“Active Shooter” Drill – Naugatuck High School
Today (Thursday 2/25/16) the Naugatuck PD along with the staff and students of Naugatuck High School conducted an “Active Shooter” drill at Naugatuck High School.
Notices of the drill and information about how the drill would be conducted had been issued to all students and parents over the past few days leading up to today’s exercise. As with other drills such as fire drills practiced regularly by all Naugatuck schools, the “Active Shooter Drill” was conducted today at NHS to practice what would happen in a real situation and to help school administrators and first responders determine vulnerabilities and what changes to protocol and practice may need to take place.
The drill today took place during one class period this morning at about 10:45 AM and lasted approximately 12 minutes. The drill consisted of the use of several uniformed and plain clothes officers in the building during the drill. Like the students and staff at NHS the officers participating in the drill did not know the time of the drill or any details of the event in which they would need to encounter during the drill. Officers taking part in the drill were not armed during the drill but were equipped with facsimile training weapons during the entire exercise.
The training include an “intruder”, a police officer who was dressed in clearly identifiable clothing that was described and provided to all students and staff prior to the start of the drill. The “intruder” was also utilizing a facsimile training weapon and used a whistle to simulate gun shots. At no time during the drill were actual weapons used or simulated gun shots fired.
The results of the training today provided extremely valuable information to both the NHS staff and students and the officers of the NPD.