Students, teachers and parents were taken by surprise after an “active shooter drill” brought the Winter Haven middle school into lockdown as armed police officers burst into classrooms with their weapons drawn.
Students at Jewett Middle Academy said they were terrified when police officers burst in the doors for a planned active shooter drill – but students and teachers are irked they were not told ahead of time.
Seventh-grader Lauren Marionneaux told WTVT-TV that when the officers burst into her class with an AR-15, she was in fear for her life.
“We actually thought that someone was going to come in there and kill us,” the station quoted her as saying.
But police say they conduct these drills for the absolute safety of the students.
“These types of drills are vital in order to evaluate not only law enforcement response, but more importantly to educate the students and school officials in case an actual event were to occur,” Chief Charlie Bird said in an email to media.
Parents were notified of the drill through email after it was over, but many parents, however, received panicked texts from their children as the drill was going on.
This the America we live in today. The America the NRA and their paid for political allies have allowed to replace an America where school children feel safe inside their own classrooms.
After all a fearful populace is a populace that tends to vote conservative. A fearful populace is a populace that buys more guns. And a fearful populace is a populace that is easily manipulated by the media.
There is no logical reason to do this to these children, their teachers, and their parents. No logical reason unless you realize that safety is not the goal that is behind the drills.
And suppose, as is the case in some districts, that one of the teachers or support staffed had been armed?
ReplyDeleteThat's the first thing that I thought.
DeleteThe active shooter drill was developed where I live, and teachers, students, and parents are absolutely supposed to know ahead of time that it is going to occur. Leave it to the Florida doofus police to screw it up. Dumbasses
ReplyDeleteThe problem with your area is that it's in Polk County. Nothing good ever seems to come from your county. Even the Sheriff's office seems to always be in the news for something stupid. Try moving to Tampa instead.
DeleteI was referring to Kern County, CA. The rest of your analysis may apply.
DeleteDisgusting that a gun drill is needed - let alone like this - but freedumb and my rights are more important than children's lives (except before they are born)
ReplyDeleteWhat if the teachers, per the NRA wet dream, had been armed...
ReplyDeleteWhat happens when on of those panicked parents gets a text, and goes over to the school to rescue their kid and they are carrying a weapon?
ReplyDeleteWHat happens when a teacher who's bought into the NRA bs pulls a gun during one of these drills?
Do we set real fires and make the fire department come out an unroll their hoses for a fire drill?
I think the fact that Florida resembles a flaccid penis has something to do with it's need to overcompensate on issues like guns, relative to crime or enforcement.
ReplyDeleteAnd don't forget "Stand and Deliver"*,...a dead black man.
Wish I could "like" this response.
DeleteInsanity, thy name is Florida.
ReplyDeleteAnd I should know---I live in Ohio.
I agree, I live in Florida but came from Ohio.
DeleteWhen I went to school it was regular Duck-and-Cover drills in case of nuclear attack. Those drills kept a generation from pushing aside the worry of being blown to smithereens by Commies, and the drills were normally unannounced. You know, because it's good for kids to think they're actually about to die.
ReplyDeleteIf those teachers had any balls, they would have immediately organized a district-wide strike in protest, and forced the police to pay for trauma counselors. Kids and teachers are not made safer by being terrorized and traumatized. Did the officers involved even spend time with the kids afterward talking them down and explaining the drill, critiquing what they did right and what they should do differently? Given the callous indifference of the entire adventure, I'm assuming 'No" is the answer to that question. This was all about police leadership making the decision to use real, live kids and teachers as training dummies to bring "realism" to a training exercise for police personnel. I hope at the very least there are parents who sue for the unnecessary infliction of trauma upon their kids.
It's time to put Animal Farm back on all the required school reading lists. Maybe the next generation will put an end to this insane media-driven cop worship that's gone on since 9/11 and herd the Pigs back into their pens. Damn, some days I miss the sixties.
You're not alone, 6:17 AM, I totally miss the sixties.
DeleteEspecially the music.
Indoctrination seems to be the order of the day. Get the kids used to the idea that it's perfectly OK for armed cops to come bursting through a door -- any door -- and they come out of it safe and sound. That makes it easier for them to accept that when the time comes and the cops come bursting through the door of their home that it's still perfectly OK. Big Brother will be in full control then.
ReplyDeleteI am stunned at the stupidity! What is gained by terrifying a bunch of middleschool kids? Parents and teachers and everyone else should be hitting the streets in protest! More than a few jobs should be lost over this. Starting with every idiot who thought it was a good idea.
ReplyDeleteThis was just another terrorist activity, with the terrorists being the police. It's just the way the state does things nowadays.
ReplyDeleteWhen done correctly, it is an excellent drill. It teachers the students and teachers how to not be passive victims. It teaches them how to fight back, what to use, and how to escape if possible. It really empowers them.
ReplyDeleteHmmmmmm. Empower huh?
DeleteHow can middle school kids "fight back" against someone armed to the teeth? Basically we are talking about a lockdown to keep everyone safe or escape routes. This was stupid. In a school with armed teachers someone would have been dead. And from what I know of the cops--- a kid could have dropped a book and scared the hell out of them. Of course the dead kid would have been the threat the cops had to take out and it more than likely would have been a black kid.
"teaches them to fight back"
DeleteIt almost sounds like you want a 6th grader to "fight back" when there is an active shooter. Fight back against an automatic gun? With what? A pencil? Last night's homework? Their lunch money?
There are not enough facepalms in the world to cover this. What idiot signed off on this idea? "Yeah, sending in armed swat into a school to LARP a shooter scenario sounds like a great idea! Naw, no worries, the kids will think it's great!"
ReplyDeleteSo our next wave of PTSD sufferers are going to be schoolkids...
Do they have an actual tornado for tornado drills? An actual fire for fire drills?
ReplyDeleteWhat is wrong with these people?!!! Don't they have kids? Do they want their 6th grader startled by gun a waving stranger? Does this kind of drill improve the learning environment?
If there was ever a drill that should have had an "opt out" choice for parents, this is it. These people are just using the kids to add realism while they play soldier (with big honking penis extenders).
Very fortunate that there wasn't one of those "the gun somehow discharged" incidents which are so regularly reported in the news with re: to so called "trained" personnel.
ReplyDeleteI work in a middle school. This should never have been done unannounced, and with children in the building. At my school we had the active shooter training with the police on one of our trainig days before school started, and we were told about new procedures including the fight back scenario. It doesn't include children fighting back. Kids are to be kept under cover and out of sight to the fullest extent possible. Teachers are the ones to be prepared to fight back-not with guns, but with other implements. Seconds count, so every type of impediment a shooter faces can mean saved lives. At the end of the training, we had a debriefing with the police.We hold regular drills for a variety of safety situations with kids present, but none involve invoking levels of terror. Whatever is wrong with Florida these days is clearly very deep, very pervasive, and very worrisome.
ReplyDelete