Miami-Dade Schools Police, MDFR and other agencies practice school shooting response in annual drill

Miami-Dade Schools Police are using the final weeks before the start of the new school year to get response ready, going through simulated emergencies in...

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Miami-Dade Schools Police are using the final weeks before the start of the new school year to get response ready, going through simulated emergencies in order to be prepared for the real thing.

Miami-Dade County Public Schools teamed up on Thursday with Miami-Dade Schools Police, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue and others agencies to conduct their yearly mass casualty exercise at John A. Ferguson Senior High School in Southwest Miami-Dade.

Thursday morning’s drill featured a staging of a school shooting.

“It’s our number one priority. There is no waiting if there’s an active shooter inside our schools,” said Miami-Dade Schools Police Chief Ivan E. Silva. “Even if an active shooter becomes barricaded, our officers are trained to go inside and take him out.”

Students were placed inside a classroom where part of the simulation took place.

Officers first stopped the gunman, then tended to the victims, assessing injuries and separating the injured from the non-injured.

Once outside the building, MDFR units were ready to render aid, loading up some of the victims and taking them away

“The only opportunity that we have today in our exercise that we were able to do today was [being] able to test our whole entire response system — from the moment we receive an emergency alert, all the way to the response of law enforcement and fire rescue together,” said Silva. “We do this on purpose to make sure we have a uniform response when we do get to the school.”

Emotional, stressful and realistic, this training is a reminder that being prepared for such an incident is a necessity.

“As chief, my main priority is basically to ensure to parents that when they leave their kids in our schools, that they make it back home safely,” said Silva.

After students finished the drill, they were bussed to a reunification center. They are set to return to class on Aug. 13.