Washington County Enterprise-Leader
Farmington Police Recommend New Policy For Active Shooter Crisis
FARMINGTON — The Farmington Police Department is working with all schools in the Farmington School District to change the policy when it comes to dealing with an active shooter or intruder on campus.
“Some of the things we’ve told you in the past, we don’t necessarily agree with anymore,” said Chad Parrish, school resource officer, leading a training workshop at Ledbetter Intermediate School with John Luther, director of Washington County Emergency Management.
The district’s current policy tells teachers to lock their doors, turn out the lights in the room and hide somewhere in the room.
“You’re locking your doors and hiding in a corner and waiting for your turn to be shot,” Parrish said. “The problem is that too many kids are dying while you are waiting for law enforcement to show up.”
Parrish, Luther and police Chief Brian Hubbard attended an active shooter or “active killer” training called ALICE and decided to bring the training to Farmington. Parrish will recommend the new policy to the Farmington School Board at its Sept. 23 meeting.
ALICE stands for alert, lockdown, inform, counter and evacuate and the acronym doesn’t necessarily mean that teachers and students should follow a certain order when an emergency situation arises.
If an active shooter is on campus or in a building, the first thing to do is to alert someone at the school about the intruder and then call 911 as soon as possible, Parrish said.
If the safest place is the classroom, Parrish said students and teachers should go to their rooms and barricade the door with whatever is available. This could mean chairs, desks, tables or file cabinets. Staff can wrap a belt or extension cord around the door knob to prevent someone from opening the door.
“Locks are ineffective,” Luther said.
An intruder could kick in the door or break the window in the door, reach through the broken glass and unlock the door.
If the shooter is inside the school, students can crawl out a classroom window, evacuate the building and run to safety.
Parrish said “inform” in ALICE means that someone in the school needs to let everyone else know what’s going on. This could be through intercom or cell phone and using the schools’ security cameras to determine the location of a shooter. Previously, schools would use code words to alert teachers to a suspect on campus. Parrish said ALICE training recommends using plain language and giving out as much information as possible.
“Counter” means that students or teachers might try to distract the shooter, if that’s one of the options necessary for survival. To counter, teachers or students can grab the suspect, throw items at the shooter, yell at the suspect and run around so they are a moving target. Staplers, chairs, pencils, books, cups of coffee and lunch trays are some items that could be thrown at the suspect.
For example, if an intruder comes to the cafeteria, students may not be able to escape from the building or run to a classroom. If the shooter gets into a classroom, students and teachers will have to protect themselves.
“You want to disrupt the ability for them to hit someone,” Parrish said.
Luther said statistics from school shootings show that four students are killed per minute. If students or teachers can delay a shooter from getting into a room or distract an intruder for 30 seconds, “we’ll save two students,” Luther said.
Other statistics show that when a shooter faces opposition, the intruder will commit suicide 46 percent of the time, Luther added.
“This crime of an active shooter in a school is not necessarily about killing but being in control,” Parrish said. “If we cower down and lock down, we’re playing right into their hands.”
Parrish said the response of teachers and principals during the training surprised him. So far, he’s conducted workshops at Ledbetter, Lynch Middle School and the high school. The reaction of the teachers showed him that they were willing to protect each other and their students, Parrish said.
Terry Lakey, Lynch principal, said he likes the new approach because it gives teachers and students options in dealing with an active shooter situation.
“I’ve never been one to sit and wait and watch what happens and hope for the best,” Lakey said, adding, “The idea of being able to defend and fight back is very appealing to me.”
Lakey said the approach, if approved by the school board, would take some work and some common sense and carries a certain liability either way. Teachers and administrators will have to use the best information available in deciding if students should stay in their room for safety or evacuate the building for safety, Lakey said.
“Hopefully, it never comes up here,” Lakey said.
Farmington High teacher Clint Scrivner said the training “definitely taught us some stuff that I hadn’t thought of.” During the hands-on training, he acted as an active shooter. He said he wasn’t able to get into any of the rooms because teachers barricaded their doors and used extension cords to prevent him from opening up a door.
Parrish encouraged the teachers and administrators to come up with a safe meeting place and said school officials need to continue to look at other security measures. If the board approves the new policy, Parrish said the next step would be to work with students so they would know what to do.