Community Corner

Mayor Says 'Active Shooter' Drills a Must

By Patrick "Kit" Bobko, Hermosa Beach mayor

Fact - the average “active shooter” incident lasts about 12 minutes and the average response time for police is 18 minutes. Hermosa Police will likely respond much more quickly than than that, but for those first few critical minutes before they arrive the first-responders are our teachers, staff, and administrators.  

Fact - shooters are typically young males who may be familiar with their targets. Many actually attended the schools they choose to attack.  

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Fact - “lock-downs” and barricades are not always successful. In fact, some killers intentionally activate “lock-downs” prior to their attacks to prevent their victims from escaping and simultaneously making it harder for first responders to arrive on scene. “Active shooters” are evil but history shows they’re not stupid.  

Fact - Hermosa Beach has never conducted drills to practice what teachers, school personnel and the community’s first responders should do in response to an “active shooter” occurrence.

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One of the very first things I did as mayor was to conduct a joint-meeting with our school board to discuss school safety. Immediately, we agreed to conduct a self-assessment of our school district’s readiness.  

This past week we reconvened to discuss the results, and found we’re doing a lot of really smart things to keep our students safe, but more importantly we uncovered other things we could do to make them even safer. We will put those lessons into practice.

Self-assessment is only a part of it. What we need are drills. I mean actual, no-kidding simulations in our schools with teachers, school administrators, first responders, and - yes - people pretending to be “active shooters.” 

Experts say that under stress, people don’t rise to the occasion but revert to their highest level of training. People under tremendous stress do what they’ve practiced. So without practice, there’s no way to make sure we’re prepared for the unthinkable. 

Consider this: how many school children have we lost over the last 50 years to fires? Zero. Not one. Why? Because we practice. Every teacher and every student in every school in America practices fire drills. They know what to do when that alarm goes off; they know where the exits are and they know where to assemble when they leave the building. 

“Active shooter” drills should be no different. This summer (while our kids are on vacation), Hermosa Beach’s first responders will conduct “active shooter” exercises at our schools, and hopefully we will be able to train with our teachers and school administrators as well.  

The tragedy at Santa Monica College emphasizes that we must give our teachers and school administrators the tools they’ll need to keep our students safe, and we owe it to our children and to our community to do everything we can to be ready should that terrible day ever arrive.  

And we all pray it never will.


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