It won’t happen. Of course, it can happen, but it won’t happen. This is the attitude of many in regard to an active shooting situation on a school campus. On Thursday, Feb. 26, Cypress College made sure that students, faculty and staff were prepared in case that nightmare ever became reality. The college performed active shooter drills in the morning and evening, one at 9:30 a.m. and the other at 7 p.m.
The Cypress Police Department was on hand to facilitate the drill.
Participation in the drill was mandatory. Those on campus were locked in the rooms or buildings that they found themselves in as part of the shelter-in-place portion of the drill. Students and staff were notified through an updated mass notification system by text, phone call and email that they were experiencing an active shooter situation; they were also notified when the drill was complete by the same methods.
Students that were in classrooms or in the library, or learning resource center, watched a 20 minute informative and instructional video presentation regarding the dangers of such a situation. The drill was over shortly after the video was finished. The instructors in the video preached preventive methods, awareness, preparedness and rehearsal. Key to the message was having a survival mindset.
What are you going to do? Where can you get access to place a 911 phone call? What is your escape route? These questions were posed to students and staff during the drill.
The college had been working with the local police department since last October to determine their exact role in the drill. The police department played a supervising role and observed the drill from many angles. In doing so, they also checked the security of locked building doors and talked to students they encountered who had not been guided inside a building for safety. After the morning drill, the police department participated in a debriefing with school executive officials to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the process.
The college was very pleased with the new unified notification system, which proved to be more reliable than the previous system in terms of speed, scope, and effect.
Some students had some interesting views on the drill and the possibility of an active shooter situation. One particular student who chose not to have his last name identified, said if he and other students could carry concealed weapons, an attack would be unlikely.
“I understand why the school had the drill, but if some of us had a CCW (Carrying a Concealed Weapon) permit, an active shooter situation would be less likely,” said Andrew S.
And to add to that perspective, Patrick C. claimed, “It was a necessary drill, but school shootings are so uncommon, some may not take the drill seriously. It’s like we know it won’t happen, but it can.”