Columbia Police Department hold school safety training at John Warner Middle School
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Columbia police and Columbia Public Schools held an active shooter training exercise on Wednesday at John Warner Middle School in Southwest Columbia.
The training exercise was a chance for officers and school personnel to put plans into action when it comes to an active shooter situation here in Columbia.
"It involved both the initial response to the report of an active shooter, as well as SWAT Team response for the follow up to that," said Lt. Clint Sinclair, Columbia police.
Police say allowing it and members of Columbia Public Schools to practice this type of situation benefits both the officers and school staff.
"It was really important to have school staff on site when the initial response occurred as well as when the SWAT Team arrived. And for us to understand what the layout of the school is, what we are going to encounter once we get into the school whether it is going to be the fire alarm going off or the announcements going off," said Lt. Sinclair.
Wednesday's exercise wasn't exactly real-world. Officers had safety checks on their weapons to make sure they were not taking live rounds into the school.
Lt. Sinclair says days like Wednesday can never prepare someone for a real emergency, but he has confidence that his officers will be ready when it does happen.
"Since I started at CPD over 12-years-ago now, we have had training on what to do in these situations and I have confidence that our department and all the agencies around here will do what we need to do," said Lt. Sinclair.
While the exercises are good for training it also allows everyone the opportunity to see those areas where improvement can be made.
"We try to set up the best scenario we can possible, and with the conversations, I have had with cps in the last 5 to ten minutes, we have already started to discuss some things that we learned, something they want to implement in the future, so we get so much from every one of these we do," said Sinclair
Lt. Sinclair says that in this scenario the first responding officers were on the scene in under 5 minutes and ended the threat within 45 seconds of going in
Columbia police wanted to stress that their first responding officers are trained to enter and engage once arriving on the scene.
Cpd says that while today focused on john warner middle school, their officers are encouraged to visit the schools in their district so they are familiar with them and the layout of each building.
On Thursday, the Ashland Police Department will be doing active shooter training at Southern Boone primary school from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m.
Community members are asked not to be alarmed if they see any officers at the school.
