanned.
The information is then compared to the sex offender registry in all 50 states. Catching Atwell is seen as a success.
"First day of school. First day of students back. Just a reminder of one: how important that it is that we follow the same procedures at every school, but also a reminder that there are people out there that we don't want in our building,” Supervisor of School Safety and Mental Health Greg Wallace said.
Each time a visitor returns to the school, they sign in at a kiosk, and a badge will be printed. Even though licenses aren't scanned for return visits, the system is still checking whether that person should be at the school.
"We've been very, very pleased with the program,” Wallace said. “We think we're much better prepared as a school system to identify who's coming in our building.
RAPTOR doesn't just check for sex offenders. It can also keep a database of which people are allowed to pick up a child, and during emergencies, it's a log of who is in the building.
"We want to protect our children when they go to school,” Adams said. “We want the community to feel safe that their children are going to be safe when they go to school."
Police said Atwell went to South Side Elementary with his girlfriend to register her child for school. He's being held on a $10,000 bond in the Washington County Detention Center.
The RAPTOR program costs the school system $20,500 each year plus $520 for each school.