NAMPA, Idaho — Monday marked the first day of a multi-day training for Meridian and Nampa school resource officers (SRO).
SROs ran through several mock active shooter drills, including clearing hallways, entering into classrooms and finding a suspect, Meridian SRO sergeant John Gonzales said.
A lot of times, people just think about lockdown drills. In reality, there are many other safety protocols to develop, according to Gonzales.
Learning from other schools around the country – about what to do and what not to do – helps create safer and more effective responses, Gonzales said.
“We do take a lot of that information to make sure that our officers are ready,” Gonzales said, “and if they had to encounter a situation like what happened in Uvalde, they are ready to act.”
This year, there are sixteen Meridian SROs and three supervisors assigned to various West Ada Schools. Five of those officers will split their time between elementary schools, Gonzales said.
Last year, they had a 12-person team. He said the more training, the better equipped SROs are.
“What we're hoping for is that our training just takes over if one of these situations was to occur, to be able to get us through that situation.” Gonzales said.
Third-year SRO Jared Haustveit said as a father himself, keeping children safe is his top priority. While working, he runs through scenarios in his mind if there is something suspicious happening.
He said for something as serious as a school shooting, emotional processing is something that comes afterward.
“I think is in this profession, you have to be able to separate yourself from training in reality at times,” Haustveit said.
SROs have many different responsibilities – like dealing with mental health crises, first aid and various health and welfare issues, Haustveit said.
Haustveit said building positive relationships between not only schools and police, but also students and police, is the recipe for success.
“Everyone kind of has their perception of what law enforcement or what SROs are," Haustveit said. "And a lot of that is maybe knocking those barriers down and just showing them, 'hey, I'm just a normal person, just like you. But I'm also here, you know, as a policeman to help out if needed.'"
A lot of times, Gonzales said people are aware of a potential incident before it happens. He encourages people report anything suspicious to law enforcement.
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