‘We are not immune’




SERIOUS DISCUSSION—Ventura County sheriff’s Sgt. Thomas Miller explains to Pleasant Valley Unified School District administrators what is happening during an active-shooter training exercise at Rancho Rosal Elementary School on Aug. 8. The administrators were also trained in their response to an active shooter.

SERIOUS DISCUSSION—Ventura County sheriff’s Sgt. Thomas Miller explains to Pleasant Valley Unified School District administrators what is happening during an active-shooter training exercise at Rancho Rosal Elementary School on Aug. 8. The administrators were also trained regarding their role in an active shooter situation.

Rancho Rosal Elementary School students were still on summer break, but the campus wasn’t empty on a recent Monday afternoon.

Inside a classroom, a group of police officers wearing bulletproof vests sat behind desks. They were focused on a training officer who was reinforcing a mandate they’ve heard time and time again: “Every second counts.”

The three words are easy to say, but running toward gunfire and making split-second decisions when lives are on the line requires constant practice.

That’s what brought 28 police officers to the Ventura County sheriff’s active-shooter training on the Pleasant Valley School District campus Aug. 8. It was the first time the department had held this type of training at a PVSD school.

“Everybody wants to think that it’s not going to happen here, but we have to train as if it is going to happen here. And 2018 was a sobering reality that it absolutely can happen here with Borderline,” said Cmdr. Eric Tennessen, the city’s chief of police, referring to the county’s single mass shooting, in which 12 lives were taken. “We are not immune.”

WORKING TOGETHER—Ventura County sheriff’s deputies take part in an active-shooter drill at Rancho Rosal on Monday. Photos by RICHARD GILLARD/Acorn Newspapers

WORKING TOGETHER—Ventura County sheriff’s deputies take part in an active-shooter drill at Rancho Rosal on Monday. Photos by RICHARD GILLARD/Acorn Newspapers

After a morning of lectures, the officers, mostly deputies with the sheriff’s office, participated in three scenario-based trainings on the campus.

They practiced responding to a basic active-shooter call, transitioning to caring for the injured after the “shooter” died by suicide and finally reacting to an ambush by a second “shooter.”

In each of the simulations, the officers were given the least amount of information possible.

“We do what we can to replicate what could possibly happen in a real-life scenario,” Tennessen said.

This, he said, includes exposing the officers to stressful environments.

The “ shooter”— another VCSO officer—was armed with blank cartridges, while the responding officers used rubber bullets.

The scenarios included fire alarms, smoke machines, strobe lights, loud music and, perhaps most stressful of all, officers moaning in pain and screaming for help—each of whom the responders had to move past.

After each of the exercises, the officers were told what they did right and what they need to do better.

“(The deputies) absolutely appreciate scenario-based training, and they really believe it will better prepare them,” Tennessen said.

The sheriff’s office, he said, continuously improves its training by analyzing law enforcement responses to previous mass shootings.

The 77-page report from the Texas House of Representatives committee that investigated the “systemic failures and egregiously poor decision making” of the law enforcement officers who responded to the May 24 shooting at Robb Elementary School sits on Tennessen’s desk.

“The Uvalde shooting was a reminder for us: Our training needs to be up-to-date,” he said.

According to the report, hundreds of officers prioritized their own safety by waiting more than an hour to confront the shooter, who ultimately killed 19 students and two teachers.

Though the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office’s tactics have evolved since the Columbine High School shooting in 1999, its philosophy has not and will not change, Tennessen said.

“For us, innocents’ and civilians’ safety is the highest priority. Deputy sheriffs’ safety is the second highest priority. . . . When other people are running away, we’re running toward gunfire, putting ourselves in harm’s way to eliminate the threat.

“That’s a heavy burden, but it’s one that every law enforcement officer in the country knows is possible every time they put on a uniform and every time they go to work. For me, it’s telling that people are still willing to put on the uniform and still willing to go to work.”

Pleasant Valley Superintendent Danielle Cortes said that burden has also grown increasingly heavy for staff, especially since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012.

“We wish that we wouldn’t have to be prepared,” she said. “It’s not what educators chose to do when they signed up for this profession. . . . But it’s the love of children that attracts us to these careers that also helps us to realize we need to be prepared.”

Cortes said she was relieved to learn about the latest tactics.

Observing the training allowed district administrators to better understand how officers would respond if such an incident happens.

“It instills even more confidence that our law enforcement would be there, God forbid, in a worst-case scenario and that they’d be prepared coming onto campuses,” she said.

Beckie Cramer, president of the board of trustees, has a child attending school within the district. Forming connections with the men and women of the sheriff’s office has given her peace of mind, she said.

“It was really comforting for all of us involved to know that these police officers are the current and former parents of our PVSD students,” she said. “Their kids are our kids.”

As a board member, she said, she is grateful for the unique opportunity to get a behind-the-scenes look into how much effort district officials put into being proactive about campus safety.

“Not every parent gets to see that,” Cramer said. “It instills a lot of confidence when I send my son to middle school.”

The district’s school resource officer will lead a virtual training for the remaining staff later this month and visit each campus for site-specific training in the fall.

Cortes said the district’s collaboration with the sheriff’s office enhances its other security measures as well as its social-emotional learning curriculum.

“Our response to campus safety is multifaceted,” she said.

District and sheriff’s office officials said they are grateful for the relationship they continue to strengthen, as it is critical to the safety of students.

“We want the public to know that we’ve got a great partnership with our schools, that we recognize our responsibility to help facilitate a safe learning environment for our kids, and that we plan and train so that parents can feel comfortable sending their kids to school,” said Tennessen, also a district parent. “And we’ll continue to do that.”