Photo By Brad Staggs | Lt. Mike Horton of the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy explains to school...... read more read more
BUTLERVILLE, Ind. – The Indiana Department of Education held Active Shooter training at Muscatatuck Urban Training Center, Nov. 9 and 10. The objective of the training was to bring school administrators and police together to discuss how best to protect the children in their care at schools.
The training is the brainchild of the Director of Student Services for the Indiana DoE, Gary Green, and David Woodward, program coordinator at the Indiana School Safety Specialist Academy.
“The genesis of this [training] is that we have a school safety academy,” Green explained. “Each school corporation is supposed to have one trained safety specialist. Right now, in Indiana, we have over 1,000 of those.”
During the first day of training at Muscatatuck, 20 school teachers and administrators sat down with four law enforcement instructors and learned what could possibly happen in a school shooting situation. Questions such as who responds, how do they respond, and what will they do when responders finally enter the school were asked. It was an eye-opening experience for Brandon Harp, assistant principal and athletic director for Seymour High School.
“This has got us thinking a different way and exposed us to some different ideas, so it’s good,” Harp said. “We’ve been spending time with our Student Resource Officer [Policeman], seeing how he thinks, seeing how he wants us to react to different situations.” Harp went on to say that he will be getting together with the Seymour Police and giving them better blueprints for the high school to better assist them.
The safety academy has been in existence since 1999, but they had never put on training like what they hosted at MUTC. On day two, it was time for the school administrators and police to work together in a simulated environment.
Teams of four were chosen with law enforcement and school employees mixed into each group. They were then given a paintball mask, neck protection, and specially outfitted Glock model 17 pistol designed to shoot only paint marking rounds. Using the hospital at MUTC as a mock schoolhouse, each team had to respond to an active shooter situation, getting hands-on experience in what it is that goes through the mind of a police officer and, in some cases, the mind of a shooter.
Does this mean that guns will be placed in the hands of teachers and administrators when a problem arises?
“No, putting the educators in the situation where they are the responders teaches them what it feels like when your heart starts pumping and the adrenaline starts flowing,” said Lt. Mike Horton, a master trainer with the Law Enforcement Academy. “These guns may only be shooting marking rounds, but they travel at 360 feet per second and can hurt when they hit, which is why we take such great safety measures such as the masks and neck protection.”
Green went on to explain that the training helps school safety officials recognize possible dangers in their own school which need to be addressed as well. “I went through this training several years ago without the active shooter component,” Green said. “When I went back to my school, I immediately moved all of the desks away from the walls to make it easier in case there did need to be a response. From that training, we rearranged the rooms, to some extent, and even the custodians started going into lock-down.”
The training received high marks from the educators who attended as well as from the police, such as Ray Jackson, Chief of Police for Center Grove, Ind. “This has been great,” Jackson said. “We couldn’t have done this anywhere else than right here.”
Green agreed. “We came to Muscatatuck because of what was here; we have a realistic environment to put these people in. We’ll be back, for sure.”
| Date Taken: | 11.10.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 11.18.2011 13:39 |
| Story ID: | 80228 |
| Location: | BUTLERVILLE, INDIANA, US |
| Web Views: | 257 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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