“What people have to realize is that this is what our officers and our deputies are taught now. They may spend most of their time on patrol out in the county, but they are highly trained for all kinds of different scenarios, and a shooting at one of our schools is one of them.”
Those words belong to Lou Vargo, the director of the Ohio County Emergency Management Agency, and he’s talking about first-responder training in preparation for a mass shooting inside a school, and there are plenty of those in the city of Wheeling and out in the county.
There are 19 schools in Ohio County, including the three high schools and three college campuses. The Ohio County Sheriff’s Office has four schools and West Liberty University within its jurisdiction, and the Wheeling Police Department covers 10 school buildings as well as Wheeling University and West Virginia Northern Community College.
“Those numbers are the primary reason we are very active members of the School Safety Committee in the county,” Vargo said. “These are the kinds of things we discuss so we are always as prepared as possible.
“I do believe our officers and deputies are ready for a situation at a school because of the concentrations on the SWAT team and the sheriff’s SRT team,” the EMA director said. “We’re always learning new techniques, and we’re always gaining new equipment that would be used in those kinds of situations.”
The tragedy in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24 where a mass shooter killed 19 students and two teachers and wounded 17 others is still fresh on many minds in law enforcement, Vargo explained, and the lesson this time involves what not to do once reaching the scene.
“The tragedy in Texas hit us just as hard as Columbine did back in 1999,” Vargo said. “Of course, Columbine was our first mass shooting in a school, but every time this takes place, it makes everyone take a step back and think. And the only way to honor those victims is to analyze the situation to see what went right and what went wrong, and there’s a lot to learn from what transpired in Texas.
“Plus, some things are going to happen in one area and not in another, and those differences have to be taken into consideration,” he said. “But now one thing is across the border, and that is ‘stop the killing, stop the dying.’ That’s what the first responders have to do immediately in a mass shooting situation. The task of the first members of law enforcement to arrive is to neutralize the threat. That’s the training, but in Texas that decision was not made, and we’re still waiting to find out why.”
Hard Schools
An important part of the $70 million bond initiative in Ohio County Schools has been the improvement of security in all 13 schools, including the installation of what is known as a “man trap” in each building. The area is referred to as such because it is a small room where an individual attempting to enter a school is kept until he or she is cleared to visit.
“There have been so many improvements that have been made across the board,” said David Croft, president of the Ohio County Board of Education. “But because of what has been happening inside schools across the country during the past few decades, we felt it was important to harden our schools to keep our students as safe as possible.
“The ‘man traps’ have been successful in many, many incidents across the country, and when we see the tragedies take place, they seem to be inside facilities that do not have those kinds of areas,” he said. “Is that alone going to keep the kids safe? No, but we have taken other measures, as well.”
So have the county’s first responders, including the adoption of a search-and-rescue operation during mass shootings.
“Wheeling Park High School is a mammoth building, and if the shooter is in one part of the building, and there are students and faculty who have been shot and are dying in an area that has been cleared, we are working on a program that would involve a rescue team of paramedics that could go in and save some lives,” Vargo explained. “Now, such a strategy would only work if the scenario presented itself, but it is something we have seen possible in other tragedies that have taken place.
“Based on what we have seen in those previous incidents, this is one way we can save lives,” he said. “We have had three training sessions on it and have scheduled a fourth, so it is something that is national that has come to the state of West Virginia thanks to some grants we were able to attract and receive.”
So many questions surround mass shooter situations, but no matter what training is offered to members of law enforcement, there is only one real way to avoid a mass-shooting massacre.
“I really don’t think everyone who has become a mass shooter has been mentally ill. I believe some of them wanted to do what they did,” Vargo said. “Of course, we have had the shooters who were bullied in school and wanted to get their revenge, but what triggers that event, I don’t know. And, of course, mental health is an issue in many of these cases, too. We know that to be true.
“One of our slogans is, ‘If you see something, say something,’ and another is, ‘If you hear something, say something.’ We have to do our best to get information to law enforcement as early as possible so they can investigate and possibly prevent a tragedy from taking place,” he urged. “Tell a teacher or a principal, or, if you have a prevention resource officer in your school, tell him or her as soon as you can because we’ve known for a long time that prevention is the best way to avoid a tragedy.”
