Practice keeping schools safe  Posted July 08, 2009, at 6:23
p.m.  In September 2008, I wrote an OpEd about the threat of
active shooters inside our community’s schools. I warned that
terrorists have been considering attacking our schools and have
even rehearsed such plans. The responses to my column were
predictable. I was fear mongering. This was not a real threat.
Less than two months later, on Oct. 31, 2008, a man with a
handgun took 11 fifth-graders hostage in a Stockton Springs
elementary school. The episode got some people’s attention and
sparked some responsible conversations about bad people in
schools with guns.  Those conversations led to a unique tabletop
exercise involving multiple agencies using an active shooter
scenario on May 30 in Machias. I was privileged to help design
and facilitate an exercise directed to explore a community’s
response capability to a shooter on a school campus in Maine. We
had officials from law enforcement, fire, the forestry
department, local emergency management, th