Crazy News That No One Saw Coming: Active School Shooter Drill Goes Terribly

An active shooter drill went too far at an Indiana elementary school, drawing real blood, and causing true trauma for the teachers playing victim, according to a lawsuit filed this month against the sheriff’s office that put on the mock exercise.

Teachers at Meadowlawn Elementary School came to work Jan. 4, 2019, aware of the planned training, but not what the White County Sheriff’s Office had in store, the lawsuit says.

The training included: high-velocity plastic pellets fired at point-blank range, breaking skin, leaving scars; screaming, expletives, and verbal abuse, according to the suit.

“The teachers displayed obvious signs of anguish and physical pain, but were humiliated to find the law enforcement officers joking and laughing at them,” the suit states.

Teachers were taken in groups and, on their knees, repeatedly “executed” by officers using Airsoft pellet guns -- which fire small plastic BBs at several hundred feet per second, the lawsuit says.

“This is what happens when you just cower and do nothing,” one of the officers said, as he walked back and forth along the line of kneeling teachers, shooting them at point-blank “until his gun ran out of bullets,” according to the lawsuit.

Full story here.

I mean.. it’s typically pretty easy to fuck something up when it’s the most sensitive subject matter in the world and you’re a fucking dumbshit about it. And thus, here we are.

Beside the elephant in the room of “WHY DO WE NEED ACTIVE SHOOTER DRILLS in the first place?” The big thing that comes to mind on this one is, is this really the best way to train people for a situation like this? 

Lockdown drills? Definitely. Active shooter drills? If we must. Police officers executing teachers with pellet guns? I’d give that a firm no. I think when you’re approaching an active shooter drill, your best, let me rephrase that, the only way to do it well is with a modicum of awareness and decency. Asking questions like, “How do we do this without going too far?” or “What should we not do?” or my personal favorite, and arguably in the running the for most important, “how do we prevent giving people PTSD?” Well the White County Sheriff’s Office did none of these. 

From a purely objective standpoint, removing all of the snickering, laughing, and all around fuckery that was allegedly displayed by those paid by our taxes to protect us, what advantage does holding mock executions offer? If you get to that point, the drill has failed. It’s like if I’m teaching my future son how to drive, and possibly prepare for an accident. I’m teaching him how to break, which side of the road to aim for, and how to break a window. I’m not teaching him how to drag my dead body from the wreckage so teach him “this is what happens…” No. I’d do that if my son was a shithead who I never wanted to get behind the wheel again. But I’ll reserve inflicting trauma on that level for really special occasions. The point of this is to have teachers feel safer in classrooms. The point is not to make the traumatic moment for teachers the moment we were teaching them to prepare for the traumatic moment.

All in all, I’m not sure how to grade this. I’m definitely giving this an F for effort because it was an awful idea of epic proportions, but do I give this an A for execution (no pun intended) because it was done in the best way possible to show what a terrible idea it was? I don’t know. I think I’m probably in the majority of Americans where I say I’m pretty disappointed with things right now. We can have issues. Terrible, dumb, unnecessary issues that we need to find a way to solve. Like people shooting schools. We need to find a way to solve that. But, it’s important to remember we don’t need to total asshats while looking for a solution (cough cough White County Sheriff’s Office). As I always say it’s better to not be perfect, than to not be perfect and also fuck it up terribly.