I worked as a school resource officer at a 5-A high school (approximately 2,500 students) from 1999-2002. During that time, I became extremely interested in school violence, and active shooters in particular. I was the only police officer assigned to the school, and it quickly became apparent that I would have to deal with violent situations by myself.

After being involved in several violent encounters with suspects (some involving students and some involving non-students), I discovered that putting out an assist-officer in a school was completely different than putting out an assist on the street. This was because once the responding units arrived at the school, they still had to find me in the building. Even if I gave my exact location inside the building, none of the patrol officers were familiar enough with the school to know where I was talking about. This realization made me start thinking about what would happen in the event that an active shooter incident occurred on my campus.

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