HEWITT, Texas (KXXV) — “We need them to have that real-world experience of the bad guy shooting back and that's what this is providing in a safe environment,” Midway ISD Police Chief Jeffrey Foley said.
A real-world experience officers will be getting this weekend at the Midway ISD Police Department's Alert Active Shooter training.
In the last legislative session, the state made it a requirement to have 16 hours of this training every training session.
“The training focuses on response to active shooters, how to team up with each other and move into the building and go directly to the threat to stop any kind of violent behavior,” Foley said. “It also teaches the officer that is already in the building how to respond to that threat by himself.”
The training is being broken up into two parts—classroom instruction on Saturday and scenario response on Sunday.
“Talking about the history of active shooters, talking about what goes into responding to those incidents and how the officers are going to move,” Foley said.
Chief Foley told 25 News officers train frequently in firearm qualifications while learning about school safety and active threats – but practicing actual response is crucial.
“So, we can safely come in here and practice what would happen if you're in an active shooting," Foley said. "What happens if the bad guys shoot back at you."
While there have been no active threats on Midway ISD campuses in recent years, a few years ago, there was a swatting incident at Midway High School.
“Where someone had called into Waco Police Department stated there was an active threat happening inside the school at that time,” Foley said. “Within several minutes, we had 65 officers within the building trying to respond and figure out what was going on.”
While the threat was not real, Foley told 25 News they don’t take these concerns lightly.
“I'd rather have our resources, invest all their time into that, to find out that nothing happened than to not investigate our time in that in, it be something,” Foley said.
The training will help foster communication between officers while allowing neighboring departments to better navigate a school environment.
“The more police officers that I can get inside of our buildings to do these training, the better off it is, not only for those officers that are able to get that training resource but to our kids who now know that more people is keeping an eye on them,” Foley said.
