CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Staff in Kanawha County Schools’ central building received active shooter response training on Thursday.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) office in Charleston conducted training that included blank shots being fired from around the Elizabeth Street building. The training comes weeks after another mass shooting at a school in the United States, where a gunman killed 21 people at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
Tom Williams, superintendent of Kanawha County Schools (KCS) told the media the FBI offered this free training and he believed this was the right thing to do.
“I pray it never happens here in Kanawha County Schools but if it does, I want our folks to be as prepared as possible to get it stopped as quickly as possible,” Williams said.
The FBI began the morning by firing blanks on all three floors of the building from different angles. Its goal was to make sure staff knew the sounds of gunfire from their offices.
Tony Rausa, the FBI Supervisor Special Agent for Charleston Office told the media while many people in West Virginia are familiar with guns, it’s mainly from outdoor recreational activity.
“When you take the shots fired outdoor in a controlled environment and bring them into a building with concrete floors, lined with metal lockers, they may not understand what they are hearing. Having that appreciation up front, right now, I think is invaluable,” Rausa said.
Following the active shooting demonstration, staff from KCS watched a presentation from the FBI that included a video ‘Echoes of Columbine’. The documentary explores the issue of school shootings and what schools, parents, and law enforcement can do to help prevent the attacks.
A question and answer session about safety was then held for the staff.
“The training is designed to shake them up a bit and raise their stress levels. Just so when this situation happens, god forbid it happens, the first time their stress levels is not on the day of days,” Rausa said.
Williams added that KCS is in the process of signing an agreement with Kanawha County Metro 911 where the agency would have access to security cameras to buildings county-wide.
“They would have access to our cameras which means they can communicate with the law enforcement in the buildings, around the buildings and let them know what is going on in the hallways,” Williams said.
A presentation on security is scheduled for Thursday evening’s KCS Board of Education meeting.