Police in Bloomfield Township lead mock mass casualty event ahead of school year

BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. (FOX 2) - The first day of school brings jitters for students coming back to class.

It also brings worries of a more tragic sort with the worry that a school district could be victimized by a mass shooter. Oakland County, already on alert after a violent shooting at Oxford High School in 2021, was home to a large police scene Wednesday when Bloomfield Township conducted active shooter training. 

Police Chief James Gallagher said the goal was to recreate the stress of a similar scenario in order for the training to be as accurate and preparing as it can be.

"The whole idea of this is to identify our strengths and weaknesses and the opportunity to learn new things and fix them in the event the real thing occurs," he said.

The real thing used to include police responding to the scene, then waiting for SWAT teams to show up. "They're the experts," Gallagher said. 

Law enforcement have updated their response. Now, it includes a solo officer response in order to neutralize the threat as fast as possible.

The updated response also comes with a darker reality: teachers are also part of the recipe.

"They didn’t sign up to be first responders, but they are truly in an incident like this first responders. They need to buy us those couple minutes that we’re driving there to allow us to get into that scenario," said Gallagher.

The mock mass casualty event played out at Bloomfield Hills High School Wednesday morning, where Bloomfield Township police and fire took the lead in the event. 

A similar mock event played out in Monroe County the week before. Both events were years in the making. Gallagher also had a message for any parents that find themselves in the unfortunate circumstance of a potential threat:

"See something, say something and know that as law-enforcement, as fire agencies, we are prepared," Gallagher said. "That’s what we take an oath to do.