ST. MARYS – It’s every parent’s worst nightmare: reports of
gunshots fired at your child’s school. People are injured and some
may be dead. Unfortunately, that scene is becoming an all too
frequent reality in today’s world.
On Saturday morning, the St. Marys City Police Department, along
with many other local and state agencies, took part in a training
exercise at St. Marys Area Middle School to handle just such a
scenario.
“We look for critical comments on this, so we can improve on our
responses,” St. Marys Police Chief Todd Caltagarone said. “This is
as realistic as we can get it without the real thing.”
Officials said the training used specially-designed simulation
bullets that give the feel of impact, but without the danger.
Caltagarone said officials’ have been training for the better
part of two years to deal with this type of situation and to
continue improving upon response times.
“It’s important to get it stopped as quickly as possible,”
Caltagarone explained. “We are pretty pleased with today (Saturday)
and hope the evaluators are somewhat critical, so we can
improve.”
For his part, Johnsonburg Police Chief Bryan Parana said “It’s
excellent training. It helps to train with our local agencies
because they’re the ones we would be working with. I think every
time you do one of these events, you learn from it and makes your
responses more fine-tuned.”
The event was held by the Northwest Central Pennsylvania
Emergency Response Group, Elk County Office of Emergency Services
and the St. Marys Area School District.
Also participating were: Elk Regional Health Center, Crystal
Fire Department, Elkland Search and Rescue, Northwest Central
Pennsylvania Counter Terrorism Task Force, Stat Med Evac Air
medical helicopter, Horton Township Fire Department, Elk and
Cameron American Red Cross, Elk County 911 Center, Elk County
Sheriff’s Department, St. Marys Area Ambulance, Fox Township Fire
Department, Elk County Haz-Mat Team, Cameron County Emergency
Response Team, Johnsonburg Police Department, Pennsylvania
Emergency Management Agency, Pennsylvania State Police Aviation
Unit and the Department of Protection.
