SEQUIM — In an active shooter situation, it’s not necessary to be polite.
That was one of the messages delivered by Jesus Villahermosa Jr. of Crisis Reality Training at Sequim High School on Thursday.
Asking students to behave civilly when confronted with a gunman or other active threat is a mistake, he said.
“We need to stop thinking civilly during an uncivil event,” said Villahermosa, who retired from the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office as a sergeant and member of their SWAT team several years ago.
“The one and only focus once someone pulls a trigger should be survival, no matter what.”
School district staff and members of the community were given suggestions about handling active shooter or active lethal threat situations at a school in two sessions in the high school auditorium.
“There’s no perfect plan for these situations,” Villahermosa said. “But there are better plans than what most school districts have now.
“Most of what schools teach and plan for since the 1950s is just going to put more people in danger.”
Much of Villahermosa’s presentation was focused on two things: dispelling decades’ worth of myths with information from numerous studies by the FBI, Secret Service, and various major universities and providing information that he says can save lives.
According to the ex-SWAT officer, issues start with how lockdown drills are performed at schools.
“We tell the teachers when the drill will be,” Villahermosa said. “So what do you do? When that class period starts, you lock your door, you put down your blinds, and you don’t let students leave before the drill.
“And what do I almost always see when I’m observing these drills? Teachers keep teaching their curriculum during the drill.”
Villahermosa recommended that teachers be told what day a drill will be, but not the time, and emphasized that the drill should be treated as if it were a real-life situation.
He suggested having drills during passing periods between classes as, statistically, shootings are more likely to happen then.
Some tactics that have been used are just plain wrong, he said.
Turning out room lights, pulling fire alarms or hiding on the side of the room opposite the door all have been shown to add to potential casualties in past shootings.
Trying to keep students corralled and emphasizing things such as staying on school grounds and roll calls are counter-productive and dangerous, Villahermosa said.
“If they want to run in a threat situation, let them,” he said.
“It’s the [Emergency Operations Command’s] responsibility to track them down, and they will. It’s not on the school district at that point, and trying to keep kids on-campus could put their lives at risk.”
The presentation included recommendations for more effective systems of initiating a lockdown, such as blue LED lights specifically used for lockdowns, and a pre-recorded lockdown message for the PA system that can be triggered by any teacher calling a specific phone number and entering a short code, instead of relying on specific administrators to be on-hand as many current systems require.
Members of the community were told in an evening session of the seminar that it’s very important not to rush to a campus to check on their children.
“First responders need to focus on the situation,” Villahermosa said. “If people are coming to try and get to their kids, it’s going to split their attention and slow them down, and that could cost lives.”
Villahermosa and Crisis Reality Training also provide student assembly seminars to help better prepare students for the potential of these lethal situations, as well as site surveys for schools to assess their potential risks and areas they can improve on for security and incident response.
While the district doesn’t currently have Villahermosa to return to perform these services, plans are in the works to do so.
“We plan on bringing him in,” interim superintendent Rob Clark said Friday.
“It just might not be as soon as we’d like. He’s a very busy man. We just have to get through the scheduling problem. Our goal is to have him back here before Thanksgiving.”
Dan Orr, assistant chief of Clallam County Fire District 3, attended the training and appreciated what Villahermosa had to say.
“Trainings like this are long overdue in this part of the world,” Orr said.
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Conor Dowley is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. Reach him at cdowley@sequimgazette.com.
