Two former students, perhaps emotionally unstable, enter a school building. Words are exchanged with front-office staff and, moments later, screams are heard as shots ring out.
In short order, classroom doors are slammed shut and locked, medical help is called for and local police speed to the scene. Within minutes, special teams of highly-trained law enforcement officers come together, ready to handle the grisly scene of a school shooting.
Such incidents can seemingly occur anywhere – a fact painfully clear to residents of small towns like Columbine, Colo., and Newtown, Conn. It could even occur in a quiet, rural setting like that of White River High School.
With that in mind, more than 230 emergency responders headed to bucolic Buckley Thursday morning for an “active shooter” exercise that was more than a year in the making.
The scenario
The disgruntled former students were known troublemakers. There were documented run-ins with the principal during their days at White River and they recently had scrapes with local law enforcement; it was known they had threatened White River’s students and staff.
When their efforts to see the principal were rebuffed and they realized an office staffer was dialing 911, they pulled handguns and opened fire. The 911 operator could hear people screaming and shots being fired. The violent pair, one boys and one girl, split up, leaving victims in their wake from the school commons to the theater.
The objectives
The multi-jurisdictional drill provided training for those who, ideally, will never have to respond to such an incident.
The exercise provided an opportunity to activate the Incident Command System, calling together first-responders from a handful of departments. Goals were to identify and apprehend the shooters, carry out existing protocols and maintain communication throughout the simulated emergency.
From White River’s end, goals were to put practice into action. Staff and students have been given rules to follow should such an event occur on campus and Thursday’s exercise gave a live-action opportunity to stick with the plan. Evacuation was carried out and procedures were in place to reunite students with parents.
The students
A handful of White River High’s 1,200 students were active participants: two acted as the shooters and a handful of others were among the “injured.” Makeup artists were on the scene early, creating bloody gashes and other wounds.
Students went into lockdown mode until being evacuated. White River has a plan in place for students to flee the grounds and meet at an agreed-upon location. A key part of the plan is it keeps parents off campus during a time of emergency.
Absent was a healthy portion of the student body. Leading up to the event, parents were given the opportunity to have their children off campus for the day; students could simply stay home or head to an alternative site in Buckley. Approximately 300 parents chose to keep their off campus during the “active shooter” exercise.
Long planning process
The full-scale exercise was carried out by the Pierce County Department of Emergency Management and was made possible by a grant from the Department of Homeland Security.
The county agency conducted its first exercise a year ago at Eatonville High School and representatives from White River were in attendance. After observing the drill, White River volunteered to host a second drill and plans soon came together.
The school year has been spent training students on things like threat assessment, lockdown procedures, evacuation and how to survive when a shooter enters a school building. Pierce County has hosted three school assemblies. Also, letters have been sent home and, a week before the drill, parents were invited to the school for a briefing.
What have students learned?
White River High spokeswoman Amy Miller said the days are long gone when students were told to simply hide under their desks. The current message is that a moving target is less likely to become a casualty. The mantra has been “run, hide, fight” in that order, Miller said, noting that it’s not off-limits to suggest that a gang of students and teachers can subdue an intruder.
Who took part?
Involved in the drill were police officers from Buckley, Enumclaw, Bonney Lake, Sumner, Milton, Puyallup, Sumner and Tacoma, along with troopers from the Washington State Patrol and deputies from the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department. Personnel responded from the Enumclaw, Buckley and Carbonado fire departments, plus East Pierce Fire and Rescue. Additional responders came from the National Park Service.
Did it work?
Miller said the drill is being viewed, overall, as a success.
“It was an opportunity to get 250 first responders into our building,” she said, and gave students a chance to put practice into action.
Early comments from students, Miller said, included feelings of isolation. That’s perfectly understandable, she said, from students who live with social media; those who weren’t evacuated spent a couple of hours in classrooms, behind locked doors.
It was equally important, Miller noted, to discover flaws in the system. Early in the drill, it was discovered emergency personnel had difficulty had difficulty communicating inside the building.
What they’re saying
“The benefit (of this drill) is for first responders to be prepared for any type of active shooter incident, or any other incident that requires high involvement on our part. As for the school, our ultimate goal is to protect the students and staff. It gives us better training in order to do so … The point of the exercise isn’t to scare anybody, it’s to face the reality going on in our schools and be prepared for that reality. The only way we can properly train is to have these drills that are as realistic as can be. It’s simply an exercise to show our preparedness and identify aspects to improve on.”
– Bonney Lake Police Officer Todd Green
St. Elizabeth Hospital served as the primary medical facility for victims of the active shooter exercise at White River High School. The hospital disaster response team was activated as victims were brought to the emergency department. Victims suffered from injuries including very minor to those requiring surgery. We triaged patients as they arrived and made sure they got the care they needed in a timely manner. As part of the active shooter exercise, St. Elizabeth also suffered a contaminated water incident and we had to plan how we would continue to operate with that challenge. We also dealt with media inquiries, calls from staff and parents concerned about their children who would have been at the high school.
St. Elizabeth wanted to test their response time, procedures, communications and planning under this scenario. The goal for the hospital is to train staff on how to handle any number of issues during a disaster so that it becomes second nature and ensure that all departments can mobilize effectively and efficiently in the time of a crisis.
– Provided by Scott Thompson, media relations manager for the Franciscan Health System
