When Teaching Teachers Self Defense goes Wrong

Mock Executions? Real Screams and Blood? Just Another School Shooter Drill

Active-shooter training has become a macabre ritual for educators in America’s public school system. “There’s a trauma that comes simply from being part of one of those drills,” Sen Chris Murphy (D-CT) told Rolling Stone recently.

But some trainers in Indiana have been amping up the realism, making the alarming decision to use non-lethal ammo in their demonstrations — shooting teachers in mock executions with pellet guns that allegedly left the educators with bloody welts.

The practice was revealed in series of tweets Wednesday by the the Indiana State Teachers Association. The group described training exercises in which “four teachers at a time were taken into a room, told to crouch down and were shot execution style with some sort of projectiles — resulting in injuries.”

The “terrified” teachers, ISTA added, were then instructed to not tell their colleagues what was in store for them. “Teachers waiting outside that heard the screaming were brought into the room four at a time and the shooting process was repeated.” ISTA insisted the practice was uncalled for: “No one in education takes these drills lightly. The risk of harming someone far outweighs whatever added realism one is trying to convey here.”

According to a report Thursday by the Indianapolis Star, the drill occurred in the small town of Monticello, as part of an ALICE training by the local sheriff’s department. The exercise is meant to impress on teachers that traditional duck-and-cover techniques are largely useless against mass shooters, and that teachers should lead students in more active countermeasures to defend themselves from attack.

But according to one educator, the trainers took the lessons too far. The trainers allegedly lined teachers up on their knees against a wall and told them: “This is what happens when you just cower and do nothing.” The source told the Star the educators were then shot multiple times in their backs, adding: “It hurt so bad.”

I don't know. Couldn't they have showed them how to try how not to just cower but to protect themselves? If you're stuck in a room and the shooter is going to come in then find something to hurt him with or something like that? But to line people up like that and shoot them to make a point is not only pointless, but sadistic.

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detroitmechworks's picture

I'm certain that teachers would enjoy it greatly.
/snark

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5Pku48YPFo]

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Sadistic to say the least, sounds like the sheriffs doing this Alice training aren't much better than the people they're trying to protect them from. These people are teachers not cops or soldiers, this authoritarian gung ho mentality with law enforcement is really getting out of hand.

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gulfgal98's picture

If they are actually shooting people as part of a "drill," is that not assault? Teachers are hired to teach, not become cops or targets for police to practice their drills on. This is obscene and very traumatic to not only the teachers, but the students who witnessed it.

Taking this to its illogical conclusion. What next? For a fire drill, are they going to set the building on fire? Or for a bomb drill, are they going to blow it up?

At some point, the teachers' unions need to put a stop to this nonsense. Our children are being raised in a militarized society in which violence, real or fake, is being normalized. These active shooter drills are a form of normalizing violence in our young people's lives. If I were a parent, I would be pissed as hell over this.

Good essay, snoopy.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

The Aspie Corner's picture

@gulfgal98 Only now, since the corpse of capitalism is in decay, it's just more obvious. Not even a middle or upper-class lifestyle can shield anyone from this kind of crap anymore.

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

snoopydawg's picture

@The Aspie Corner

Our children are being raised in a militarized society in which violence, real or fake, is being normalized. These active shooter drills are a form of normalizing violence in our young people's lives. I

Many of us didn't grow up in a school system like kids are now days. Where kids have to go through metal detectors and have armed resource and cops in their schools. The PTB are very, very patient when they want to change society. What you see as normal for your generation is abhorrent to mine. Most millennials know nothing but this country being at war. One war after another since the Day we were attacked. And as now more than one war at a time. Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia and gawd only knows where else our military is.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

snoopydawg's picture

@gulfgal98

Our children are being raised in a militarized society in which violence, real or fake, is being normalized. These active shooter drills are a form of normalizing violence in our young people's lives. I

Kids are being taught that they have to live in a society where it's become acceptable to the PTB that some person shoots up Their schools every now and then. And that there is nothing their government can do about it.
But they are also being told that they have to accept authority figures in their schools and if they disrespect or step out of line to one of the hyped up goons their schools hired then they will be marched off to the school to prison pipeline. Or if when they are young and have too much energy because schools have been cutting physical outlets they can have to take meds that calm them down. Of course not every kid on ADD or other deficit disorders aren't helped by them, but doctors are too easily prescribing them.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Hawkfish's picture

The guy running it was an ex swat team leader from Tacoma whose son escaped from a mall shooting. And it was nothing like what those macho asshats were doing.

His main point was that running away is the most effective thing you can do. Lock doors, hide, whatever but just keep running. Something like 95% of survivors just did that. He also told how his son called during the mall shooting to tell his dad that he was outside and running. The son asked how far he should run and his dad said “Idaho”.

There was a woman at the parent briefing who asked about arming teachers (Catholic demographics are somewhat conservative at times ) and he spent 15 minutes explaining in excruciating detail why this was a bad idea. Lots of stats and war stories. The strangest was a tale of two cops and a gunman emptying their magazines across a prowler hood and no one hit anything. The saddest was the concealed carry guy at the mall shooting who got the drop on the gunman and told him to drop his weapon and got shot (and paralyzed) for his troubles. More guns don’t help.

So there are effective things people - including teachers - can do but some weekend warrior getting his rocks off terrorizing them is not the way to do it. Getting rid of the guns would be a start.

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We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg

had just inked a record deal accidentally shot himself while working on a music video in his own home. for some reason he was carrying a gun in his pocket, and for some reason it fired.

because you need to be sure you're armed at all times, for that moment when the savages decide they're not waiting for purge night to come busting into your home.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.