Seal Beach police, fire agencies hold active-shooter drill at elementary school
SEAL BEACH, Calif. (KABC) -- Gunshots echoed throughout the campus of McGaugh Elementary School as the Seal Beach Police Department and other fire agencies performed an active shooter training drill.
"We're really lucky in Seal Beach that this is our only school. That means we get to dedicate a lot of resources to making sure the McGaugh campus and community are safe," Seal Beach Police Department Capt. Nick Nicholas said. "We try to do this training at least once or twice a year."
The exercise simulated a fast-moving active shooter scenario with officers clearing out classrooms to stop the threat.
"When our officers respond to an active shooter, the very first priority they have is to stop the violence. That means the first officer who arrives on the scene immediately responds to the sound of gunfire, even if that means stepping over injured victims," Nicholas said. "We want to make sure we find the suspect and neutralize the threat to stop the killing."
Staged victims cried out for help as a helicopter made an emergency landing on campus. Crews from the Orange County Fire Authority and other agencies rushed to triage and evacuate victims, as they would in a real emergency.
"Our priority is the patients. A lot of times as we go in and we determine how many victims there are, sometimes we're just going to be doing nothing but triaging, and then after that the key is to get as many people in there as possible to get these victims out," OCFA Capt. Thanh Nguyen said.
The Seal Beach Police Department says training drills like this are crucial to ensure officers are fully prepared to respond in a real-life situation.
"Unfortunately, that's the reality of the world that we live in right now, where gun violence does occur and it does occur on school campuses," Nicholas said. "We want to make sure we're very familiar with this campus and that we can dedicate our officers to getting the training they need in case an unthinkable tragedy does occur here."
