Officials and emergency personnel discuss active shooter situations

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WGGB/WSHM) — Following Wednesday’s tragic school shooting, we’re getting local reaction from public officials and emergency responders.

Congressman Richard Neal said students should spend the school day focused on classes, not worrying about a possible shooting. Meanwhile, local police say tragedies like the one we saw Wednesday are why it’s essential to be prepared for a shooting at any time.

A mass shooting claimed the lives of two students and two teachers, and left others injured at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, on Wednesday. Authorities have confirmed that the suspect, a 14-year-old student, is now in custody. A classmate of the shooter shared that she was in algebra class with him moments before gunshots rang out throughout the school.

“He was at the door and they almost let him in until they backed off and then he turned around and that’s when the first rounds of gunfire rang out,” he said.

Back in Western Massachusetts, Congressman Richard Neal is outraged as a father and politician.

“Anyone who has been a parent, when they kiss their children goodbye in the morning, they expect them to come home in the afternoon, and in this case, again, it is an example of violence that, upon closer inspection, perhaps could have been avoided,” he said.

Neal explained that Massachusetts has some of the strictest gun laws in the country and that they are only getting stricter. In July, Gov. Maura Healey signed a gun reform bill, which increases violence prevention and cracks down on ghost guns. At the federal level, Neal says the work is still ongoing.

“We have taken steps in the immediate past to try to address the problem – in cases of domestic abuse, we have tried very hard to implement waiting periods. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suggest, for example, that there be a seven-day waiting period while authorities can run a criminal background check on a person,” he said. “This is not a threat to legitimate hunters or sportsmen, it’s a recognition that real people with criminal records and mental health issues should not have access to guns.”

As the conversation about gun violence continues, so too do preparations for the unthinkable.

“The school district does a great job of training their students and their staff for that and we do our part to train them to stop that active shooter,” West Springfield Police Sgt. Joe LaFrance told us.

In West Springfield, police held their annual school shooting drill in an empty school on Wednesday. Western Mass News visited the training session and spoke with Sergeant LaFrance.

He explained that officers have been training for years for these situations, but responding to an event like this can take an emotional toll on emergency services.

“We have an in-house mental health clinician that we can talk to and we have post-incident debriefings, so we have resources to help our officers deal with those types of incidents,” LaFrance explained.

Neal told us that gun violence is the leading cause of death among children in the United States right now.

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