School Conducts Surprise Shooting Drill with Real Gunmen Firing Blanks
A school district in Oregon is catching some flak after it recently sicced two masked gunmen loaded with blank on a meeting room full of teachers as part of a surprise "readiness drill" for an active shooter scenario.
The two men burst into the meeting room at Pine Eagle Charter School in Halfway last Friday and opened fire on the teachers within.
After several long moments, the terrorized teachers realized the shooting was staged since they weren't, well, being shot to death.
The Oregonian reports that the school's staff had received training on what to do in case of an active shooting event from the Union County Sheriff's Office, and the district picked an in-service day during which students stayed at home in order to conduct the unannounced drill.
After the initial shock wore off, some of the teachers arrived at the realization that they would not have survived had this been a real-life school shooting.
Asked how many of the fifteen teachers would have made it out alive, Principal Cammie DeCastro responded, "not many."
She blew off critics who expressed concern for the possibility that some of the teachers could have been literally scared to death, or worse, could have been carrying a concealed weapon of their own and moved to respond in kind.
In fact, the latter may be an outcome of the failed drill as the district's Safety Committee and the School Board consider arming teachers or bringing in armed volunteers to watch over the children.
"For us not to know how we were going to respond is leaving us open," DeCastro said.
