Taking aim at school shootings
They were talking quietly together in a classroom at Cane Bay Elementary School last Friday when the shots rang out. First a 38 revolver, then a 12-gauge shotgun, and finally an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle – the same type of weapon used two days earlier in the killing of 14 students and three staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
“It sounded like someone slammed a door,” said one participant, after hearing the first rounds. “…Or like someone hitting a can.”
The shooters moved closer, stepping away from the front office area to a spot at the end of the hallway, and then to a location just outside the classroom door. A succession of loud pops shook the room, causing most inside to jump. After the last shot, there was just silence, as the weight of the moment sunk in. Some fought back tears.
“Wow,” said Creighton Eddings, principal of Sedgefield Intermediate School, after the gunfire ended.
Fortunately, in this case the “shooters,” members of local law enforcement teams, were firing blanks. And it was all part of a drill planned for Berkeley County School District teachers and administrators who were taking part in a large-scale staff development training conference. The gunfire demonstration, planned long before the events unfolded in Florida last week, understandably took on added significance.
“The dynamics and the sound (of gunfire) outside and inside are totally different,” Tim Knight, BCSD’s safety and security coordinator, told the audience as he painted a scenario for the group before leading them to the classroom. “It’s a Friday morning. It’s 10 o’clock. You’re in your classroom. You have your kids with you. It’s a typical day. And then something like this happens…”
With that, an actual video recorded by a student during last week’s shooting in Florida played on a large screen. The sound of gunshots and students crying and screaming echoed throughout the room.
“It’s horrible, right?” Knight asked, after the video came to an end. “Our worst-case scenario. Do we need to practice? Do we need to train for situations like that? Yes. Why? Because it can happen anywhere. It can happen here.”
Berkeley County Sheriff Duane Lewis was also present for the program and shared his insights with the attendees – reminding them that the Lowcountry is as susceptible to active shooter situations as any other place in the U.S.
“People say it hasn’t happened here,” he told the group. “Well it has happened here. In 1992 at Goose Creek High School there was a student in the parking lot. Some altercation developed and he was shot and killed. I know that because I was one of the responding officers.”
Lewis also remembered times when he, as a student at Goose Creek High, would plan hunting excursions with his friends after school. They would place their shotguns in the back of a truck on a rack in the parking lot and leave them there for the day.
“Nobody thought anything about it,” said Lewis. “We would never have imagined that anyone would have gone to that vehicle and gotten a gun…So you see how this thing has evolved and how things have changed.”
For that reason, BCSD and local law enforcement officers are working diligently to give teachers and other school staff members the tools they need to prepare for the unthinkable. Two years ago, BCSD brought in members of the FBI to conduct an active shooter/gunfire training session. This year’s program, held on a designated teacher workday when students were not in school, followed a similar format but was led by the Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office (BCSO) and Goose Creek Police Department (GCPD).
Firing the blanks during the gunfire demonstration were Capt. David Aarons of the GCPD and Capt. Bobby Shuler of the BCSO, while Knight directed the session from the classroom.
“You hear a succession like that, eight noises like that, what you are thinking?” Knight asked the group, as the shots were fired from down the hall. “That’s probably not a locker door. Something else is probably going on. Now they are moving down the hallway.”
“Think outside the box,” he continued. “Think about what you’re going to do…When you go back to your classrooms on Tuesday morning, I want you to look around your classroom and think ‘what can I put in front of that door should I have to?’”
Once the AR-15 rifle was outside the door – two thunderous booms sounded, jolting the room.
“That’s two days ago in Florida,” Knight said somberly. “Makes it pretty real, doesn’t it?”
In a debriefing session after the gunfire demonstration, officers gave participants some more words of wisdom on what to expect should they ever find themselves in an active shooter situation. According to Captain Aarons, the typical response time for SWAT teams is about 45 minutes to an hour. But prior to that, other waves of law enforcement officers will arrive fairly quickly, he said. And even though most active shooters stop within minutes, either because they are killed or they flee, participants were told to expect to be on lockdown for hours as officers secure the campus and make sure there is no longer a threat.
“It’s important to have that expectation,” said Aarons.
And all officers and staff leading the program encouraged those in attendance not to be afraid of taking matters into their own hands if they encounter a shooter.
“Who is the first responder?” asked Aarons, gazing at his audience. “You are. You can’t lock down a cafeteria. If you’re standing and monitoring the hall in the main lobby and someone comes in and starts shooting, do you run?...You fight…You do what you need to do. You kick. You bite. You hold on. You stay for the ride and hope someone else comes on…You are the first responder. It’s your only option.”
“The point is to do something,” added Knight. “Don’t just stand there. The worst mistake is to do nothing…It’s emotional. It’s real. It’s powerful. But I want you to leave here feeling empowered.”
Afterwards, teachers and staff chatted quietly as they filed out, digesting the gravity of the lesson. It was clear the program had an impact.
“It’s an excellent training to have people aware of what could happen,” said Hanahan Middle School Principal Robin Rogers. “…A lot of it will depend on that individual in that moment making the right decision.”
For Rogers, who oversees an open campus with four separate buildings, the potential threat is real.
“To hear those shots and know what could happen,” continued Rogers, “you’ll have some that will just freak out. Some kids that will freak out, especially after what just happened in Florida. It makes you think really hard about the situations that we’re in. We’re very vulnerable.”
“Hearing it outside the door – you know what that panic is going to feel like,” added Brittany Angell, a teacher at Whitesville Elementary.
For College Park Elementary School teacher Kimberly Gore, who is the daughter of a police officer and grew up with guns in her family, the experience left a heavy impression.
“It just made it a lot more real,” she said. “And it was emotional…I’m not scared of gunshots…But I’ve never heard it in a school building, so when they did it far away and you couldn’t hear it – that was scary. You don’t know it’s there until it’s outside your door…I’ve always thought about what I would do in my classroom. But you also have to think about what you would do when you’re not in your classroom. You have to have a plan for everywhere.”
In the end, both the district and law enforcement teams hope the training will further develop staff members’ crisis decision-making skills – knowing every person in the room could be the difference between a bad outcome and a good outcome.
“We take this very seriously,” added Sheriff Lewis. “It’s not something that will not happen here. It’s already happened here. Let’s just hope that we’re prepared if it does happen. We only have one chance at this. One chance to get it right.”
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