A staff meeting at a school in a tiny Oregon town became unexpectedly thrilling after a pair of masked gunmen rushed into the room and opened random fire. Nobody was injured in the incident, which was actually a surprise drill.
The staff members of the Pine Eagle Charter School in Halfway recently received training from the Union County Sheriff's Office on active shooter scenarios, reports The Oregonian. Principle Cammie DeCastro wanted to test if her workers were prepared for an emergency and had two of them interrupt the session with a volley of blank shots. No students were present at the school last Friday, when the surprise drill happened.
"I'll tell you, the whole situation was horrible," Elementary teacher Morgan Gover told the newspaper.
The 31-year-old said she was scared and admitted she would have been among the casualties if the attack were real. Of the 15 teachers in the room, only two would have survived, she believes.
DeCastro has heard some criticisms of the drill from townsfolk, but insists it was valuable.
"For us not to know how we were going to respond is leaving us open," she said.
Local authorities are considering several options on how to provide better security at the school, DeCastro said. Arming the teachers or having armed volunteer guards from the community at the school are among them. Making schools not gun-free zones is a way some US states are already going.
A school in Texas staged similar surprise drill in May last year, although in that case the students were present at the premises. Parents complained that the exercise was too realistic and scared the children, but the Socorro Independent School District, which ordered the drill, insisted it was necessary.
A debate in the US over protecting school student was spurred by the deadly shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut last year. Twenty-eight people, including 20 children, were gunned down in the one-man shooting spree.