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This is a pretend active shooter at NVHS on Saturday morning.

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This is a pretend NVHS student running down the halls of NVHS hoping not to get shot.

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These three deputies walk through the halls of NVHS on Saturday morning in search of a pretend shooter.

Vermilion Parish Sheriff deputies take part in active shooting training at high school

For the last two Saturdays, gunshots have been heard coming from the North Vermilion High School. This time the shots heard were fake, because of an “Active Shooter” training with the Vermilion Parish Sheriff’s Office deputies was taking place at the school.
The training will continue through this coming Saturday when Sheriff deputies will be training other law enforcement officers in Vermilion Parish.
Now there is a state law in place that requires law enforcement to conduct active shooting training in their local schools. Senator Bob Hensgens helped write the bill.
Long before that bill was written, the Sheriff’s Office has been conducting active shooter training in Vermilion Parish. The Sheriff’s Office began active shooter training in 2004 under then Superintendent Randy Schexnyder and It has continued under now Superintendent Jerome Puyau.
When Sheriff Mike Couvillon began his law enforcement career 37 years ago, there was no cause to train for an active shooter. The Columbine shooting in 1999 changed that way of thinking for law enforcement. “It (Columbine shooting) changed everything,” said Sheriff Couvillon, who was at North Vermilion High School on Saturday morning. “All of a sudden, the world became familiar with the term active shooter.”
The deputies undergo a two-day training. The first day is in the classrooms, and on the second day, the officers are put through drills in the halls and in the gym at NVHS.
Some volunteers are acting as the bad guys who are armed with simulation handguns and ammo. The weapons are not real, but they do sound real. The ammo hitting the actors or deputies does hurt. Everyone wears safety gear.
Couvillon said the deputies are put through scenarios where they have to make a split-second decision on how to best engage and stop the threat while making other decisions on how to save lives by protecting the children.
“We must train every year to where both sides might be better prepared to be able to think and act under extreme stress and chaos both during and after these types of horrific events,” the Sheriff added.
This is one training the Sheriff hopes will never come true. If it does, he is confident that his deputies and other law enforcement who take the training are prepared.
“Let us hope all we do is train every year and pray to God that we never have to put our plan into action for something real,” Couvillon concluded.

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