Training for Tragedy
By: Andy Schroeder
Updated: April 19, 2007
Officers from the South West Indiana Training Council took over an abandoned Huntingburg school, using it as a training ground for a simulated school shooting.
The exercise has been in the works for several months now, but the April 20 anniversary of the Columbine High School attacks, and Mondays massacre at Virginia Tech have underscored the importance of this kind of training.
Officers say since Columbine, they have a new view of how to respond to school shooters. Rather than waiting for help from a S.W.A.T. team, they must enter the school themselves. Training officers say the first police on the scene, even if they are regular patrol officers, need to know the tactics to take out a school shooter.
