Morgan County Sheriff’s Office training for active shooter situations

SOMERVILLE, Ala. (WAFF) - Gun violence continues to stay at the forefront of news coverage following the mass school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, leaving 19 dead. Just this week, seven were killed and many others injured in another mass shooting at a Fourth of July parade in Chicago.

The Morgan County Sheriff’s Office is spending two days in Brewer High School training over 50 deputies and school resource officers (SROs) on how to respond to an active shooter situation.

“How we would move, how we would maneuver, how we would get into a situation and eliminate a threat to protect the citizens,” said SRO Jim Buchli.

Although this training has been in the works for a while, the recent mass shootings reinforced the need for the training.

“We look at what has been happening nationwide, of course, the schools we want to protect peoples children,” Buchli said. “That is one of our top priorities. Especially for the school resources officers, this is where we will be…”

Buchli said active shooter training doesn’t only apply to schools. It also applies to churches, venues and other places where people gather in large numbers.

“The parents shouldn’t be worried about sending their kids back to school this fall,” Buchli said. “We are going to be there to protect your kids. So rest easy. We are on the job and working hard to make sure everybody is going to be safe.”

The deputies and SROs will continue their training next week when they participate in federal training in Decatur. There, they’ll train on command center operations when an active shooter situation happens.

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