JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — When an active shooter strikes, law enforcement needs to be ready at a moment’s notice. That’s exactly why for the third year straight, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, Jacksonville Fire and Rescue, and the Duval County Public Schools Police Department all practiced a live active shooter situation Wednesday morning.
This year, the drill took place at Edward White High School in Jacksonville’s Westside.
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“Our goal today is to improve our ability to save lives in a school shooter event,” DCPS Police Chief Jackson Short stated ahead of Wednesday morning’s drill.
Following the controversy after the tragic Uvalde school shooting, when officers waited over an hour to confront the gunman, this exercise serves as practice for the urgency first responders must have in confronting an active shooter.
Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters insisted Wednesday morning that a sense of urgency will be in place if ever a shooting threat arises in your children’s DCPS school.
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“They’re going to go in,” Sheriff Waters said of his officers and law enforcement. “They’re going to take care of business because we don’t have time to wait. Now history has taught us that we cannot wait.”
With exercises like breaching to the rescue of those involved in these tragic situations - that law enforcement hopes will never happen in the first place - the goal is to prepare for the real thing, providing lifesaving experience for law enforcement in Duval County.
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“Actually putting the officers in the schools and proving the concepts that we vetted out ahead of time is the importance of these mass exercises,” summarized Chief Short.
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