IRVING, Texas — During the active shooter training at Nimitz High School in Irving Thursday morning, officers got word of a deadly high school shooting in real life nearly 800 miles away.
Around the same time, police in Perry, Iowa, responded to reports of shots fired at a high school there. That made the training in Irving, Texas, all the more important.
The Irving Police Department invited more than 300 officers and school and city employees to train on what to do in a real-life scenario. The full-scale exercise is the culmination of a two-year training plan that started with tabletop exercises.
"The more you can train, the more you can mentally prepare yourself for any type of incident you might be facing at work, and the better and the higher the success rate is," said Sgt. Robert Reeves.
Sgt. Reeves has put in 20 years of work in law enforcement. The training he received at the beginning of his career differs greatly from what officers need training on today, he says.
Active shooter training is not new to the Irving Police Department, but today, it is necessary. The department considers the full-scale exercise a success.
But, as they trained for the worst, word spread about a real-life deadly school shooting almost 800 miles away in Perry, Iowa. So, Thursday's exercise hits home.
"They are in a very difficult position. I am praying for them. I am praying for that community. We have had active shooter situations here several years ago," Reeves said. "What it did with all of our employees here is, it resonated the importance of this. This is not something that may occur someday. This is something that is occurring very frequently."
Since there are frequent school shootings, Irving PD officials also conducted a detailed critique of their make-believe emergency response. Because for police, it's not just being prepared if a school shooting happens, but also when.
"We have children in schools. We have wives and husbands who are teachers who work in these schools. This training is very personal to all of us," said Reeves.