How police prepare for active shooters at a Conn. school
SOUTH WINDSOR — Less than a month after a mass shooter in Uvalde, Texas killed 19 students and two teachers, a Connecticut police department is running active shooter drills in a former elementary school.
Like many departments in the state, South Windsor police have been doing such training since well before Uvalde. They try to conduct them every few years, most recently in a vacant school that gives them a realistic setting many towns and cities lack — stairs to climb and a long, narrow hallway full of rooms to check in pursuit of a gunman they hope never exists.
“You really can get very close to a real-life scenario,” said Sgt. Mark Cleverdon, department spokesperson and training coordinator.
Inside active shooting drills at the former Orchard Hill Elementary School last week, officers used simulated ammunition, called “simunition,” in real guns that are painted blue to set them apart from weapons with live ammo.
For even more protection, no real guns are allowed in the building during training. Trainers even checked Chief Kristian Lindstrom for his service pistol as the chief put up his hands to show his empty holster.
The simulation contains colored laundry detergent so officers who have been “shot” will bear the telltale signs, like a scarlet letter.
Of course, there’s another sign that’s obvious to the officer on the receiving end of gunfire.
“It hurts,” Cleverdon said.
One thing that’s not realistic is helmets. Trainees wear the headgear with safety glasses and thick, protective fabric Velcroed to them during active shooter training to protect their heads, eyes and necks.
Checking classrooms for danger
Officers spent part of the day practicing how to check rooms to be sure they’re safe, a process called “clearing.”
During the drills, two officers made their way down a hallway, pointing rifles in front of them. Before they go into a classroom, one pointed his gun down the hallway while the other pointed in the opposite direction. Once they were in the room, one checked the left half while the other checked the right. On the way out, they do the same thing, with each pointing their gun in a different direction.
Officers have to move a certain way to stay out of harm’s way. They can’t move too fast, but they can’t move too slowly, either, Cleverdon said. They can’t linger in the doorway, which would make them an easy target.
“It’s a very systematic act,” Cleverdon said.
“They’re really deliberate.”
Lindstrom added that while every movement is planned, “it also has to be very fluid. You have to be able to change, to adapt.”
That’s what Deputy Chief Brian Eckblom had to do when he ran out of ammunition — or simunition — during an active shooter drill. He had to reload his rifle with a new magazine while trying not to expose himself to gunfire. He briefly took cover behind an open classroom door, clicked it in and was on the move again.
An armed burglar lurks
One scenario involved a break-in where no one was supposed to be inside the building.
Handguns drawn, two officers, Eckblom and Officer Peggy Sue Clouser, carefully walked down the hallway, checking rooms as a shrill burglary alarm pierced the silence, thanks to the cellphone app of Cpl. Chris Poehnert, a trainer. The trainers don’t tell the officers where a burglar may lurk, or if there is more than one.
The pair encountered a burglar, Sgt. Stephen Hoover, in the right corner of a room and Clouser yelled for him to show his hands and get down on the floor, which he did amid protest.
At the same time, Eckblom checked the left side of the room and found a second burglar kneeling behind a desk; he commanded him to show his hands as well.
The second burglar was Poehnert. He said Eckblom spotted him quickly enough to avoid being shot.
“I don’t think I would have had a chance to get a shot off,” Poehnert said.
The scenario didn’t have the same ending for the next pair of officers. Both focused exclusively on the first burglar until Poehnert — Burglar No. 2 — fired his simunition round at the floor near the second cop to get his attention, prompting him to return fire.