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Illinois School District Allows Students to Opt Out of “Active Shooter Drills”

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Parents Fear of Children Being Traumatized

Illinois Public Media
(September 10, 2019)

A Champaign Illinois school district is allowing students to be excused from school to avoid experiencing “active shooter drills” held on school grounds.

“The Champaign Unit 4 Board of Education clarified how parents can opt their students out of active shooter drills” at a September 9 meeting, Illinois Public Media reports. 

A new state law requires students participate in at least one active shooter drill during the first 90 days of the school year. The law allows school staff to exempt certain students from the drill at their discretion. 

Unit 4 board members opted to take the advice of the district’s legal counsel, and allow parents to take their children out of school during the drills, exempt students who are already exempted from fire and tornado drills, and provide accommodations for students with individualized education plans.

Parents at the meeting expressed concerns that the drills could traumatize both students and staff. Dianne Gordon, a Unit 4 parent, told board members that her seven-year-old daughter was “hysterical” following a hard lockdown drill at her elementary school last year. 

Orlando Thomas, director of achievement and student services at Unit 4, explained that parents would be informed ahead of time when the drills would occur at each school building. 

“I think we’ve done a lot to try to help the adults ease their reservation about the training,” Thomas said.

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Why Schools Should End Active Shooter Drills Immediately

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Evan Gerstmann
Forbes
(September 7, 2019)

School shooters represent a minuscule fraction of the risk to America’s schoolchildren. According to a 2018 Washington Post editorial, “the statistical likelihood of any given public school student being killed by a gun, in school, on any given day since 1999 was roughly 1 in 614,000,000.” According to a recent article in The Atlantic: “The Washington Post has identified fewer than 150 people (children and adults) who have been shot to death in America’s schools since the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School, in Colorado. Not 150 people a year, but 150 in nearly two decades.”

Nonetheless, 96% of America’s schools conduct lockdown drills meant to protect students from active shooters. These are required by state or local law in most cases.

The inordinate attention paid to a phenomenon that represents such a tiny proportion of the danger to school kids (a drop in the bucket compared to the danger they face from car accidents for example) can only be justified if one assumes that the psychological impact of these shootings on students is disproportionately great. But what if these lockdown drills are actually what is creating most of the anxiety?

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Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting: Questions and Anomalies

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by Vivian Lee

On Saturday morning, October 27, 2017, a mass shooting was reported at the Tree of Life synagogue in the Squirrel Hill region of Pittsburgh, PA. A suspect, Robert Gregory Bowers, was apprehended at the scene, after being wounded by SWAT officers. Before he was taken into custody, Bowers is said to have killed 11 of the congregants and injured six, including four members of the SWAT team that he engaged in two separate gun battles. Bowers was allegedly armed with “an AR-15-style assault rifle,” a Glock pistol, and two other handguns.

The officers who rushed to the scene came upon Mr. Bowers as he was trying to leave the synagogue. He fired at them, injuring one officer in the hand, according to the criminal complaint. Another officer had injuries to his face from shrapnel and broken glass. Mr. Bowers then darted back inside and ran up to the third floor.
At that point, a SWAT team went in and came upon the scene of the massacre. Two people were still alive and the police carried them out. As they were searching for other victims, SWAT officers encountered Mr. Bowers, who fired at them and critically injured two officers.
The remaining officers “engaged the suspect in a gun battle in which multiple rounds were exchanged,” the criminal complaint said. At some point in the shootout, Mr. Bowers was wounded, and he eventually surrendered to the police.[1]

Bowers reportedly entered the synagogue just before 10 am, and “the Allegheny County Emergency Operations center received calls of an active shooter at 9:54 am ET…Officers were dispatched at 9:55 am,” according to CNN. In all, Bowers is said to have been inside the synagogue for a full 20 minutes.

Continue reading Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting: Questions and Anomalies →

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Parents Protest Active Shooter Drill in Pennsylvania

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Blank Rounds Fired “To Expose Students to Sound of Gunfire”

Parents of children attending Bethel Park High School in southeastern Pennsylvania have protested the school and local police department’s firing of blank rounds during an active shooter drill, allegedly without the parents’ express consent.

KDKA CBS Pittsburgh reports:

At Bethel Park High School on Thursday, an active shooter drill is scheduled to get underway during an extended third period class.

This drill will include the sound of gunfire, but blanks will be fired, not real bullets. School Police and Bethel Park Police will conduct the exercise.

Nanette Adams has a son who just this year enrolled in the High School. She and some other parents contacted KDKA-TV News saying they were concerned about the drill; more specifically, the fact that blanks were bring used.

Continue reading Parents Protest Active Shooter Drill in Pennsylvania →

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US Classrooms Being Equipped with “Lockdown/Shelter in Place Buckets”

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Used For Emergency Supplies, Relief

The “Land of the Free, Home of the Brave” has reached a new nadir under corporate police state control. Walmart is among the entities behind a program to equip public schools with five gallon capacity “safety” or “lockdown” buckets for readiness in the event the facility’s inhabitants undergo martial law for an extended period of time. Taking a page from “preppers” often lampooned in major media, the vessels will be stocked with first aid supplies and foodstuffs, and can even be used as latrines.

The idea of “shelter in place buckets” was floated shortly after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland Florida on February 14, 2018, as the video below suggests.

Louisiana’s WAFB carries the syndicated story attributed to CNN:

With classroom shootings on the minds of many, one Michigan high school is trying to make their students feel safer.

Heidi Hummel and her classmates are gearing up for their senior year at Clio High School, but back-to-school prep has taken a more somber tone after recent school shootings.

This year at Clio, every classroom will have what’s called a “safety bucket.”

“We are unloading them and using them in the event, if we ever needed them, for a lock down,” Hummel said. “And we can have them for food and supplies if we were ever locked down for a long time.”

The buckets will go into every classroom in the school district. Assistant Principal Kevin Ayre said the school needs the public’s help to fill the buckets with potentially life-saving supplies.

“They’re going to be filled with gauze, bandages, water – you know, necessities in the situation where we have to be in a long-term lockdown,” Ayre said.

Walmart donated at least 144 of the buckets, and students and faculty said they’re great because in the case of an emergency they could use them as bathrooms as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIpvBvTFLXs

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Annapolis Shooting: Mayor Discusses Active Shooter Simulation on National Television

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Attended Drill, Spoke With Gazette Editor Minutes Before Shooting

This morning Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley pointed to the fact that there was an active shooter drill conducted by the city’s first responders less than one week before the Capital Gazette shooting, on June 22.

In a somewhat uncomfortable exchange on Fox&Friends, Annapolis’ mayor repeatedly glanced downward and stumbled through what appear to be a set of canned statements. He pointed to the fact that he conversed with the Capital Gazette‘s editor minutes before the event transpired, and further noted how he was present as the city’s police and fire departments rehearsed such a scenario one week ago.

“So many resources were thrown at this,” Buckley explained. “The fact that we had done … a drill … less than a week beforehand. And I had watched these guys come in and practice … Little did they know they would actually be doing that a week later.”

Buckley goes on to plead for mental health and gun control measures, in addition to the purported role social media (i.e. independent and uncensored information) may have played in the shooting.

These specific passages of the interview are transcribed verbatim below.

Fox&Friends: Joining us now is a mayor that probably didn’t get very much sleep last night, Gavin Buckley. Mr. Mayor sorry you’re going through this. Uh, what did you find when you got on the scene, and what could you tell our listeners and everybody—our viewers and everyone around the world, uh, what’s the latest with the shooter?

Buckley: So, uhm, we uh … I was speaking to the editor of the the Capital probably 20 minutes beforehand. That editor was not in the building when the shooter came in or he would have been dead I’m sure.

Uhm, he doesn’t go away very often. He works really hard. The journalists that lost their lives—all those journalists are like his children. He, uh, it’s going to be along time for his—him to recover.

Uh, we got the news, uh, we came straight to the scene. There were, uh, what felt like a hundred, uh, uh, em-em—emergency vehicles here.Uh, the situation was being addressed.

Th—so many resources were thrown at this. I don’t think there’s anything more but … I’m so proud of first responders, because I know, uh, that what they did saved lives.

And the fact that they got in there as fast as they did. The fact that we had done, uhm, a drill, uhm, less than a week beforehand. And I had watched these guys come in and practice. They stepped over simulated, uhm, victims, ah, headshots and, uhm, chest-shots and, and, and flesh wounds. They had to walk through—past those simulated victims, and had to go to the shooter and take the shooter down. Little did they know they would actually be doing that a week later.

Buckley repeated the usual litany of topics covered by public officials in the wake of most every mass shooting event over the past several years, while asking the public to empathize with local news outlets like the Gazette.

Buckley: We have to do something about these guys. We have to do something about mental health. We have to do something about gun control. We have to do something that stops, uh, society being so t–tightly wound.

This paper is not a left wing paper. It’s not a right wing paper. It’s a local paper that reports on local things. It reports on our kids sports teams. [It] reports on all the things that matter to us locally. There’s nothing this paper does that would offend you that much that you’d want to kill people.

Shortly thereafter Fox steered Buckley toward the alleged impact that commentary on social media has in precipitating such events.

Fox&Friends: But the thing is with the social media postings. Are you going to be part of a process that maybe reevaluates the threats that are online locally? Is there a way to do that? Is that something you’re going to focus on?

Buckley: I think it has to be, uh, definitely something we look into, because, uh, Chief Altamari’s talking about increasing resources to, uh, public safety for such things. We have to, uh, reevaluate how we, uh, prepare for these things. We have to be vigilant. We-we have to, uh, look for tell-tale signs and, you know, I think that what people, uh, uh, [are] so isolated now. They-they live in their silos and they sit in front of their screens, and they don’t get out there so you can’t tell [sic].

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Annapolis Capital Gazette Mass Shooting

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City of Annapolis First Responders Drilled For Event June 22

National news media today are proving wall-to-wall coverage of an apparent mass shooting event at the offices of the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis Maryland.

NBC’s Washington DC affiliate station reports:

Five people have died and several others are “gravely injured” after a shooting Thursday at the Capital Gazette newspaper building in Annapolis, Maryland, local and federal officials say.

The names of the dead were not released immediately.

The suspected shooter is 38-year-old Jarrod Ramos, three senior law enforcement officials briefed on the matter told NBC News. Anne Arundel County police declined to provide the suspect’s name.

The suspect threatened the community newspaper on social media, police department spokesman Lt. Ryan Frashure said in a briefing Thursay night.

“This individual had some type of vendetta against the Capital newspaper, and they were specifically targeted,” he said.

The suspect is in custody, and authorities are interrogating him, officials said.

The suspect obscured his fingerprints, making it difficult to identify him, two senior law enforcement officials told NBC News. But officials were able to identify him using facial recognition software, multiple officials said. County police declined to comment on any use of those methods.

Mainstream news media employees are blaming President Trump’s criticism of “fake news media” for the event, according to the Washington Examiner,

Along these lines there are attempts to link the event to recent remarks made by political provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos.

You’re about to see a raft of news stories claiming that I am responsible for inspiring the deaths of journalists. The…

Posted by Milo Yiannopoulos on Thursday, June 28, 2018

Of course, these same corporate media outlets and personnel will keep from their readers the fact that, perhaps coincidentally, an active shooter drill took place in at St. Mary’s High School in Annapolis less than one week ago, as the Capital Gazette itself reported on its website June 22.

As MHB has repeatedly observed, in the fake news era the everyday spectator watching such a drill unfold on national television would be hard pressed to be able to distinguish between such a readiness exercise and a “real” event.

(Click to enlarge image)

In a video posted with the above report, for example, Annapolis fireman Ken White narrates the active shooter drill that took place just last week on St. Mary’s campus.

“With the increase of active shooter incidents we’re seeing we–the city has determined that it is important for us to hold this training,” White explains, “so that in the event that something may happen we’ll be well-prepared.”

Annapolis firefighters Ken White briefs Capital Gazette readers on the active shooter drill held June 22, 2018.

The City of Annapolis Police and Fire Departments held an active shooter drill June 22, 2018 at St. Mary’s High School.

A drill being held by local law enforcement and emergency response agencies has been a repeated occurrence at Annapolis and numerous mass shooting events over the past several years, indeed ever since the number of such incidents exploded under the Obama administration.

H/t Tony Mead

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