Putnam SROs Complete Active Shooting Training For Upcoming School Year

Putnam County’s School Resource Officers have completed training for the upcoming school year.

Putnam County Sheriff Eddie Farris said some 20 officers recently completed a 40 hour active shooter session.

“They are certainly able and willing without hesitation to trade their life for students or anyone else in the building,” Farris said. “We work on that, talk about that, and they even sign a mission statement for me saying those same words.”

Farris said they used Parkview Elementary School for the training. Farris said officers reviewed several items such as target profiling, firearm training, life-saving techniques and more.

“We work on things every year, and we learn from other mistakes from other law enforcements and schools across the country,” Farris said. “That’s sad to say, but we certainly want to learn from that, so we don’t make the same mistakes here.”

Farris said they also worked with school administrators to improve camera coverage and door security. Farris said he hopes the training will ease the concerns of parents, students and staff entering the school year.

“Our number one objective for having school resource deputies inside schools is to keep students and teachers safe at all costs,” Farris said.

Farris said some portions of the training could not be discussed for strategy reasons.

“This is not new to the deputies,” Farris said. “We just do it frequently to keep their skills sharp and their awareness at the highest level. Communication is always the stop priority between the teachers, staff, students and law enforcement, so there are many things that we go over.”