Criminal law, Politics, Society, Torts

Rational or Hysterical? Oregon Police Burst Into School Wearing Hoodies and Firing Weapons In Unannounced Drill

300px-Bullet_coming_from_S&WTeachers were in a meeting in the Pine Eagle Charter School in Halfway, Oregon when two hooded figures burst into the room and sprayed screaming teachers with gunfire. It turned out to be blanks and they turned out to be cops. This was viewed as a useful drill to prepare the teachers for school massacre scenarios.

Such an unannounced exercise could just as well have resulted in a heart attack or other medical emergency. It is not clear what the teachers learned much beyond what it is like to be shot.

Principal Cammie DeCastro noted that they learned that few people would survive among the 15 teachers. Only two were not hit by the spray of gunfire. It is not clear why actually shooting teachers was needed for that particular lesson or what they got from that realization even if they could not have anticipated it.

Elementary teacher Dollie Beck, 54, said that she learned to keep her classroom door locked and to think of windows as escape routes.

By the way, Halfway has a population of only 288. One teacher explained that the exercise was needed because “We are tender-hearted people who give hugs all day. We don’t think like that.”

The question is whether it is necessary to think like that in such exercises. I think it is wise to train staff on all such emergencies but we are seeing districts giving teachers bulletproof shields and arming janitors. Even if you are going to carry out exercises, such unannounced attacks present other risks of actual heart attacks and panic attacks as part of the faux victims. Fortunately, unlike other ill-conceived pranks and exercises, the students were not present for the Oregon practice massacre.

Source: OregonLive

97 thoughts on “Rational or Hysterical? Oregon Police Burst Into School Wearing Hoodies and Firing Weapons In Unannounced Drill”

  1. Bill:

    “GOP politician tells truth about BOSTON inside job and the result?
    More proof that if you want to make people furious, tell ‘em the truth.”
    ~+~

    Cough-bull-cough-sh1t

    (I seem to have caught Gene’s cold.)

  2. One has to wonder what kind of psychological and emotional damage these kinds of stunts have on young children. I think it’s a form of child abuse. -Elaine M.

    Agreed.

  3. Elaine….

    I know a few folks that actually have money….. Some can be batshit crazy….. Now, the folks that get me are the ones that have no real money to speak of….. But they think they do have money….. Are they crazy or eccentric…..

  4. Gene,

    Money has its privileges, you know. Wealthy folks are never labeled “crazy.” They’re called “eccentric.”

  5. anonymously posted 1, May 2, 2013 at 11:56 am

    Active shooter drills (without the bullets, but with kids) seem to be all the rage these days. Pun intended. IMHO? Another knee-jerk reaction that’s harmful…

    *****

    One has to wonder what kind of psychological and emotional damage these kinds of stunts have on young children. I think it’s a form of child abuse.

  6. “There’s proof for you that not all the crazy people live in Texas and Florida. We have our own species of crackpots up here in the Northeast too!”

    Cough*cough*cough*Bloomberg!

    Gesundheit. :mrgreen:

  7. Bill,

    From the article that you provided a link to:

    Stella Tremblay, New Hampshire Legislator, Says Jeff Bauman ‘Was Not In Pain’ After Bombing
    The Huffington Post
    By John Celock
    Posted: 05/01/2013
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/01/stella-tremblay-jeff-bauman_n_3196131.html

    Excerpt:
    The New Hampshire state legislator who has said the federal government caused the Boston Marathon bombing claimed proof in a victim who lost both legs and “was not in pain.”

    State Rep. Stella Tremblay (R-Auburn) told a conservative talk show host Tuesday that she knows the federal government was behind the attacks because Jeff Bauman, a bombing victim who helped identify the suspects, was not “screaming in agony” after both his legs were blown off. Tremblay made the comments on The Pete Santilli Show, first reported by miscellanyblue.com, a liberal-leaning website, on Wednesday.

    “Then, my first gut reaction seeing the horror of that person that has their legs blown off,” Tremblay said. “You know, the bone sticking out? He was not in shock. I looked and I thought, there’s something. … I don’t know what’s wrong, but it seems surreal to me. I talked to my sister, who’s not into politics at all, and she said, ‘Yes, I saw the same thing.’ He was not in shock. He was not in pain. If I had had those type of injuries, I’d be screaming in agony.”

    Tremblay, a tea party member with ties to the birther movement, made the remarks about Bauman after causing a stir with her marathon bombing government conspiracy theory. She said photos of the bombing showed intact backpacks, which she said should have been destroyed if they contained bombs. Last week, she posted a comment on Glenn Beck’s Facebook page saying the federal government caused the bombing. She has resisted calls to resign over the post.

    *****

    AY & bill,

    There’s proof for you that not all the crazy people live in Texas and Florida. We have our own species of crackpots up here in the Northeast too!

  9. This incident was about as stupid and reckless as could be. There are so many situations where this could get out of hand very fast. In this situation if one of the staff or a passerby or a LEO from some other agency that happened to just be at the school saw this happening they could have shot both of these “actors” and they would have been completely excused in doing so given the totality of the circumstances.

    I would agree with some of the commenters that this could border on a criminal act where the unsuspecting staff were victims, at the very least I could see it as felony harassment for inducing without lawful authority the fear of death in the mind of the victim.

    LEOs take steps to prevent a situation from getting out of hand during training. When using blanks or simunitions an officer is stripped of ALL weapons and given a special weapon that is painted blue and double inspected, (both officer and training equipment) to ensure that nobody is carrying live ammo. In fact during video simulation training, you cannot even wear your own non-lethal weapons because there are times where officers get so “into” the scenerios there have been cases where the officers, under stress, revert to their past training and draw out back up guns or other weapons and use them. And, it is never done within view of the public and extraneous personnel are not allowed on scene.

    It is obvious what can happen during a active shooter situation, a spectacle such as what happened at this school offers nearly nothing when actual information is readily available and without the risks involved in this debacle.

  10. Guns made and specifically marketed for kids? I smell giant profits for gun makers. We will continue to see the NRA leadership pump up the fear. A recent study shows that surge in gun purchases following mass shootings is fueled by current gun owners buying more guns, not very many new gun buyers. So–to keep fanning the paranoid base…there’s money.

  11. Shocking, obscene, and deeply disturbing. I hate to think, what next?

  13. In Elmira, NY:

    http://klcc.org/Feature.asp?FeatureID=4297

    Local Highschoolers React To Increased Concern About Their Safety

    March 4, 2013
    By Lucy Ohlsen

    “If Elmira High school students go to school on April 27th, they’ll be in an active-shooter role play drill. This is Chris Heppel, who’s coordinating the helicopters that will fly in to transport fake victims.”

  14. Sorry. Those guys who burst in on the teachers firing rubber pellets committed crimes. Assault, terroristic threatening, a few more to be sure. They also created what I would call a hostile work environment.

    Should we have gangs of pretend pedophiles burst in on the kids at recess and molest them with rubber “foreign objects” so we can advocate preparedness for stranger danger too now?

    We really are degenerating into terrible unthinking wickedness very rapidly here. Home schooling anyone?

  17. Elaine,

    Some states….. Opening Day for hunting….. So in essence they have had the 4 r’s for along time….. History and tradition teach us that….. Responsibility needs to be taught…..

  18. “Ad absurdum situations have become “Let’s seriously think about that. It’s not so weird.”

    A “preparedness” drill where fake armed gunmen spontaneously burst into a meeting of teachers and start opening fire with blanks? Not so weird. Bulletproof school supplies? Not so weird. Teachers with guns? Not so weird.

    It happens, after all, and has for a long time. Columbine is retro, just like Wayne LaPierre’s list of references. Virginia Tech is last decade. And then there are all the others, the dozens and dozens along the way, whose names no one remembers because the body count wasn’t high enough.

    And the arguments are old, too. “From my cold dead hands” is not a conditional anymore. It’s been 18 years since every liberal’s fantasy president Andrew Shepherd announced his serious intention to “get the guns” in the ridiculous 1995 Aaron Sorkin wet-dream The American President. And the solutions are old, too — shoulder-pads old, Newt-Gingrich-on-his-second-wife old, conservatism-as-a-viable-option-for-the-rational-average-American old.

    So, yeah, this has all been around for a while. And now, in the aftermath of Sandy Hook, it’s expected — usual, even. Usual for us to talk about “when” it’ll happen again, rather than “if.” Usual for the weakest, most meager, most half-assed, most uncontroversial “gun control” measures to fail in Congress because of the disapproval of a small, well-funded, galvanized minority. Usual for people to seriously and openly talk about their 2nd Amendment right to violently overthrow the government. Usual for my kids to remind me to the lock the classroom door so deranged shooters can’t take us out while we’re going over essay-writing rules. Half tongue-in-cheek, half-serious.

    So yeah, that’s education in America for you: blast-proof white boards, simulated slaughter drills, and “lock the door or we die.” policymic

  19. Geeze williakers…. You think our government would intentionally do that Mike S……

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