News 12 This Morning, June 22, 2009

COLUMBIA CTY, Ga.---It's a situation no officer wants to face...but you have to be prepared for a school shooting. Complete chaos, noise, confusion, alarms, frightened faculty and children running and hiding, some unwilling to respond to your directions, but the whole time you're expected to be on your toes.

"Anybody that comes running out, we're going to have to secure that person and make sure they don't have any weapons and that they remain safe, and at the same time we're gathering information from them, because they have vital information we need as first responding officers, as to who's in the building, where they're located at, and what weapons they have," David Sward said.

David Sward is the training officer with the Columbia County Sheriff's Office and he's teaching these officers how to respond to an active shooter.

He says after Columbine, a study found the traditional planning of getting there, surrounding the scene, calling out your SWAT team and briefing them on the situation and then sending them inside the school didn't work.

"Since that time period, we've learned that getting more officers on the scene and the first responding officers making the advancement into the school is a better outcome and a better chance to save more lives," Sward said.

Moving as fast as you can to get the gunmen, before they shoot as many people as they can. Nine out of ten shooters are suicidal, and the average age for a school shooter is 14 to 15-years-old. Sward says 1/3 will surrender, 1/3 will kill themselves, and 1/3 will force law enforcement to kill them.

"We would rather be prepared for something and have a plan implemented, so that if it does happen, we're one step ahead, rather than being taken by surprise," Sward said.

It's about being prepared for the unexpected and being ready to take action now.

All the officers, have a beat book that shows all of the floor plans for the schools. So this way, if something were to happen, they would know the layout of the building and know where to go.

In Columbia County, they have school safety officers at the middle and high schools, but not the elementary schools. The middle and high schools have one officer per school.