KUSA – On Wednesday afternoon, Denver Public Schools opened one its campuses to police and paramedics for an active shooter simulation.
“We’ve staged a shooter inside a school,” said Michael Eaton, Chief of the Dept. of Safety for DPS. “We have actually put bullet casings around the building. We have actors that have makeup on with flesh wounds.”
Denver Public Schools wanted the shooting exercise to feel real. First responders were called to Vista Academy not knowing where the shooter was or how many people were injured. The actor portraying the shooter and responding officers used guns that fired blanks or training rounds filled with paint.
“We are testing our emergency response coordination and communication with both our Department of Safety as well as Denver paramedics, Denver fire and Denver police,” Eaton said.
Eaton was an observer of Wednesday’s exercise. He watched and critiqued the response from DPS officers.
“We identify what did we do well? And what are the gaps that we need to fix?” he explained.
First responders can train for school shootings, but Eaton admitted nothing can prepare a parent.
“I had two kids at the Arapahoe High School shooting,” Eaton said. “I take school safety very seriously. I’m passionate about it.”
Eaton gained something in experience he never learned through training.
“What it did was left me with a different perspective on what our parents are feeling as well as what they’re expectations are if for some reason we had a horrific incident like this occur in DPS,” he said.
The shooting DPS and first responders trained for Wednesday was not real, but it helped prepare everyone to prepare instead of panic.
“We don’t have to live our lives in fear, but we have to live our lives in preparedness,” Eaton said.
