Denville school shooter drill goes beyond lockdown

DENVILLE – Rockaway Officer Scott Haigh ripped off his belt and wrapped it around the doorknob on the inside of room B23 at Valleyview Middle School as others stacked desks, chairs, and tables behind a door to prevent a shooter from entering the room.

Haigh, a school resource officer at Morris Hills High School, pulled tightly on the belt, successfully stopping the shooter from getting inside the room. It was a much more successful tactic then the one they tried before, when the classroom occupants hid silently in the corner – "lockdown mode" - and the shooter entered without incident, firing freely once inside.

The simulations were just a few completed by about 40 area police officers, educators, and business owners who gathered at Valleyview Middle School Tuesday and Wednesday for ALICE - Alert Lockdown Inform Counter Evacuate – a national security training program.

National ALICE instructor James Jennings led the two-day program in Denville, which was hosted by the township's police department and board of education. Officers from Denville, Rockaway, Kinnelon, Mountain Lakes, were among the day's participants.

"This is to teach civilians how to survive before law enforcement gets there, because things are already transpiring by the time they arrive," Jennings said. "There is no right way to react, we're just giving options. Not to make people paranoid, but to get them to think what to do when or if something happens."

Chief Christopher Wagner took the ALICE training last December with Denville Superintendent Steven Forte and connected with the idea of empowering teachers to take action when a standard lockdown may not be the best option.

"In law enforcement, you're only as good as the last horrible event," Wagner said. "After seeing the horror of Sandy Hook, we realized we weren't doing anything bad, but we could do better."

Wagner said though he hopes the training encourages people to weigh their options in a potential "active shooter" event, that doesn't mean a standard lockdown isn't still a viable option in many scenarios.

"I think Morris County has nearly mastered the lockdown," Wagner said. "But we've got to move on and learn more."

While the first day of the Denville training focused about instruction, the second day featured active simulations.

"The training provides options," Jennings said. "It reinforces the lockdown people are taught with, say, setting up a barricade by improvising what's in the room like desks and cords."

The shooter in the simulation fired small white plastic pellets at those in the simulations, who were all wearing protective masks.

Even though the training took place in a school, Jennings said it applies to different settings, including workplaces, grocery stores, and hospitals, which is why representatives from St. Clare's Health System were invited to participate.

"We believe that both our community and our hospital benefit from these training exercises," St. Clare's spokesperson Stephanie Galloway said.

Jennings said that police officers, faculty members, and business owners all took the training together because it allows them to collaborate and understand what they might be thinking prior to meeting in an actual incident.

"Building those relationships ahead of time gets them to ask the question, 'what would they do?'" Jennings said. "Sitting still isn't enough, which is what a lockdown is. ALICE provides options. The problem is we've never been given permission to take action until now."

Teams of about a dozen people were put through various scenarios from a traditional lockdown to barricading a classroom with a shooter in the hallway.

"Sometimes hiding is the best thing to do, but other times it may be setting up a barricade or evacuating. Things have changed since Columbine and we need to start evolving," Jennings said. "People need to know there are options. We're not telling people to do something, we're empowering them to make their own decisions. Should they evacuate, should they counter instead of sitting still in the corner."

Lakeview Elementary School Vice Principal Evan Scala played the role of the shooter and then a victim in the classroom and found the exercises informative.

"It's about modifying what we currently have, giving teachers choices," Scala said. "Empowering them to make decisions in their own classrooms, whether that's evacuating or barricading as opposed to a typical lockdown, shutting the door and turning the lights off."

Scala said it takes eight minutes to get from Denville Police headquarters to Lakeview, and faculty need to know they can make decisions in those crucial minutes before they arrive.

Kinnelon Lt. Joseph Napoletano said the training afforded him a different perspective.

"On the law enforcement side, we're the ones going in the door when something like this happens," Napoletano. "I liked the thinking outside the box, not sitting around and waiting, encouraging people to stay active and pre-plan to think about what could be used in your room as a barricade."

In between scenarios, Jennings discussed how things went with participants. One pointed discussion weighed the pros and cons of allowing people to evacuate into a hallway when there is still a shooter in the building.

Haigh said he liked giving people options, including evacuating through a window and barricading a room, but was not sold on trying to evacuate into a hallway with a potential shooter on the move in the building.

When the shooter spontaneously broke up that hallway discussion, participants instantly put the day's training to work. Some barricaded themselves inside a classroom and others made their way to the nearest exit. After the shooter passed the classroom, two police officers exited the room and tackled the shooter to the ground.

Forte said Denville was the only site to train in ALICE so far in northern New Jersey.

"When the school district staff and local police team up to enhance the district security for staff and students is always a good thing," Forte said. "This program is really a common sense approach to active shooter drills and it allows the staff members to think and improvise. I like to say it is lockdown 2.0."

Forte said the move toward the "lockdown 2.0" methodology is a multi-year project, and the staff who attended the ALICE training will be certified to train others in the district.

Those who attended the training will take what they learned and share it with their schools, police departments, and employees. Wagner said he envisions his three school resource officers – who all attended the ALICE training – sharing it with teachers at respective schools, and at some point potentially drilling with students.

"Now they will be empowered to do more than the traditional lockdown," Wagner said. They know it's OK to do something, anything to save lives or reduce injury. Whether it's fight, or run, or barricade themselves."

Wagner hopes the training will quickly result in meetings to develop a plan for training in the school district.

"The hope is, terribly, to reduce a body count in an event like this," Wanger said. "That the next active shooter is less than the one before it, instead of the other direction."

Go to http://www.alicetraining.com/ to learn more.

Staff Writer Michael Izzo: 973-428-6636; mizzo@GannettNJ.com