HPD heads back to school to study handling of shooting incidents

Police officers sneaked down hallways, air-soft pellet pistols drawn, while children ran screaming at Terrebonne High School last week as part of a simulation to prepare for a school shooting. Over 50 Houma Police officers participated in the drill so the department and the school could be prepared for the worst.

Both police officers and school officials said they don’t believe there is an immediate threat of school violence, but they would prefer to be have the training just in case.

“I think that it’s a good thing for the community to work together and prepare for a crisis situation and it makes me feel safer,” said Julio Contreras, vice principal of Terrebonne High. “The best way to do that is to practice and plan ahead. Hopefully, nothing like this will ever, but we still have the duty to be prepared.”

Officers practiced traversing the hallways and clearing classrooms as part of the two-day exercises held last Tuesday and Wednesday. Police traded volleys of plastic pellets with fake bad guys and even fired blank rounds to get used to tracking down gunshot sounds as they reverberate through hallways.

“The Houma Police Department came to us and asked us if we would like to help cooperate and give them the facilities so they can come and do the exercises,” said Contreras. “They thought that it would be an ideal place to train. In case something happened they would know what to do, and I thought it was a great idea because the more realistic the simulation is the better training it is for them.”

Houma Interim Chief of Police Todd Duplantis said that the department used the schools because it gave the police an on-site experience.

“This is the first school that we’ve actually come in and done the training, but we have intentions on doing it at other schools,” said Duplantis. “We’re hoping to get into all the schools.”

The simulation was similar to drills conducted at Central Lafourche High School this summer by a consortium of local law enforcement agencies.

Houma Police concentrated more on specific tactics and tasks involved in such a situation, whereas the Lafourche drill simulated an actual scenario, complete with mock student shooters, ambulances and a sheriff’s office SWAT team.

The Lafourche drill in July 2009 came just two months after an incident at Larose-Cutoff Middle School when eighth grader Justin Doucet nearly shot a teacher and later killed himself in a nearby bathroom. According to Duplantis, Terrebonne hasn’t had any similar close calls.

Duplantis also said that this type of training has proved prescient in the past.

“In October we had an officer involved shooting training. And thank God for that because we had an officer shot on duty in November,” he said.

Terrebonne High’s theatre troupe, the FootLighters, played the part of the victims for the training sessions, which ran until from 4 to 8 p.m. on both days.

“I’m doing this because I feel great that it’s helping the police force,” said Sydney Breaux, president of the Footlighters, “and, of course, it’s kind of fun.”

Students also said that seeing the police in their school helped quell their fears of any attack.

“The reason I’m afraid is even though they have a lot of police officers and administrators at school, you don’t know what could happen on a daily basis,” said Alysse Olivier, a 19 year-old Terrebonne High student. “You get experience on what to do, so I feel a lot better.”

Breaux said she felt helping the police would help improve her own safety. “I actually do feel a lot safer now that I know they’re trained for this because I know that they’ll know what to do in a situation if this happens,” she said.

Students help Houma Police officers simulate a school shooting for officer training at Terrebonne High School last Wednesday. According to Houma Police Interim Police Chief Todd Duplantis, officers focused on specific tactics in tracking school shooters. * Photo by BRETT SCHWEINBERG