Mansfield police train for school crisis

The Mansfield News Journal is reporting that law enforcement officers recently engaged in a mock assault on a local high school in a drill designed to help prepare for the eventuality of a school shooting.

From the story:

Police Officers Brian Evans, Doug Noblet, Ken Carroll and Perry Wheeler stalked down a Mansfield Senior High School hallway, brandishing guns and crouching low, waiting for an unseen threat.

Their target Thursday night was an armed "suspect" who had shot students and perhaps taken hostages.

The effort this time was just a training exercise. But to the law enforcement officers involved, it was valuable experience should such a nightmare scenario actually unfold.

"It's been exhausting, but very useful," Lexington police officer Don Copp said. "It's not only beneficial for working together with officers from other departments, but it also gets me into a high school I've not been in yet."

It also prepared officers in a new tactic aimed at locating and "neutralizing" the armed threat instead of simply "containing" the situation until SWAT officers or other tactical units arrive on the scene.

Titled Quick Action Deployment (QUAD), the techniques were developed based on lessons learned from nearly 30 incidents since 1996 which resulted and deaths and injuries, according to Mansfield police Chief Phil Messer.

"In some cases, law enforcement must respond to immediately save lives and reduce the number of casualties and potential hostages," Messer said.

What officials never say, however, is that no matter how prepared, no matter how responsive, they can never be as responsive in a situation like this as could trained, licensed and armed teachers and other school officials who are there when an attack begins. As we have seen all too many times in this country, in the minutes that it takes for police to respond when a call finally comes, people will die.