The Student News Site of Harvard-Westlake School

The Harvard-Westlake Chronicle

The Student News Site of Harvard-Westlake School

The Harvard-Westlake Chronicle

The Student News Site of Harvard-Westlake School

The Harvard-Westlake Chronicle

Sophomores see Columbine reenactment at assembly

By Julius Pak


“What should you do when a school shooting occurs on campus?”


That was the question posed to sophomores during their assembly Oct. 2 by the security team about A.L.I.C.E.


A.L.I.C.E. is the new program designed to inform students on what to do and what not to do when a school shooting occurs.


The assembly began with a clip of a reenactment of the Columbine massacre, the 1999 shooting at a high school in Colorado , where two students killed 12 students and a teacher before killing themselves.


The reenactment presented what the students at Columbine did in their standard lockdown.


The teacher ordered the students to hide under tables and chairs.


The problems of standard lockdown procedure were quickly shown as the two shooters found themselves in a room of submissive and scared sitting ducks.


Students endured several minutes of the two shooters terrorizing the students under the table by yelling, screaming, and laughing at them. In the clip, the two shooters also shot students and rapidly fired their guns.


Some sophomores were visibly shocked at the violent film. At least three sophomores left Rugby Auditorium.


Multiple others were crying, gasping, covering their eyes, and ducking under chairs.


Others described the clip as “scary” and “disturbing.”


The overall response to the film was so negative that Head of Upper School Harry Salamandra had the tape shut off before it ended.


The head of campus security, Jim Crawford, then demonstrated with Mark Geiger, another security guard, how to react when a shooting occurs.


Four sophomore volunteers went onto the stage and were shown how to take down a gunman simply by latching on to his limbs.


Students then saw a tape of four different reactions to four different situations if a gunman enters a classroom, as acted by the prefects.


The campus security team announced that the sophomores would practice the techniques learned in the assembly over the next few weeks in a special classroom set up for the demonstration.


 


 


 

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The Student News Site of Harvard-Westlake School
Sophomores see Columbine reenactment at assembly