Carbon School District Press Release
By a show of hands in an assembly after the fact, a handful of Carbon High School students raised their hands to the question of whether they knew in advance that a drill concerning a school shooter was going to be held that morning.
It is, as one law enforcement official put it, “hard to keep a secret in such a small community” concerning a drill that involves so many people preparing beforehand. But, nonetheless, the lock down and evacuation of students at the high school to the football field went well with virtually no problems.
The drill was set for 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday morning as two police officers disguised as bad guys walked into the school and started skulking around. The school went into lockdown and the police were immediately notified.
Peace officers were staged at a church parking lot nearby and were released a few minutes apart to respond to the “emergency” as they would if it was real. Law enforcement tried to keep the simulation of police showing up at the building as realistic as possible with some officers arriving only a minute after notification while many others ended up there a few minutes later. The streets around the school were closed off and people were not allowed to enter or exit the campus. As some of the first officers arrived, they heard gunshots coming from the gymnasium. These were rounds fired from blanks shot by the perpetrators. They immediately headed toward where the threat was, as they were trained to do.
The two ‘bad guys’ were working their way through the building trying to hide from law enforcement. Eventually, although the pair went in different directions and spent some real time finding good hiding spots, law enforcement finally found and arrested them, handcuffs and all.
Meanwhile, students were locked in classrooms out of site of door windows and were prepared to do what they had to stay quiet and survive.
To be sure students, parents and staff were not traumatized by the drill, as soon as the lock down was called instructors told the students that it was a drill and not the real thing. In addition, according to CHS Principal Bruce Bean, over 6,000 reverse 911 calls went out to citizens informing them that the entire thing was not real and messages were also put on Facebook and other social media.
After the perpetrators were caught, students were evacuated in a classroom by classroom fashion as officers released them from their rooms.
At an assembly afterward, Bean said that as he observed what went on, he was surprised at the feelings he felt about what he saw.
“Even though I knew it was not real, I realized how these officers were putting their lives on the line for all of us,” he told the assembly after they were brought back into the building almost two hours after the drill began.
During the meeting in the auditorium, students were given the chance to ask questions and point out things they saw that they thought would improve the process if it was ever done again or if the real thing took place.
Over 40 officers participated in the event, which was not only a learning experience for students and staff at the school, but also valuable training for law enforcement as well. Agencies that participated included the Price Police Department, the Carbon County Sheriff’s Office, Wellington Police, Helper Police, the Utah Highway Patrol, USU Eastern Police as well as Adult Probation and Parole.
“I have to say that things went pretty well and I appreciate all the different agencies that helped on this,” said Price Police Chief Kevin Drolc, who headed up the lead agency for the drill because the school is within the city’s jurisdiction. “The Price Police Department couldn’t handle this alone if something happened. It would take all of us.”
During the drill, officers who entered the building carried no live rounds for their weapons, neither in the firearms nor on their person for safety reasons.
Overall, according to officials, everything went according to plan, but almost everyone involved saw some room for improvement. Most doors in the school were locked as they were supposed to be in a drill and the students all got out safely. When the evacuation was done, only one person, who had been in a small room and had stayed there because police had not come by to clear it, got out of the building. There were just short of 1,000 people in the building when the drill began. Still, there are always lessons to be learned and peace officers are going away with some ideas on how to make any such drill in the future even more successful.
“It is important to note that this drill was in the planning stages long before the most recent tragedy in Florida,” commented Carbon Superintendent Lance Hatch. “We appreciate our law enforcement in this community. They are always proactive, willing and able to respond to school needs in a prompt and professional manner. We are grateful for the hard work of Ken Labrum and the CHS administration team as this type of drill requires a large amount of time and energy behind the scenes.”
