(From left) Josh Brumfield, Deputy Superintendent of Logan County Schools; School Resource Officer and Logan County Deputy, Derrick Miller; and Brian Brown with the Capitol Police School Safety Division joined WVOW's Aaron Stone for a conversation on school preparedness.
Robert Fields | WVOW News
LOGAN The Logan County Schools system, as well as local and state law enforcement, are preparing to conduct drills across several facilities next week to simulate active threat scenarios.
Schools participating in an active threat drill on Tuesday, October the eighth, include Logan High, Middle and Elementary Schools as well as Justice, Holden, Omar and Verdunville Elementary. The Ralph R. Willis Career and Technical Center will also be participating.
"We say, you know, it’s practice. If you’re going to make a mistake, let’s make it in practice." - Deputy Superintendent for Logan County Schools, Josh Brumfield
On Friday’s edition of “What’s Your Opinion,” special guests in the studio were Deputy Superintendent for Logan County Schools Josh Brumfield, Chapmanville Regional High School’s School Resource Officer and Logan County Sheriff’s Deputy Derrick Miller and Brian Brown, with the West Virginia Capitol Police School Safety Unit.
Deputy Superintendent Brumfield says these active threat drills are an invaluable resource for, not only the law enforcement officers and other personnel who respond to emergency situations in schools, but also for the students. In an emergency, according to Brumfield, knowing the proper procedures in an active threat situation can make every difference.
“We don’t do these for punitive reasons. We say, you know, it’s practice. If you’re going to make a mistake, let’s make it in practice,” he told WVOW’s Aaron Stone.
“Truly, the reason why we do them is to assure that everyone – just like a fire drill – you know, students understand when that alarm goes off, it’s a very methodical process. Students know how to react, teachers know how to react, emergency service personnel knows how to react and, while we can never get to a point that we can prevent a real threat, we can better prepare ourselves in an instance that we do have a real threat.”
So, don’t be immediately alarmed if you see flashing lights and a large presence of law enforcement at your student’s school, as local sheriff’s departments, State Police and the Capitol Police School Safety Unit plan to hold active threat drills in school districts across the state. Those agencies are working to ensure every person within the state’s school systems knows how to properly respond not only to active threats, but also to perceived or potential security concerns.
Just last month, Chapmanville Regional High School was the subject of a massive response from law enforcement after an erroneous call to Logan County 911 reported an active threat that did not exist. On September thirteenth, Chapmanville Regional’s School Resource Officer Derrick Miller was performing his regular morning routine at the High School when he said he received a phone call from another officer alleging that an active shooter was either inside or outside of the school property. Miller said that’s when his training kicked in.
“I ran by the assistant principal's office and I said, ‘initiate lockdown.’ And she’s like ‘what,’ and I was like, ‘initiate lockdown,’ and it was real for her at that moment too,” Deputy Miller told WVOW’s Aaron Stone. “So we did go into lockdown.”
“I went outside. I didn’t see anything or hear anything outside and, by that time, you know, I’m coming back inside to clear my building. I do a training at the state level for the prevention resource officers. I tell them in that training that statistics show that within three minutes, you know your backup’s going to arrive, and that day – even though it was Friday the 13th – everything worked out great for me. I had two officers show up on scene within the first three minutes; we’re inside the school clearing the school, trying to find this reported threat,” he said.
Brian Brown with the Capitol Police School Safety Unit also responded to Chapmanville that day. With Chapmanville area schools all located within a mile of one another, he said every officer’s top priority was keeping every student safe.
“After they were done clearing the school to make sure there wasn’t a threat in the school or outside the school, several of the officers, including myself, branched out to some of the other schools,” Brown said.
Brown says law enforcement agencies statewide have been working to create a more unified approach to handling possible safety threats to the state’s schools. Part of that unified approach, according to Brown, involves consolidating as many reports of school safety threats into one place as possible. He says the state uses an app, which is available for free on every mobile app store, called “See Something, Send Something.”
“Once you get on the ‘See Something, Send Something’ app, you can go to a tab that says ‘school threat or safety issue,’ and you click into that and it’s going to give you an opportunity there to type in a school safety threat or a school safety issue that may be going on at a local school,” he told WVOW.
Catch Aaron Stone’s full conversation with Deputy Miller, Deputy Superintendent Brumfield and Brian Brown with the Capitol Police School Safety Unit from Friday’s “What’s Your Opinion” at wvowradio.com.
Once again, this coming Tuesday, October the eighth, Logan County Schools will be conducting an active threat drill for certain schools in the immediate Logan Area.
Active threat drills for Man and Chapmanville area schools will be conducted at a later date. For more information about this drill, please check Logan County School’s website or the district’s Facebook page.
PHOTO | Derrick Miller
