Active Shooter Training Conducted At Bensalem School

BENSALEM TOWNSHIP, PA —With school shootings becoming more prominent over the past few years, Bensalem Police want to be ready to react if an active shooter appears at a township school.

For the past few weeks, the Bensalem Township Police Department has conducted classroom and scenario-based training at Russell C. Struble Elementary School.

William McVey, the township's director of public safety, told Patch Friday that the training also involves students from the Bensalem Township School District.

"We have students who have volunteered to assist us," McVey said of five students who have worked with police, fire, and EMS personnel during the training for two days this week and two days last week. "We give them confidence and muscle memory to deal with this threat."

McVey said protecting the school population of 7,000 students is a top priority and that he talks daily and weekly with Schools Superintendent Samuel Lee to maintain a "strong relationship" of constant cooperation that started about 15 years ago.

He said that during the year, police hold lockdowns and intruder drills in the schools where sometimes only the superintendent and principal have been informed.

"We test the vulnerability of a school by having someone try to get in," McVey said.

McVey said that the police department's policies and protocols call for "immediate action."

"It's critical. Lives depend on it," he said.

McVey said that all staff receive training to act with urgency, stop the gunman, and defend innocent lives.

He said officers are trained to enter quickly in small formations or even enter the school with only one or two officers in the event of an active shooter.

"We study all these incidents across the country," McVey said. "It's something we hope we never have to do."