Mandatory reporting of suspected intent to carry out violence involving a dangerous weapon or explosive in or targeting a school and providing a criminal penalty. (FE)

This bill requires the same professionals who are mandated reporters under current law to immediately inform, by telephone or personally, a law enforcement agency if the mandated reporter has reasonable cause to suspect that a person seen in the course of professional duties intends to commit an act of violence involving a dangerous weapon or explosive in or targeting a public, private, or tribal elementary or secondary school. The bill imposes the same penalties and provides the same immunity from liability as the current mandatory reporting law. The bill also creates exemptions from confidentiality requirements and professional privileges for the reporting required under the bill as are under the current mandatory reporting law.

In addition, current law requires each school board to require every employee of the school district governed by the school board to receive training provided by the Department of Public Instruction in identifying children who have been abused or neglected and in the laws and procedures under the mandatory reporting law. This bill adds the same training requirement regarding the mandatory reporting of suspected intent to commit an act of violence involving a dangerous weapon or explosive in or targeting a school.

The bill also explicitly exempts from the state's requirements for confidentiality of patient health information and allows the disclosure by a health care provider of any suspicion of a patient intending to commit an act of violence involving a dangerous weapon or explosive in or targeting a school. Generally, under current law, patient health information and mental health treatment records are confidential and may be released only upon informed written consent of the subject of the treatment record and in other limited circumstances explicitly described in the law.

Under current law, a health care provider fulfills any duty to warn others by taking any of the following actions: contacting law enforcement or the relevant county department and disclosing knowledge of potential evidence of the individual's substantial probability of harm, approving the emergency detention of the individual if the health care provider is in the position to do so, and taking any other action that a reasonable health care provider would consider as fulfilling the duty to warn a third party of substantial probability of harm. Any person who discloses information evidencing substantial probability of serious bodily harm or a health care provider who takes one of the actions that fulfill a duty to warn is not civilly or criminally liable under current law for actions taken in good faith. Similarly, a health care provider making a disclosure under the bill is also exempt from civil or criminal liability for actions taken in good faith.