OPINION Protecting against the unthinkable

LAURA MCFARLAND Managing Editor

The shock that overtook my body when the first gunshots sounded floored me. Moments earlier, I was talking lightheartedly with a member of Powhatan Fire and Rescue and asking a few questions about what I might expect in the minutes to follow.

I had already attended an active shooter training event last summer on a much smaller scale involving the breach of a single classroom at Powhatan Middle School, but that experience, while impressive, didn’t begin to touch the breadth of involvement of the event held on Jan. 29 at Powhatan Elementary School.

In reality, nothing he said would have given me the full scope of what was to come over the next hour.

A little after 9 a.m., the call came over the school’s announcement system that the active shooter training exercise being put on by Powhatan Sheriff’s Office and Fire and Rescue was about to start.

Knowing where the “shooter” was, and seeking to observe and photograph with as little impact on the exercise as possible, I stationed myself nearby where two hallways intersected, entirely visible no matter where deputies might be coming from and clearly set apart in a bright blue safety vest with Observer written on it.

I was there at that intersection with a safety helmet on and my camera at the ready, looking down at the empty school hallways with bright, joyful art on the walls. Then the shots rang out and everything in my body revolted at THAT sound in THIS place, regardless of whether it was only a training exercise.

Don’t get me wrong; I am glad our local first responders were there that Sunday morning running through a full scenario of responding to a mass casualty event. I pray to God they never need to take those actions in real life, but the fact that they were willing to participate – to gain that experience, to look for the areas of response and cooperation that need to be tightened up – is amazing and deserving of the entire community’s respect. No, it was the act itself, the idea of another shooter at another school, especially a school in my community where I know so many teachers and students, that hit so hard in that moment.

But then it was moving forward, as I watched the initial responding deputy attempt to eliminate the shooter and end up incapacitated/killed in the scenario instead. Minutes later, a group of deputies came down the same hallway, rounded the same corner and were able to eliminate him.

For many people, in their minds, that is where the exercise stops. But of the hour-long exercise that was held, that took well under 10 minutes. The work wasn’t done. It was a single-shooter exercise, but they didn’t know that. Nor would law enforcement in a real situation know for certain that the entire threat had been eliminated.

Volunteer actors who also gave up their mornings to participate were assigned to classrooms and bathrooms in that section of the school that the deputies then started to sweep. Some were unharmed and were simply hiding from the threat. As the deputies cleared the