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First responders practice for mass shooting in Chesapeake
By Kristin Davis
The Virginian-Pilot
© March 16, 2008
CHESAPEAKE
The dispatcher's voice crackled through the cool, overcast morning:
"Be advised, multiple 911 calls... white male suspect walking through the building shooting people randomly."
With that came more gun shots from somewhere inside the long brick buildings of Tidewater Community College's Chesapeake campus. Minutes passed. Wind rustled tree blossoms. Cars passed by.
A line of students ran through the parking lot, heads slightly bent.
The shots kept coming.
Police arrived. Guns drawn, they headed inside.
The guns were painted plastic; the victims who would stagger out with chest and head and knee wounds over the next half-hour were volunteers.
The first responders, who came from Chesapeake, Portsmouth, Norfolk, Virginia Beach and the Virginia State Police, were practicing a scenario they say could happen any time - not just on a school campus, but in a factory, an office building, a mall.
They were followed by a "coach" who critiqued their decisions as the scenario played out.
"All you have to do is watch the news for a couple of weeks and see something like this happen," said Capt. Charlie Winslow of the Chesapeake Police Department, which has spent the past six months organizing the simulation.
"We're doing our best to prepare for this in Hampton Roads," he said.
The Virginia Tech shootings last April prompted the training, said Christi Golden, police spokeswoman.
Volunteers filled classrooms Saturday morning, including TCC employees, citizen police academy attendees and Boy Scouts. The campus was closed; yellow crime scene tape closed off a vast "play area."
Herb Glembin, the father of scouts, came with 25 others from Troop 6.
He was holed up in Room 136 with two people who'd been "wounded" by the shooter - one in the knee, one in the stomach.
Eventually, Glembin said, officers ran into the room, shouted for them to get their hands up. After checking out the injured, they escorted them out, past two victims who lay "shot" in the lobby.
It was over in an hour, the shooter taken down, the survivors evacuated, the campus quiet again.
Kristin Davis, (757) 222-5555, kristin.davis@pilotonline.com
First responders practice for mass shooting in Chesapeake
By Kristin Davis
The Virginian-Pilot
© March 16, 2008
CHESAPEAKE
The dispatcher's voice crackled through the cool, overcast morning:
"Be advised, multiple 911 calls... white male suspect walking through the building shooting people randomly."
With that came more gun shots from somewhere inside the long brick buildings of Tidewater Community College's Chesapeake campus. Minutes passed. Wind rustled tree blossoms. Cars passed by.
A line of students ran through the parking lot, heads slightly bent.
The shots kept coming.
Police arrived. Guns drawn, they headed inside.
The guns were painted plastic; the victims who would stagger out with chest and head and knee wounds over the next half-hour were volunteers.
The first responders, who came from Chesapeake, Portsmouth, Norfolk, Virginia Beach and the Virginia State Police, were practicing a scenario they say could happen any time - not just on a school campus, but in a factory, an office building, a mall.
They were followed by a "coach" who critiqued their decisions as the scenario played out.
"All you have to do is watch the news for a couple of weeks and see something like this happen," said Capt. Charlie Winslow of the Chesapeake Police Department, which has spent the past six months organizing the simulation.
"We're doing our best to prepare for this in Hampton Roads," he said.
The Virginia Tech shootings last April prompted the training, said Christi Golden, police spokeswoman.
Volunteers filled classrooms Saturday morning, including TCC employees, citizen police academy attendees and Boy Scouts. The campus was closed; yellow crime scene tape closed off a vast "play area."
Herb Glembin, the father of scouts, came with 25 others from Troop 6.
He was holed up in Room 136 with two people who'd been "wounded" by the shooter - one in the knee, one in the stomach.
Eventually, Glembin said, officers ran into the room, shouted for them to get their hands up. After checking out the injured, they escorted them out, past two victims who lay "shot" in the lobby.
It was over in an hour, the shooter taken down, the survivors evacuated, the campus quiet again.
Kristin Davis, (757) 222-5555, kristin.davis@pilotonline.com
