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Active Shooter Drill at Local Jr. High School Offers Realistic Training For Officers, First Responders, and Educators

On Friday, July 15th, the Cape Girardeau Police Department in partnership with Cape Girardeau Public Schools, conducted an active shooter drill at Cape Central Junior High School.

This training scenario allowed for Cape Girardeau Fire Rescue Squad and he Cape Girardeau Police Department to gain useful real-life experience in the situation.

KRCU Public Radio was at the drill, and spoke with Public Information Officer Ryan Droege, about the goals of the public safety departments and how this helps them prepare.

"Any time you get the chance to do real-world stuff where you're in the actual environment, anytime you can get sort of as close to real-world as you can it's always great for any sort of training", said Droege.

The scenario also involved administrators for the public Junior High to act as casualties, and even run through the responses as they would happen in real life.

Josh Crowell, the Assistant Superintendent for Support Services at Cape Girardeau Public Schools shared his perspective about the process.

"This is an asset that we're very fortunate to have... 20 years ago [in] the schools, this wasn't at the forefront of our mind, and in this day and age unfortunately it is. [SIC] So having, an excellent partnership with the Cape Girardeau Police Department and Fire Department, we're able to help provide facilities and certain assets... and we just want them to have the best training scenarios that they can", said Mr. Crowell.

He continued to speak about the importance of this stark training. "So, if the decisions they need to be made have already been gone through, and we can hopefully have a peaceful end or no event that would end in a loss of life for any of our staff or students or community members", Mr. Crowell stated.

These training scenarios happen approximately once a month and allow for the officers and first responders to be as well trained as possible.

Senior, Historic Preservation Major and the Vice President of Historic Preservation Association