MSU students relied on active shooter training
EAST LANSING, Mich. — When texts began coming in about a shooter at Michigan State University, training that many students started receiving as schoolchildren automatically kicked in.
They ran. They found a place to hide. They locked and barricaded the doors. They turned out the lights. Then they waited as a gunman who killed three students and wounded five more eluded police for some three hours.
They are part of a generation that has grown up with active shooter drills. Schools and districts across the U.S. implemented such training after a 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, that killed 20 children and six educators.
The first lockdown Michigan State junior James Cameron remembers was in elementary school, when there was a shooting a block away. Cameron said he’s participated in drills ever since.
“First, we were taught to be quiet. Run. And then to
fight if you are caught,” he said.
Many school districts useALICEtraining,which stands for alert, lockdown, inform, counter and evacuate.
Fighting back is encouraged as a final option. Students and educators are taught to use scissors, pencils, pens, books, fire extinguishers and any other items they can find as weapons.
All of the people shot were students. The gunman, 43-year-old Anthony McRae, later killed himself miles away after being confronted by police.
For some students, it was not their first experience with a mass shooting. A few attended Oxford High School, near Detroit, where four teens were killed on Nov. 30, 2021.