Preparing for the Worst
An active shooter drill was held at Enterprise Middle school on Friday, July 29. The drill was conducted through the Mississippi Office of Homeland Security and was designed to provide a real life experience for faculty and staff so that they can be better prepared in an emergency situation.
An active shooter and responding officers shot sim-munitions at each other while various faculty members acted out different situations. Various “injuries” were acquired and some “deaths” took place to help first responders sort out how to handle the wounded and take care of everyone in a timely manner.
“Today was what we call a full scale exercise where we brought in faculty and staff, school resource officers, and responding officers from the departments around this area,” explained Mississippi Department of Homeland Security Executive Director Baxter Kruger. “They participated in what we call a live fire with sim-munitions. We trained them to the standard that is acceptable under our guidelines. These exercises are geared to see how everyone responds to the situation. We look at how law enforcement responds and if they effectively neutralize the shooter. They have to think about how to deal with the wounded and get them triaged. We look at how the school was when under lockdown and if it was effective across the campus with all the doors and windows secure and locked. We then look at how fast we could get the school secured so we could start getting children out of the classroom and back to their parents safely. We evaluate each of the major phases of a response. We’re making sure that everyone is using their minds to think about these things because you have to engage your brain since every individual classroom and district is unique. The teachers in the classroom need to fully understand their space and what they can do to prevent or defend in the event of an active shooter.”
Although the drill was planned, they made it as realistic as possible and were able to look at the response time for law enforcement.
“It was set up like a 100% real scenario,” stated Enterprise Police Chief Bradley McNeese. “A 911 call was placed to our 911 dispatch. They dispatched us, and we responded to the scene. Everything was planned according to times.”
Once law enforcement arrived on the scene, they were able to see both what they did well and learn different areas that they may need to work on a little more.
“We’re very proud of the state Homeland Security coming in to show us everything,” informed Sheriff Todd Kemp. “It showed some deficiencies in where we need to be, so we learn by our mistakes. We learned tactics, and we learned how to deal with logistics. There are a lot of parts that would play into a potential scenario. In the event that something were to happen, we have mamas and daddies, we have other classrooms to deal with, we have to move those children, and we have to work closely with our school officials. We hope that never happens here, but we want to try and be as best prepared as we can in case something does. We are still in a learning process, but thank goodness we have some very capable and good people with the Mississippi Department of Homeland Security who brought in many years of doing tactics that they teach. We also have a deputy who just recently completed an active shooter training so we have one certified that can do our own active shooter training.”
Overall, the drill went very well. Most of the things they found to continue to work on were smaller and easy to fix.
“This exercise actually went well,” declared Mississippi Homeland Security Deputy Director Jim Brinson. “This isn’t so much of an evaluation as it is a training to kind of see where the gaps are. Most of the stuff that we looked at that needed to be fixed are primarily little gaps in planning. When people see an active shooter event, they think once the shooter is neutralized that it’s all over. There’s a lot more that goes to that that could take a very long time to get taken care of.”
Once the drill was completed, everyone gathered together to ask questions and discuss what was learned during the drill. Different advice was offered to the teachers for what they may want to consider in their classrooms to be more prepared.
“Find out where your blind spots are and where you can hide in your classrooms so somebody can’t see you from the windows or the little windows in the doors,” advised Jim. “Know the best place to get if you do go under lockdown and someone tries to break in. Know where to go and set up if you have to defend yourself. People just need to start thinking of everything that could happen and what to do prior to anything happening. What makes people panic in a stressful situation is when their brain doesn’t have enough information to make those stressful decisions. If you think about it beforehand, then your brain knows what to do and where to go. It makes it basically become a natural reaction.”
The only thing that was not included in the drill was the reaction that parents would have to the news that an active shooter is in the schools; however, they did think about parents and what would need to take place. One of the main things that would need to happen is for parents to not flood the area and simply maintain communication with the schools on where to go. Parents should not show up to the scene because it could create problems in getting students the help they need.
“If there is an event, it’s going to be very trying for the parents,” expressed Kruger. “Parents are very concerned about their children, and we understand that. What our office is doing is helping school districts with their process on being able to get those students back to family members as soon as possible and try to control the chaos. Obviously, everyone is going to want to come to the scene to make sure their child is okay, but they have to understand that the more vehicles that come to the scene, the fewer response vehicles can get on the scene. If we can’t move an ambulance there to put a child or faculty member in because a parent parked in the road and ran to the school, then that parent just hindered their child or someone else’s child from getting the proper attention. We’re working with the schools to make a designated place that parents can go to in order to get the answers and information they need. As a parent, I want to know what’s going on, but I also don’t want to add to the chaos on the scene.”
The training has helped strengthen the district and all first responders in the area on what to do in the event of an emergency. Everyone who was involved is making adjustments to any deficiencies they noticed, and the schools will be safer for the training.
