WESTPHALIA — The sound of simulated gunfire sent Fatima R-3 employees behind locked doors as Osage County deputies moved through the school during a full-scale active-shooter exercise on Friday, Aug. 21.

The exercise tested the response of school employees, law enforcement officers, emergency communications personnel, firefighters, and medical crews.

Personnel from the Osage County Sheriff’s Office, Osage Ambulance District, Linn Fire Protection District, and Chamois Fire Protection District participated.

The exercise simulated a disgruntled parent armed with a rifle and handgun entering the school in search of the teacher who had failed his son. Moulaged participants, including school board President Suzanne Massman, were positioned throughout the hallways portraying wounded or dead victims, and instructed to act as realistically as possible. Deputies entered the building and subdued the shooter, who was struck in the face mask and body by three training rounds.

During a debriefing afterward, Osage County Chief Deputy Maj. Travis Shaffer said organizers deliberately created a difficult scenario for responding officers. Deputies encountered people portraying wounded victims before they located the simulated shooter, forcing them to move past people who needed help while the threat remained active.

“It’s really hard when you have people who need your help and they’re bleeding, but you also have somebody still loose,” Shaffer said.

Their training, however, requires officers to first locate and stop the person who is continuing to shoot.

“You walk past everyone, you go find them and stop them, or else more people die,” Shaffer told employees.

The scenario also took advantage of the building’s layout. Shaffer described use of existing conditions in the school to create a “tactical nightmare” in a location that favored the shooter. One deputy was struck by training rounds as he moved through that portion of the building, and at least one other would have been killed.

Once deputies stopped the simulated shooter, their mission shifted from “stopping the killing” to “stopping the dying,” Shaffer said. Officers began securing portions of the school so medical personnel could enter, triage the wounded, and remove them for treatment.

The exercise included calls through the emergency communications system, allowing officials to test how notifications and information would move during an actual emergency.

Ron Hoffman, Osage County 911/EMS director and Linn Fire Protection District fire chief, and Osage Ambulance District Deputy EMS Chief Joshua Cohen attended the debriefing to answer questions about emergency communications and medical response.

Fatima High School Principal Somer Hinshaw said she received the initial notification at approximately 8:30 a.m. Administrators then followed the communication procedures established for the exercise.

Shaffer said employees knew an exercise would take place but were not told exactly when it would begin. Organizers wanted them to experience the stress of having to react immediately without allowing the simulation to become traumatic.

“I wanted you guys to have your heart rate up,” he said. “I wanted you guys to be scared just a little bit. But what I did not want was (anyone) traumatized.”

Shaffer said the exercise was scaled to the number of deputies available for training. An actual emergency would draw law enforcement officers from multiple agencies and require a much larger, longer operation.

The drill also allowed school officials and responders to evaluate their procedures and identify areas requiring additional clarification. Staff members asked how they would receive verified instructions after the immediate danger had passed and what information could safely be communicated during an emergency.

Shaffer said those decisions will require coordination between the district and emergency responders.

“This is meant to talk about what we can do better in the future,” he said.

Employees also discussed the decisions they could face depending upon where they and their students were located when an emergency began. Shaffer said no single response would be appropriate in every part of a school or under every set of circumstances. Staff members would have to assess the information available to them and determine how best to protect the students in their care, he said. The central objective is to make it harder for an attacker to reach people while giving law enforcement time to intervene.

“Everything here is centered around doing the best you can to create a hard target, protecting people, and buying time,” Shaffer said. “We are trying to create enough time so the least amount of people get hurt until we can get somebody here to handle the threat.”

Overall, Shaffer said school employees responded well. As he moved through the building, he saw no employees in the hallways, and classrooms were dark, quiet, and secured.

The man portraying the shooter, Travis Greer, told employees he could not determine whether anyone was inside the classrooms.

Shaffer said the issues identified among first responders were minor. The exercise served its intended purpose by allowing participating agencies and school district to evaluate how their separate procedures worked together.

“I think everybody did well,” he said. “I didn’t see any issues on the school side.”

Fatima Superintendent John Kitchens thanked the responders for helping the district prepare for an event it hopes never occurs.

“We definitely appreciate the opportunity to learn and train in something we hope we never have to experience,” Kitchens said.