'America's safest school' shows what students have to do when there's a school shooter
Published
| Last updated
Featured Image Credit: NBC News/YouTube
Dubbed 'America's safest school', Southwestern High School in Indiana comes fitted with state of the art defences against a potential school shooter.
Installed back in 2013, the school spent over $400,000 on a bunch of gizmos and upgrades which they hoped would stop a school shooter in their tracks.
Rather than do something like tighten up gun laws so people couldn't get their hands on weapons of war designed only to kill, it was instead decided that the best option was installing bullet resistant doors in schools and giving teachers panic buttons.
Loading…
The safety measures range from the high tech to the mundane, with classrooms featuring a red line beyond which a person cannot be spotted by someone trying to look into the classroom.
Footage shows the children getting behind the line, propping up desks to use as barricades and holding books in front of their faces as they cower in the corner.
Apparently, holding a book over their faces makes the kids seem like less of a moving target to the school shooter, making them less likely to be picked out by the gunman.
While that's the low tech stuff, more advanced measures include a security system with a direct link to the local police, along with switches in each classroom which allow teachers to call for help and indicate whereabouts in the school the shooter is.
There's also smoke cannons set into the corridor ceilings which can be deployed to confuse and disorientate a school shooter.
They can be controlled remotely by the local sheriff to scare and distract a shooter who makes their way into the school.
The idea behind the whole package is that a shooter would be unable to get into any of the classrooms thanks to the bulletproof doors, while also getting distracted by the smoke cannons in that window of time before the police arrive.
In an ideal world, a place of education wouldn't need those things and most schools around the world would happily do without them.
In even more disturbing news, parents are teaching their children what to do if a shooter comes to their school and giving them bulletproof backpacks in the hopes it could save their lives.
In other stuff that should not be normal but sadly is, teenagers are volunteering to play victims in school shooting drills the police are carrying out.
Shouting, screaming and pretending to be injured while the fake shooter fires blanks, they are helping train cops for the possibility of the real thing, which is an all too frequent occurrence in America.
If you have experienced a bereavement and would like to speak with someone in confidence contact Cruse Bereavement Care via their national helpline on 0808 808 1677
