Marshall Co. Sheriff’s Office held active shooter training at Asbury High

ALBERTVILLE, Ala. (WAFF) - On Friday, Marshall County Sheriff’s Office deputies were at Asbury High School practicing their response to an active shooting situation.

Sheriff Phil Sims said simulating the unthinkable allows his deputies to practice the skills they have to protect students. The scenario had an active shooter enter a classroom, take hostages and wait for police officers to respond.

“Overall the training went very well,” Sims said. “Our first team came in and did what they were supposed to do. They were able to isolate the threat, once they isolated the threat they were able to deal with it properly.”

Asbury High School’s principal Clay Webber had a chance to sit inside the classroom where the scene took place. Webster said that it put their minds in a ‘different place’.

“It was much more real life than I anticipated,” Webber said. “Being in the room as a hostage, hearing the back and forth with the officers seeing the officers enter the room the way they did seeing them clear the building it was very life-like.”

Sheriff Sims says that this training is meant to make sure that his officers are prepared and ready at any moment.

“It is a training event we want to see what our response times,” Sims said. “The main focus today was to make sure we have communications between different agencies showing up during active shooter situations. How that communication develops, how it builds into a command structure all the way up the line, to see how they dealt with the threat that was in the school.”

Webber introduced a new security addition for Asbury High School.

“Some things we are adding is a security lobby in the front of our school,” Webber said. “Which is going to help keep our students and staff members safe. As people enter the building they will be able to drop things off through a security window, instead of actually having to enter the building.”

Aside from the security lobby entrances, Webster said there will only be a few doors that people can enter and even those doors will have to be unlocked by a staff member.

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