With the school year now underway a flurry of
federally-coordinated “active shooter drills” are taking place across
the country. The exercises are part of a broader program the FBI is
carrying out as a result of an Obama’s directive following the December
2012 Newtown school massacre.
The FBI has teamed up with an existing active-shooter training
program —Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training (ALERRT) —
begun in Texas after the 1999 Columbine High School shootings and funded
in part by the US Department of Justice. The FBI sent roughly 100
tactical instructors to ALERRT training and then placed them throughout
the US to oversee mock terror exercises with local law enforcement
agencies.
“Officers and instructors were divided into gunmen, responders,
hostages and victims and given real-life scenarios that test their
ability to enter a building and confront a shooter,” according to an
Associated Press report.
“The officers, in blue protective helmets, fired non-lethal projectiles from lookalike handguns — enough to make a loud “pop” and sting on impact … “In that kind of event, you can never get to the point where it’s real life. Always in back of the officer’s head, they know, ‘I’m not actually going to die. No one’s being killed,’” said J. Pete Blair, the ALERRT program’s research director and an associate professor at Texas State University-San Marcos. But, he added, “It’s as close as we can get to the real thing without people getting hurt. The [new] drills coach officers to directly engage the shooter instead of waiting for specialized SWAT teams to arrive … The protocol marks a stark shift from past training that focused on containing the scene, controlling the perimeter and calling for SWAT help. That strategy, though widely accepted at the time, was criticized as too slow and painstaking after the Columbine shootings.” [1]
Since these exercises are designed to be as realistic as possible,
students, school personnel and the broader public may be unsuspectingly
caught up in the contrived terror, unable distinguish whether the
“actors” alongside the accompanying gunfire and explosions are real or
fake. This important facet is left up to the relevant agencies to
explain to the press.
Further, such events are purportedly carried out to ensure civilians’
“safety” while sharpening police officers’ skills in “real life”
environments. Yet local communities and the families of frightened
children might wonder why military training-style maneuvers have to be
carried out with their loved ones as props, especially in light of the
fact that the entire program is based on an event the public still has
only limited information about.
Such government mandates and exercises also call up several deeper
questions that will scarcely be considered by those claiming to act in
out best interest. For example, aren’t these trainings a fundamental
component toward convincing young people and the broader public that
virtually no place is safe? Through such drills and increasingly
militarized policing isn’t it safe to conclude that those authorities
suggesting the sole remedy for possibly being in the wrong place at the
wrong time is a virtual police state?
Moreover, when one takes into consideration the slipshod and even
downright dishonest nature of so much journalism today, such drills may
in fact provide the basis for the carefully coordinated news spectacle
should they “go live,” thereby providing further rationale for the
perpetual state of terror and surveillance the nation presently finds
itself in.
It is important to note that just as these drills were taking place a
real event transpired in Decatur, Georgia—indeed, one that at first
glance is difficult distinguish from the many federally-orchestrated
shooter drills, not to mention the 2012 Newtown school massacre. A
20-year-old gunman dressed in black and carrying an AK-47 allegedly
found his way into the Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy
where a school secretary occupied him with small talk long enough for
police to arrive. “The gunman also held other employees hostage,” the New York Times reports. When police made it there
the gunman stepped outside of the building and fired four to six shots, and went back inside, the police said. An officer returned fire. [school clerk Antoinette] Tuff said he wanted to go back outside but she told him to empty his pockets and backpack and to put his weapons down. “He got down on the floor, but when the police officers came in, he was actually laying on the floor with his hands behind his back,” she said. [2]
It is important to note how the Decatur Township School District
received FEMA training in emergency management response less than one
month ago. At the conclusion of that training Decatur Township School
Board President and Decatur Township Fire Department Chief Dale Henson
observed, “As leaders, there is no better way to spend our time than
preparing for incidents which we hope will never occur, but for which we
must be ready, in order to protect our most precious resources – our
children and those who work in our schools to enrich their lives.” [3]
The following are descriptions of some of the mock terror events that
have taken place throughout the country since August 1, 2013.
Continue reading:
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario