Jewett Middle Academy (JMA) was the scene of an “active shooter” drill that was so realistic, one student to the press: “We actually thought that someone was going to come in there and kill us.”
Unbeknownst to students and teachers, they were terrified by the ASD, intended to “prepare for the possibility of an armed person walking on campus”.
Parents were emailed about the ASD after the incident was conducted; sending parents into a panic as a few received text messages from their children during the drill.
One text from a 7th grade girl showed pictures of 2 armed men (later identified as police officers) bursting into the child’s classroom with a loaded gun and an unloaded AR-15.
Several parents told the press that their children believed the officers were going to shoot them. Winter Haven Police Chief Charlie Bird explained:
“These types of drills are vital in order to evaluate not only law enforcement response, but more importantly to educate the students and school officials in case an actual event were to occur.”
Bird insisted that this secretive tactic is important to evaluating how the school will respond to such a situation.
The police chief said:
“It’s very important that, when you do your drill, you do it without everyone knowing that it’s a drill. How you train and how you prepare is how you’re going to react when everything goes bad. It really is to protect the children and at no point in time would we endanger any of the children.”
Jason Gearey, spokesperson for the Polk County Public Schools (PCPS) justified the terrifying event perpetrated by the police on children by saying:
“Unfortunately, no one gets an advanced notice of real life emergencies. We don’t want students to be scared, but we need them to be safe.”
January of 2013, Cary-Grove High School (CGHS) scheduled a Code Red lockdown ASD complete with the firing of blanks into a hallway to give the students the very real impression that they were being attacked.
Officials claimed that this exercise would help teachers and students “recognize the sound and react quickly should an active gunman situation occur.”
Parents whose children attend the school were concerned that the simulated gunfire was going beyond necessities.
One parent said:
“If you need to run a drill, you run a drill. They run fire drills all the time, but they don’t run up and down the hallway with a flamethrower.”
Police Chief Steven Casstevens said:
“From the school’s request, they want to let the students know what the sound of gunshot might be, should that occur in their school.”
Jeff Puma, spokesperson for the high school explained that the administration is working with the Cary Police Department who recommended that this drill take place. Puma said:
“It was their recommendation that we do this in order to create the knowledge necessary to keep our students safe in an active crisis situation.”
Puma said that the police referred to the students as “sitting ducks” while in their classrooms should a shooter enter the building. The police intimated that the students remain in their classrooms for “safety reasons” rather than try to escape through a window or run out a door.
Two years ago, during other ASD students were taken on buses to alternative” locations resemble prison camps. During these drills the children are exposed to:
- Having a gun held to their heads;
- Frantically rushed into buses and driven to undisclosed locations;
- Not allowed to use their cell phones to contact family;
- Parents are instructed not to contact their children during drills;
In the name of safety, a school in Woodhaven, Michigan said in a letter to parents:
“Our school district continues to focus on the safety of staff, students, and our community. We have a detailed emergency plan so we can respond effectively to major catastrophes.
“We work closely with the fire and police departments from the City of Woodhaven and Brownstown Township to implement this plan. As part of these efforts, we are conducting a practice emergency drill on May 19th. It will begin at about 9:20 a.m. and conclude by 11:30 a.m.
“This practice drill will simulate a boiler explosion at Patrick Henry Middle School. We will evacuate all staff and students from PHMS, Erving Elementary School, and the Administration Building.”
The letter went on to say:
“The Woodhaven and Brownstown Township Police and Fire Departments, DTE Energy, and staff from Wayne County RESA will help secure the buildings and monitor this practice drill. Erving Elementary staff and students will be evacuated by bus to Bates Elementary School, and PHMS students and staff will be evacuated by bus to Woodhaven High School.”
Those teachers and some students participating were instructed to pretend to be injured and victims to be assisted at “nearby triage centers.”
Other instructions admonished parents from:
- Contacting their child by telephone of cell phone;
- Stress that their child must follow instructions given;
- Students would be evacuated to another site;
- Students would only be released to pre-designated persons;
In another similar drill, students were escorted out of their classrooms and placed on buses to be taken “to an off-site location”; however concerned parents were told after the fact that “it was only drill.”
The off-site location was undisclosed to parents and was justified as a security measure to ensure “student safety”. It was later revealed that the undisclosed location was “Benewah Wellness Center, their acting evacuation shelter.”
In New Jersey, the drill preformed included fake scenarios where a shooter killed students by “shooting guns with blanks” while other students were bussed off to secure sites such as:
- A shelter;
- An undisclosed relocation site;
While the public school system continues to be a government institution where indoctrination into the system is first and foremost, these preparations are drills are conditioning young people to see “relocation sites” as a safe place to go to in an emergency.
By Susanne Posel, Occupy Corporatism;
