First responders prepare for the worst: an active shooter

Saturday was the day local police agencies practiced for the worst: an active shooter at an east St. Mary school.

On Monday, police completed the exercise with a tabletop session and a mock press conference.
The events coincided with a series of unfounded threats — on social media, written on a school desk and called in to Morgan City police — that began Sept. 15. Although the threats
turned out to be baseless, they led to evacuations, lockdowns or both in Morgan City, Patterson and Berwick.

Planning for the active shooter training began before the threats, said St. Mary Parish Sheriff’s Office spokesman David Spencer.

“Last week was last week,” Spencer said Monday. “Oh, Lord, it was something.”

Saturday’s drill, which involved Acadian Ambulance and most of the law enforcement and emergency service agencies in the parish, was no more real than the threats. But it was realistic and with higher stakes.

The mock press conference was designed to test the media relations portion of an active shooter response, and local reporters were invited to the Emergency Operations Center to take part.

Lt. John Schaff, the Morgan City Police Department public information officer, took the podium Monday to announce that a man — Eric Peterson, 32 — broke into Morgan City High through a glass window. The shooter was armed with two AR-15 assault-style rifles and lots of ammunition, Schaff said.
In this scenario, Peterson started shooting. Police reported multiple fatalities and wounded survivors before the gunman was killed by police on the school’s second floor soon after officers arrived.

Then Lt. Billy Chapman of the Berwick Police Department gave a similar account of a shooting at Berwick High, but with fewer details. In the Berwick shooting, the suspect’s name and the nature of the weapons weren’t specified.

The discussion there centered on how much information should be released as reporters descend on St. Mary to cover what is sure to be a national story. The consensus was that only confirmed information should be released, and that a mere ID card in a pocket might not be enough to constitute confirmation.

Anyone who has watched coverage of a school shooting will know about the law enforcement role. Less obvious are the parts played by other agencies, including in this case the Morgan City Fire Department. Firefighters have responsibility for tending to wounds and stabilizing the wounded to prepare them for transport to hospitals.

Morgan City Fire Chief Alvin Cockerham took the podium to field those questions. Then it was the turn of St. Mary Superintendent Dr. Teresa Bagwell, who\ explained that all public schools have crisis plans.

And each crisis plan designates a reunification site for each school. For Morgan City High, that’s Franklin Senior High.

Bagwell explained that surviving students who don’t require medical treatment will be bused to FSHS. Parents will be notified that they can pick up students in Franklin or that students will be bused to their homes.

Sheriff’s Office Lt. 1st Class Oscar West, a school resource officer, was encouraged by the way officers responded to the training and the level of cooperation.

“It would be a chaotic event,” West said. “But out of chaos has to come order. … When you have to deal with events like this, egos are put to the side.”

The last of the school threats last week was part of what appears to be a string of hoaxes that plagued law enforcement and school administrations from Oregon to Virginia.

The call came in to the Morgan City Police Department about 1 p.m. Thursday, warning of a shooter on the second floor of the school, and then mentioning Berwick High and Berwick Junior High, the MCPD said.

Berwick police were notified, and Morgan City public and private schools were locked down. The threat was quickly identified as a hoax.

Berwick’s Chapman praised the Morgan City response.

“We never called Morgan City for assistance,” Chapman said. “They did it on their own.”

The St. Mary Parish Sheriff’s Office said Louisiana State Police had reported that similar hoaxes appeared in at least 10 states in the previous week.