Mount Pleasant ISD conducts active shooter training with local first responders

MOUNT PLEASANT, Texas (KLTV) - Faster, more efficient response can save lives, and that’s why law enforcement undergoes training. Mount Pleasant High School offered their campus to local first responders for an active shooter drill, and KLTV was allowed an inside look.

Mount Pleasant ISD Director of Safety and Security Hayes Lesher and Mount Pleasant Fire Chief Larry McRae prepare for what’s become a necessity.

“This is about the fifth exercise we’ve done in the last probably ten or fifteen years,” McRae said.

McRae points out to make it as real as possible, response personnel don’t know exactly when or where in the school it will happen.

“A lot of students are participating from the school. We’ve got our local responders, fire, police, EMS and some of the school administrators are here to observe as well as participate,” McRae said.

And around 9:30 a.m. a man acting as an active shooter entered the building.

“Almost every day you hear of a shooting somewhere, a mass shooting. A lot of them are in the schools. We just want to be prepared in case it happens here,” McRae said.

Smith County Training and Emergency Medical Services Division Chief Charles Clanton has participated in shooter drills before.

“I’m here specifically to evaluate the fire response. So we’ll see how the firefighters react to the situation, how they interact with the other agencies that are here, police and EMS. And how they unify to come in and address the issue,” Clanton said.

The school resource officer had backup within several minutes and the shooter was taken down shortly after that. EMS was outside on standby.

“As soon as it’s safe, they’ll come in. They’ll link up with our officers. Our officers are already doing some type of evacuation with those that are in serious condition and getting them in ambulances or getting them in life flight,” Lesher said.

They even took parking into consideration, making sure law enforcement vehicles were out of the way, leaving a way in and out for ambulances.

Although they didn’t want to go into details about the drill evaluation, MPISD security tells us there were things that worked and things that didn’t. They will take steps to make corrections and will be holding another drill in the future.

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