With the one year anniversary of the Newtown school shooting just days away, metro Atlanta police agencies want to make sure they are prepared to handle such an event should it happen again here.
DeKalb County sponsored the day-long session with nearly 100 representatives of local, state, and federal law enforcement to discuss active shooter scenarios that could occur at schools.
It was in August when police training came into practice when a gunman opened fire at McNair Discovery Learning Academy in DeKalb.
Police Chief Cedric Alexander says the outcome of that incident could not have turned out better with no injuries and the gunman taken into custody. But he says the department learned that it has to be able to adapt to evolving situations including finding an alternate escape route for students.
"There's never going to be any event which you're going to be able to respond to perfectly, so you've got to be able to improvise; make decisions in that moment for the bests interest of the public," he tells WSB's Sandra Parrish.
Alexander says it is important for the multiple agencies to train together in the event they are called to respond to the same situation.
"The threat is always going to be there; it's not just a matter of if it's going to happen, but when," he says. "We want to make sure when it does, we're capable and able to respond to it as quickly as we can."
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