Cleveland Police and tactical unit sweep the building for the “suspect” during and active shooter drill Wednesday at White County Middle School. (Dean Dyer/WRWH)
(Cleveland)- Emergency and law enforcement officials got some special training Wednesday as part of an Active Shooter Drill at White County Middle School. Taking advantage of Spring Break, participating agencies converged on the scene. Officials from the White County School System, Cleveland Police Department, White County Sheriff’s Office, White County Public Safety, Cleveland Fire Department and Georgia Emergency Management-Homeland Security Agency worked together on the training scenario.
Cleveland Police Chief John Foster was the incident commander. He said there was great response from all agencies. Foster said, ”We’ve already spotted a couple of training issues that we’ll have to attend… all the guys, all the officers had body cameras on today, so we are anxious to actually look at that footage and see where we need to make some changes.”
Lisa LaPree, Assistant Professor of Nursing at Truett McConnell University had 38 students participating. She said they have a drill each spring at the school in which the students participate and they like helping out in the community.
White County Public Safety Director David Murphy said they will use the event to improve on their action. “That’s all part of an exercise, that’s why we do these to see where our deficiencies are and then correct those deficiencies,” said Murphy.
In addition to the active shooter incident, Cleveland Fire personnel were challenged with a simulated fire that was set in one of the student’s lockers. So, all participants had to deal with heavy smoke in the building during the drill.
