Just a drill
A pair of Cameron schools served as ground zero for an active intruder training involving multiple area first-responder agencies.
The Cameron Police Department, Cameron Fire Department and Cameron EMS were among multiple participating departments in this year’s intruder training with Cameron Intermediate School and Cameron Middle School serving as the backdrop of the day-long drill.
“This is just in time for all of the teachers coming back. It’s right before school starts so they’re already back for their week of training. We worked it out to where all of us work together,” Cameron Police Department Chief Rick Bashor said. “In years past, it would be fire, police and ambulance show up to a vacant school and we would work on the things we do, but now with incorporating the teachers in this helps out so much more and everybody can see how the training goes and they’re working on their strategies inside the school if this kind of thing were to happen.”
As part of Wednesday morning’s training the various Cameron first responders, as well as members of the Missouri State Highway Patrol and other participating medical and law enforcement agencies, used David Goodwin Field as a staging area. Bashor did not get too deep into the wargame scenario for the multiple-agency drill, but he did say it would test their skills in responding to an active intruder. Although taking place in a school, Bashor said the training applications go much deeper.
“This could be at a Walmart or a school. We’re focusing on a school with this, but it could be any type of business here in town,” Bashor said. “It’s a tough time right now that we have to deal with these type of issues, but it’s good for emergency services to go through everything and be prepared as best we can if something like that were to happen.”
Although recent mass murder incidents larger metropolitan areas recently captured public attention, Bashor said Cameron is not immune to shooting incidents. In June, the Cameron Police Department responded to a man indiscriminately shooting at motorist, injuring two, while traveling along I-35 and a CPD high-speed chase which began at the Walmart in Cameron only days later.
“We’re not immune to it so it’s good and says a lot for fire, ambulance, police and our school district to come together and say ‘let’s prepare, let’s work on this,” Bashor said.
Bashor added one of the key components to the drill is not the drill itself, but the evaluation process after. Although gaging a variety of factors from responding teachers, police, firefighters and medical professionals, much of the info gleamed will not come until much later.
“Last year, it was new and we had never done this to this scale with the school district,” Bashor said. “We came back and as we have our supervisor meetings we will sit down and talk about the things that went well and the things we need to work on. It opens up that dialogue of how can we get better.”
