LPD 'prepare for things we hope never happens

Liberal Police Department officers responded to a surprise training drill Friday morning. The officers sweep the hallway looking for shooters. Photo by Connie Whiteley

Students screamed in pain. Twenty-two people, including two dead, were victims of two shooters Friday at the Seward County Community College/Area Technical School's Student Living Center. Thankfully, the incident was a drill.

The Liberal Police Department took part in a surprise emergency training disaster drill Friday morning.

LPD, and other emergencies response teams, were called to the Seward County Community College/Area Technical School's Student Living Center.
Greg Standard, Seward County emergency management director, said they had worked with the LPD, the Southwest Medical Center, Seward County Emergency Medical Services, the Liberal Fire Department, and Seward County Sheriff's Office to plan this training drill.

Standard said the purpose was to evaluate response services skills and redirect training if necessary.

LPD Patrol Lieutenant Jon Antrim said the drill took two weeks to coordinate.
Standard said that the drill involved active shooters using simulation bullets that splattered paint on impact.

“This is an active shooter training drill so there will be two shooters in the building,” Standard said. “The officers, the patrol officers, will arrive and our anticipation is that they will immediately pursue those shooters and subdue them and will evacuate they wounded and get them out to safety.”

One of volunteer shooters, Tyler Prater, said that being involved in the drill was a privilege. Prater became involved because his father, Bill Prater, is the police chaplain and a police officer. The other volunteer shooters were Sid Prater and John Vaught.

Janette Vargas, a victim during the drill, is escorted by one of the officers who respond to the drill Friday. Part of the drill included victims being transported to the hospital. Photos by Connie Whiteley

“I am just privileged to help our local law enforcement to train to handle these situations in a proper way,” said Prater. “I, and two other staff guys at the Fellowship Baptist Church, help every year with the active shooter (drill). (The ammunition) actually hurts a little bit, stings a little bit, but it is worth it because we know if a situation like this ever occurred in Liberal that we are helping to prepare the officers to handle the situation.”

LPD Captain Pat McClurg said that the LPD does the drill with hopes that they never have a real situation happen.

“It is always something we try to do, prepare for things we hope never happen,” said McClurg.

McClurg, who was stationed at the police check-in point, said that all real weapons were going to be taken away from the responding officers.

“We are going to stop everyone here and make sure they don't have any live weapons and we’ll give them the simulated weapons and send them to their target locations,” said McClurg.

Antrim was happy with the outcome of the drill.

“I think it went very well," said Antrim. "We trained for the last week for this type of incident, and this was a great way to make sure they learned from what we taught them over the last week. I believe we had, probably, 10-to-12 officers that were on scene. Twenty victims were transported to the hospital, and we had a total of two dead on scene.”

The victims were volunteers that were done up with makeup to look like they had been wounded. Anthropomorphic dummies were also victims.

“Law enforcement familys, Seward County Sheriff's Office Explorer Program, and as well as some college students (were the volunteers),” Antrim said.

Victim Janette Vargas was excited to be a victim.

“It was awesome. I had a great time; it was a fun experience,” said Vargas.

The SLC was chosen as the place because it was realistic.

“The (college) was convenient. They had the facilities similar to what we would respone to in this type of incident,” said Antrim. “We worked with them (the college staff) and they worked with us, it worked out very well.”

Assistant Director to the SLC, Pamela Freeman, was on hand to witness the training drill.

“I feel as if it is a good thing that they all came together to experience this at the dorms because it gives us more insight, and they (the response teams) know exactly how this college is setup and operates,” said Freeman.

For full story please see Sunday's Times

© 2008 Southwest Times