Rochelle Township High School was host to an array of emergency personnel Saturday for an active shooting drill training session.
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ROCHELLE — Rochelle Township High School was host to an array of emergency personnel Saturday for an active shooting drill training session.
Area police and fire departments participated in the event that included more than 320 students and adults that took personnel more than 20 months to put together.
During the hours-long training session, police officers were faced with a shooter in the building who had detonated a pipe bomb.
According to Rochelle Police Chief Eric Higby – during a mock media news conference – the 17-year-old student had barricaded himself inside a classroom in the “C” wing of the building along with approximately 20 students where he detonated the pipe bomb and began shooting a gun, critically injuring eight students before being taken into custody by police.
Rochelle Police Chief Eric Higby speaks during a mock media briefing Saturday as part of the active shooter drill held at Rochelle Township High School.
“Planning for this drill began in February of 2018 and in that time we’ve engaged the stakeholders and responders in numerous conversations, training and smaller scaled walk throughs,” emergency management coordinator for the City of Rochelle and Rochelle Police Department Detective Terry Inman said. “This drill was another step in the process and we exposed the responders to concepts and tactics that they’ve either never experienced - such as responding to an active shooter in a school - or have recently begun to train with - such as rescue task force operations. I am very confident that we took away many lessons learned from this drill.”
Many agencies participated in one fashion or another Saturday, including the Federal Bureau of Investigations, Illinois State Police District 1 and 15, ILEAS, MABAS, Rochelle Police, DeKalb Police, Rockford Police, Rock Valley College Police, Ogle County Sheriff’s Police and Emergency Management, Lee County Sheriff’s Police and Emergency Management, Oregon Police Department, Genoa Police Department, Rochelle Fire Department, Ogle-Lee Fire Protection District, Oregon Fire Department, Rockford Fire Department, Cherry Valley Fire Department, Dixon Fire Department, City of Rochelle, Rochelle Street Department, Rochelle Water Department, City of Algonquin, Rochelle School District 212, Rochelle School District 231, Dixon public schools, Oregon public schools, Regional Board of Education, Focus House, Kishwaukee Education Consortium, Kishwaukee College, Western Illinois University, American Red Cross, Salvation Army, Sinnissippi Centers and AESI Counseling.