Spring Break
Drill simulates real-life shooting
Emily Zulz / Associate News Editor
Issue date: 2/23/09 Section: News
|
The active shooter drill began around 8:40 a.m.
Buzzard Hall Auditorium, and areas surrounding including sections of the second floor were blocked off to everyone but those involved in the drill.
The drill is a training exercise that is mandated by state law that was integrated Jan. 1, which requires Illinois colleges and universities to stage one emergency drill a year.
Individuals designated by University Housing and Dining Services became eventual victims of the pretend shooter. Victims were given a card that described the severity of their injuries, or if they were a fatality. These members could be seen sprawled on the staircase or the floor.
Law Enforcement responds
University Police Chief Adam Due said they received the call shortly before 8:45 a.m. and both the UPD and the Charleston Police Department responded to the call.
"The teams entered the building to engage or isolate the shooter and then secured the location once that had been done," Due said.
There was an individual acting as the actual shooter, Due said. He said the response time was within a minute or two, but other officers came a little slower.
"Obviously knowing that the drill was going on, I'm sure they were rather anxious and waiting for it," he said.
Due said the department was expecting the drill to start closer to 8 a.m. but it happened closer to 8:45 a.m.
"The information that the officers were getting when they entered the scene led them to the shooter fairly quickly," Due said.
Police entered from various sides with guns drawn.
"Let me see your hands. Put them up high," could be heard from an officer as he walked through Buzzard.
The officers went up to the second floor before eventually ending up on the roof of Buzzard. Other officers addressed individuals in Buzzard with questions like, "What do you class guys know?" and "Do we have information on the suspect?"
Due said a main advantage of the drill was getting to work with the Charleston police.
"This gives us a chance to not only work together, but get them in to some of our buildings where maybe they haven't been before," he said.
Lt. John Bennett, of the Charleston Police Department, said it was good for the Charleston police to get on campus.
"We have been working over the past almost three years to raise our level of preparedness or readiness for such an incident," Bennett said
He said responding in real time is hard in a training scenario.
"So obviously things are going to be done a lot faster than they were done today," Bennett said.
He said the best way to describe a real scenario with an active shooter would be organized chaos.
"We have to get in," he said. "We have one mission. The mission is to stop whatever's going on at that particular time - locating the intruder, getting him secured and then start assessing injuries."
Bennett said the drill on Friday was pretty organized. He said under regular circumstances, it is not going to look like the drill.
"The body can't go somewhere the mind's never been," Bennett said. "If we walk through something like this today, it gives us an idea … so that if something like this would happen, we're not responding to something brand new that we've never dealt with."
He said in a real situation, there would have been chaos in the building with fire sprinklers going off, fire alarms going off, explosive devices being used, smoke filling the building and doors being chained or barred.
"You're going to have student's panicking, screaming and yelling," Bennett said. "When we arrive inside, they're going to be clawing at us because they see us there to help them but we have to ignore that because we have got to go stop what's going on."
Throughout the drill, phrases such as "The suspect was seen wearing a facemask, Carhartt jacket with two weapons," "victims on the ground" and "gun shot to the leg" could be heard over the police radio scanner.
Health Service treats
Those that became victims were taken out of Buzzard on stretchers and put in ambulances and taken to Health Service.
Sheila Baker, Health Service medical director, said Health Service was aware of the drill so no appointments were made during the drill time.
"We were ready in many aspects of the situation, but it was very much a learning situation for us as well," Baker said.
She said Health Service realized that those working not only had to worry about a wound but also if the victim was shot or if it was the shooter who had been shot.
"We suddenly had to realize we need to know not just about this person's injuries but do we need to be looking for weapons as well," Baker said.
She said Health Service also had to learn to relay vital information on to emergency personnel instead of just focusing on the patient's needs.
Press conference addresses
Following the completion of the drill in Buzzard, a mock press conference was held at 11 a.m. Friday in the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union. President Bill Perry addressed the public by continuing simulating what would happen if the drill had been real.
Next of kin would have been notified before releasing any more information and those with injuries would have been treated by health services or transported for further medical attention.
Perry said Eastern would call upon other universities for counseling needs.
Classes on the Charleston campus would also have been canceled until further notice, and McAfee Gymnasium would have been identified as a family gathering center with counselors available.
Members of the campus community would also have been e-mailed asking them to inform their families of their whereabouts and status.
The University Police Department, Charleston Police Department, Charleston Fire Department, Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center and Health Service also participated in the press conference.
Immediately following the mock conference, all pretend was set aside and Perry addressed the actual drill.
"By having the simulation as realistic as possible, that's really going to help us when we debrief, understanding how well prepared we are going to be in an actual situation," Perry said.
Click here to see a full-size version of the active shooter slideshow.
Emily Zulz can be reached at 581-7942 or at eazulz@eiu.edu.
The Daily Eastern News encourages on-topic, civil discussion on its articles posted online. It is our policy not to screen comments before they are posted or edit them after they are posted. However, we reserve the right to remove comments that are off-topic, malicious, libelous or include excessive foul language. The DEN also reserves the right to turn off all comments on any story it deems necessary.
Comments violating copyright law will also be removed.
Users who repeatedly violate this policy will be banned from commenting.
If you have any questions on our comment policy or wish to report a comment that you feel violates these standards, please e-mail a link to the article to our Online Editor at DENNews.com@gmail.com.
Be the first to comment on this story