Richmond school staff gets lesson in safety
, Richmond News Staff
08-18-2009
Noon is a busy time at Richmond Middle School. It should be. Depending on schedules, lunch is either beginning or ending for nearly everyone. Teachers and staff mill about amidst a stampeding herd of well-fed teenagers.They’re shepherds, really. In this din, they might as well try walking on water before honing in on any one thing out of the ordinary. Good luck focusing.
Then the door opens.
“Mr. Reed! Mr. Reed!” a tall, black-haired student in a brown T-shirt screams. The too-busy-for-the-world teens scream and scatter.
The student is pointing an AK-47 at anything that moves.
Mr. Reed!“ he bellows. “I’ll find you!”
A boom echoes down a hallway to the cafeteria. Screams.
He crosses the cafeteria to another hallway. Boom. A body crumples, barely in view, howling “I’ve been shot! I don’t want to die.” Her screams get weaker minute by minute.
This wasn’t completely Superintendent Jim Robins’ idea.
Crisis and emergency management training has been a staple of faculty training before now, the Richmond School District Superintendent explained. Teachers practiced climbing from windows during a school lockdown and bus evacuations. They’ve covered active shooter procedures before this year.
But times changed. On April 20, 1999, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris rampaged through Columbine High School in Jefferson County, Colo., killing 12 students and one teacher. In July 2004, military personnel in Iraq discovered detailed plans and procedures for U.S. schools. They had been identified as “high-profile, high-payoff targets” with devastating emotional effects.
And the faculty Robins oversees insisted to him that this year, every district employee – janitors to teachers, principals to cafeteria staff – needed to know what they know.
“We got this training last year for 30 or 40 of our ‘critical people’ and building leaders,” Robins said. “The feedback I got was, ‘The training’s good but everybody needs it.’”
Times – and rules – have changed. Becky and Andy Davis are a law enforcement husband-and-wife team who co-founded Gray Ram Tactical three-and-a-half years ago. They’re also parents of three and grandparents of two. Together, they present crisis management, law enforcement and safety seminars for institutions including hospitals, schools and law enforcement agencies. Over the course of Aug. 13-14, they were charged with presenting the Richmond School District’s broad base of school employees with the realities of being ready for anything that could jeopardize themselves or students.
“Law enforcement realized that a Columbine-type situation was constantly evolving,” Andy said. “Officials needed to take immediate action. We couldn’t be stagnant.”
For both days, the faculty and staff split into two groups given the same materials by Becky – high school and middle school staff in the morning, elementary staff in the afternoon.
The Davis’ training didn’t spare some grim details: threats were very real for any school – not all of them from radical terrorists. Situations could escalate in precious little time at all.
Becky screened a video available on the Kalamazoo (Mich.) Gazette Web site, bus surveillance footage provided by the Kalamazoo Township Police Department. The camera, trained on the driver for over a minute without sound, showed the driver saying something repeatedly. A student appeared to her right. He lunged, then pulled back. With the bus still in motion, he landed an overhead right punch into the driver’s face, then continued raining down blows until two students restrained him.
This presented an ethical dilemma for one staff member: the law or safety?
“It’s against the law to put a student off the bus,” she said.
“It’s against the law to let a student beat another student up,” Becky said.
This is the difference between bad behavior and violence, Becky said. A student misbehaving just isn’t doing what he’s told. The student in the video, Becky explained, ignored continuous warnings to sit down and stop intimidating other students on the bus.
“Violence” was what happened next: intent to harm or kill. The driver had nearly one minute to react to his behavior before it got out of hand and he exploded.
To emphasize, she asked the assembled faculty and staff to sit for one minute in silence. It quickly felt like five. Point made.
Men might be more physical, Becky warned, but women are “relentless.” She said bullies usually evolve with age into one thing: bigger bullies. She cautioned to be aware of warning signs of violence – things like obsession with media violence, isolation, histories of acting out.
The material became no less jarring throughout the rest of the session. Children and teens were more susceptible to the lure of violence because, sometimes adults didn’t necessarily know what to look for. It was known in law enforcement circles, Becky said, that gang recruitment could begin as early as third grade in some circles.
Drug dealers creativity had blossomed with changing times. Sure, marijuana is recognizable, but what about cheese heroin? That variety is inconspicuous enough to be concealed in gum wrappers and gets its name because it resembles cheese crumbles. What about meth dealers who cut their product with Strawberry Quik mix for a candy-like appearance and smell?
It was jarring.
“I had never known that we had any problems like that,” said Linda Long, janitor at Sunrise Elementary School. “I was thinking about my kids and what they’re doing and if they’re into any of this.”
Officers stormed through the doors. The shooter appeared around a corner and fired. The officers crouched and kept moving, sprinting past the downed, dying teacher. Minutes later, officers rounded the corner again after another flurry of shots detonated – this time, with the shooter in handcuffs. Uneasily, administrators crept from offices and classrooms, eyes darting.
It was over.
“What would I do?”
“How would I think?”
“How would I react?”
Becky was preparing educators and staff for what she had to hope would be the closest thing anyone in the room would ever get to an active shooter situation.
“This is the freebie,” she said Friday afternoon to the elementary school staff.” There’s a reset button here.”
In three hours, role player Zach Davis became an active shooter rampaging through Richmond Middle School. The veteran role player with U.S. Navy and police training knew his part. It had to feel as real as possible.
“Mr. Reed!” he screamed. “I’ll find you!” He started out a disgruntled student looking for a conference with his teacher. An hour later, he stormed the cafeteria in brown Desert Storm-era camo, looking for food. In his last act, he became a frantic father gunning down teachers in search of his son before Richmond police shot him down in a hail of gunfire of their own.
Teachers role-played as teachers, students and victims. Ambient noise mimicked the chaos of emergency situations. The school became Columbine High School. It became Jonesboro High School.
At one point, Becky scores a point against gut reactions: she reminds teachers that a flurry of cell phone traffic out of Columbine High School jammed dispatchers and might have slowed responses. She’s teaching sanity and not necessarily going with the gut.
At the end, there are congratulations and thanks to the role players and officers. Davis describes the situation as “fun as Hell.” In the wake of the training, Gray Ram owner Dawn Brooks shared comments from evaluations left by Richmond’s educators and staff.
“This is my 14th year of teaching, and I learned more at this in-service than any other.”
“I needed the “wake up” call.”
“Because of this presentation, I will be more diligent in asking people without tags who they are and why they are here.”
“I feel much more confident in how I would handle an intruder situation after attending this course. Thank You!”
Photo: Gray Ram Tactical role player Zach Davis terrorizes Richmond Middle School staff as a gunman taking students and staff hostage. Davis acted in multiple role-playing scenarios with real Richmond elementary
school faculty and staff as part of a two-day crisis management
training session Aug. 13-14 at Richmond Middle School. (Photo by Sean Comer/The Daily News)
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