Charlotte County deputies train for active school shooter training

One week after a gunman in Texas killed 19 children, deputies here are preparing for that worst-case scenario.

The Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office said the training is designed to prepare deputies to stop a threat as quickly as possible to save as many children as possible.  The active school shooter training for all school resource officers was held at Punta Gorda Middle School.

Lt. Jason Zakowich is in charge of training for the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office. He wishes he didn’t have to train his school resource officers on how to take out school shooters, but these days, he has no choice.

“It sucks,” Zakowich said. “You might not think it’s going to happen here, because it’s never happened here. But it can happen here. So we just want to make sure that everybody’s on their game when the time comes.”

Deputy Justin Morse said every other school resource officer is trained to confront a shooter by themselves.

There’s no waiting for backup.

It’s called a single-officer response.

“Most of the schools only have one officer. So, we are responsible at that point when something is happening to respond and stop something from happening as quick as possible,” Morse said.

School resources officers participated in a simulation training where no live ammunition was allowed.

But inside, the officers do everything to make it as realistic as possible.

“We have a couple people role-playing as victims, have a sound system set up that simulates screaming and loud noise and stuff like that,” Zakowich said.

Because the more real it sounds, the more real it feels, the more likely school resource officers will do exactly what they are supposed to do if there is a time when they have to respond to a school shooting.

“It trains you to block past that fight or flight and get into the fight, and be able to do what we need to do to make sure that we stop the threat as fast as possible,” Morse said.

That did not happen in Uvalde, Texas, despite the fact the police chief there completed active shooter training.

But at the Charlotte County Sheriff’s Office, they train at least once a year to respond to that kind of crime.