Mass casualty drill held at Redmond middle school

A mass casualty training was held Friday at a Redmond middle school. The goal was to prepare Central Oregon law enforcement agencies and other first responders for the worst.

There’ve been more than 300 mass shooting across the United States since the start of 2018, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive.

“It is seemingly more and more prevalent that these things are happening more and more often. We are hopeful by preparing we can prevent these things from happening in the first place,” Redmond police Lt. Curtis Chambers.

That’s why police, sheriff’s deputies, fire crews and medics spent the day at Obsidian Middle School, pretending there had been a school shooting and practicing their response.

Deschutes County sheriff’s Sgt. William Bailey said even though it’s not really happening, it is meant to feel as real as possible.

“Definitely being inside the scenarios when they’re occurring, you just can’t believe you’re training for that. But unfortunately, that’s the reality, and we just have to be prepared for that,” Bailey said.

During the drill, shots rang out, victims were heard screaming, armed officers ran into the building, medics arrived, gurneys rolled in and out and there was even a mock news conference.

In this scenario, a shooting happened in the cafeteria, seven students were in critical condition, no one died and the shooter was killed by the school resource officer.

The training exercise took a full year to plan, but there is always more that’s needed.

“This type of training isn’t a ‘one and done’ scenario. An officer should be preparing for this in their minds on a regular basis,” Chambers said.

The agencies involved now will review the training to figure out what went well and what could be improved upon.