With Putnam County students returning to school in about two weeks, local law enforcement officers underwent training Monday to learn more about school shootings, the type of person who might be a school shooter and to tour each of the county’s public schools and discuss their operational response.
Putnam County Charter School System School Safety Director Ken Vance and Putnam County Sheriff Howard Sills developed the training and created a “PCCSS Active School Shooter Training” binder for each law enforcement officer in the county and city.
Eatonton Police Chief Howell Cardwell and Eatonton police officers joined the sheriff’s deputies in the training. Cardwell said his department will assist the sheriff’s office if such an event arises, whether it is in the city limits or in the county.
Vance said he also will be training and working with school personnel to prepare them for such an event, as well as to recognize and initiate intervention to prevent one.
The day-long training began at Putnam County Sheriff’s Office in the conference room, where the group watched Retro Report documentaries on the past school shootings in the U.S.
The video revealed that, overall, homicides in schools are not on the increase, but are essentially flat across the decades.
“There are over 300 shootings every day in the U.S., and almost none of those are in schools,” Vance said. “But even though the number of school shootings is a small number and are rare, it’s still shocking and tragic when it happens, and generates intense media coverage.”
The intense media coverage may be one of the instigators of other shootings, Vance said, because the shooters are receiving their 15 minutes of fame. He noted that many news networks no longer focus on the shooter, but instead focus on the victims.
“In the video, they used the word ‘aggrandizement,’” Sills said. “I like that term because I guarantee if I ask people around town today if they know Ricky Dubose’s name, they do; but they can’t tell me the names of the two officers he killed.” He referred to a prison inmate who shot and killed two Department of Corrections officers – Sgt. Curtis Billue and Sgt. Chris Monica – five years ago in Putnam County.
Vance noted that many street shootings are due to gang violence, “but the only problem we’ve had with gangs here in Putnam have been with gangs from other places who were visiting in Putnam,” he said.
The mass school shootings have not been due to gang violence, but individuals, he said. He discussed the profiles of each shooter, followed by the correct operational response to stop the killing.
The group then went and toured each of the schools in Putnam County Charter School System. As they toured, they followed a printed school floor plan that was included in their binders and marked notes on them as they went along.
Each officer was seen inspecting all the aspects of every room and hallway, making verbal observations and asking questions. When they discovered an exterior door propped open at the high school, one of the deputies suggested a solution to that problem, to which Vance said “that’s a good idea, I’ll tell them.”
Sills said they will continue to hold sessions for the officers and deputies to familiarize themselves with the school facilities and grounds, and the correct operational procedures.
“I want the parents, school personnel, and community to know that we are working to keep them and their children safe,” he said. “I don’t expect anything to happen; but if it does, we will not be caught off guard.”