High participation of law enforcement in active shooter simulation at Rutherford County Schools

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) – On Monday at Siegel High School, Rutherford County Schools (RCS) and area law enforcement agencies partnered to conduct a large-scale active shooter drill before the first day of school.

According to the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office (RCSO), the goal of the simulation was to create a realistic active shooter scenario.

Student actors and teachers served as parents. The exercise included the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office, Rutherford County Department of Emergency Management, Murfreesboro Police, Murfreesboro Fire Department, Middle Tennessee State University Police, Tennessee Highway Patrol, and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, among others.

Before the drill began, school administrators spent the morning in classrooms with law enforcement and emergency management officials. Inside the school, student actors and teachers playing the role of parents participated in training.

RCS Public Information Officer James Evans said the district has fortunately never experienced an actual active shooter situation. RCSO Public Information Officer Lisa Marchesoni said these types of drills are important.

“This is to review their skills on what they’ve learned and put them to use in responding, in case we ever have to do this, and I hope we never do,” Marchesoni said. “We’ve trained together for many years, and we just want to test our system today to see how well we’re trained to find the deficiencies and correct them, should something happen.”

Rutherford County Sheriff Mike Fitzhugh said that while the county has conducted many training sessions in the past, none have matched the scale of Monday’s simulation.

“It gives you a clearer idea of ​​the chaos that’s going to happen around you,” he said, “and that’s what we want to try to create: that you face it, deal with it and make sure you know what you’re doing.”

In all, more than 500 people from the district and law enforcement participated in the simulation. The sheriff said today’s response time was faster than in previous exercises. Evans said that in the future, the district hopes to improve the speed with which initial messages are communicated to parents during emergencies.

The first day of school in Rutherford County is Wednesday, with a partial day scheduled. The first full day of school will be Thursday.

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