Suburban first responders take part in active shooter drill
CHICAGO (CBS) -- It's training no first responder wants to put to use in the real world.
But they know how important it is.
On Wednesday, a school in Lyons hosted an active shooter simulation.
Multiple agencies worked together to practice their emergency response. CBS 2's Noel Brennan watched the simulation.
It's winter break for the kids at George Washington Middle School. And while the students were gone, their school served as a training ground for dozens of first responders from five different communities.
Lyons police supervised the active shooter simulation.
It looked real. It sounded real - and trainers used the opportunity to teach in real time.
"Get off the hallway. Get right here! Your job is to protect them, so you're using your vest. This is what you want to get shot in right?"
All the video you're seeing inside the school is part of the simulation. A simulation that starts with a call over police radios about an active shooter inside the school.
The first officers go in right away. But response times are staggered – like they would be in real life.
All the first responders use the actual equipment they'd have with them if they were responding to a real threat.
There were simulated gunshots and victims in the hallways and classrooms.
In this practice scenario, the Lyons Police Chief told us nine officers were shot and six of them killed. The chief said it was an outcome he expected and hoped his officers would learn from.
"They all learned a lesson real quick about what to do, how fast you move and how systematically you are supposed to do your job to ensure not only your safety – because if you're not safe, you cannot protect anyone else," Chief Thomas Herion of the Lyons Police Department.
Chief Herion said many of the officers who took part in the training are new officers, adding he hopes to do this kind of training quarterly.
