Little Silver police conducted lockdown and ‘active shooter’ drills at the Point Road and Markham schools Tuesday.(Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
The scenario is terrifying: someone loose in a school with gun or rifle and bent on carnage.
No school district can assume it is immune.
On Tuesday morning, subscribers to the Two River Alert text notification system were informed that Little Silver police had conducted their mandated annual lockdown and active-shooter security drills at the Markham Place and Little Silver Point Road schools.
The operations, which call for a room-by-room sweep of each facility, involved the local police department’s six-member tactical squad, “fully geared up in protective body armor and carrying tactical weapons,” police Chief Dan Shaffery tells redbankgreen.
Shaffery declined to offer much detail, but said the exercises are aimed at addressing threats from outside and within the schools.
The kids, he said, “are very good about it. They understand it.”
“I guess every generation has their thing” akin to the threat of a nuclear attack during the Cold War, he said.
Similar drills will be held at a future date at Red Bank Regional, which is also located within borough borders, he said.
“It’s one of those things you drill for and you hope you never, ever have to put in play,” said Shaffery. “But if you do, you’re ready.”
