Employees at the Des Moines County Courthouse are a little bit more prepared today after taking part in an active shooter training scenario at the Courthouse.
It’s called “Run, Hide, Fight” training, and it involves real gunfire, and two sheriff’s deputies, portraying mass shooters, attacking people within the building with rubber pellets.
Angie Vaughan, the Des Moines County Safety director, organized the training.
“We did really good. With the training they had, they were very prepared. We had no ‘fatalities’, and only three people were ‘injured’,” Vaughan told KBUR. “It went very well.”
Over a hundred employees took part in the exercise. Which started with a Sheriff’s deputy firing a several firearms, loaded with blank rounds, inside the building, so employees know what a gunshot sounds like inside a building.
The shooters then went room to room, attempting to fire on employees, three were hit, but only in the legs, and survived the simulation. Workers learned the do’s and don’t of active shooter situations, and were able to diagnose problems and learn how to make the Courthouse even more secure in such situations.
Vaughan hopes to hold the exercise on an annual basis.
