By Bill Reynolds
La Conner Community News
Local law enforcement officers recently trained in tactics they hope to never use at La Conner High School.
Skagit County Sheriff’s Office deputies and Swinomish Tribal Police officers held joint active shooter drills on campus on July 23, completing nine hours of training equally divided between classroom instruction and simulated exercises.
Morning sessions featured power point presentations addressing such school shooting tragedies as those at Colorado’s Columbine High School in 1999, Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018, and Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in 2022.
A series of live training scenarios with officers donning tactical gear followed in the afternoon.
Sgt. Ben Hagglund, who administers the county’s La Conner Detachment Office, and Swinomish Police Chief Earl Cowan said the training was vital on several levels.
They cited needs to practice the latest methods for responding to potential mass shootings, familiarize officers with La Conner High’s unique round-shaped layout, and build further camaraderie among the neighboring departments because personnel from different agencies work together regularly on mutual aid calls.
“I’m thankful for the outstanding partnership that we have with the Skagit County Sheriff’s Office,” Cowan said afterward. “The opportunity to take part in this kind of training continues to strengthen that bond and contributes to the safety of our entire community.”
Cowan repeatedly stressed that the type of training conducted at La Conner High is essential.
“Training for multiagency response incidents like this is critical to success and has been demonstrated in multiple events in our county over the years,” he said.
Officers participated in a series of training scenarios. One of those involved a single responder exiting a patrol car, loading a rifle while on the move, and bounding up an outdoor stairway into a darkened school hallway to locate a shooter.
Each officer had to evade students fleeing the building — in this case portrayed by La Conner staff members Corey Catubo and Preston Stewart.
Once inside the building, officers were met by a screaming victim (played by La Conner School Board President Susie Deyo) and images of three young adults who had to be instantly identified as either unarmed students, shooters, or as a shooter with hostages.
Next, officers had to quickly decide which direction to advance. To their left, several yards away, was a paper target that was cast as the shooter. Officers then fired at the target as they would an actual shooter.
“It’s a very realistic drill,” Hagglund noted, pointing out the inclusion of details large and small, including the stark contrast between outdoor and indoor lighting officers would face.
“You train and prepare for the worst case scenario and then you’re able to adjust down to everything else,” he explained.
Another drill required a single officer armed with a paintball gun to enter the building, locate which classroom was under siege, and then eliminate the threat.
Hagglund said Sheriff’s Office Cpl. Gary Huehnerhoff planned the cooperative tribal police-county deputies training, which ran from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Sgt. Josh Case of the Sheriff’s Office was among those who completed the exercises.
“One of the hardest things is you have to go against human nature. If you see a student who’s hurt, you can’t stop and help, as much as you’d like to. You have to pursue the shooter,” he said. “You have to stop the shooting to stop the killing.”
Case said that while no one wants an actual active shooter situation to occur, the all-day training was invaluable for all parties involved. That includes La Conner Schools.
“We can now give some really good feedback to the school,” he said.
Deyo, drawing upon her role as a simulated shooting victim, can attest to that.
“This is a great drill,” she told Hagglund upon leaving for the day.
Bill Reynolds is a general assignment reporter for La Conner Community News.
