Hillsborough deputies training for active shooter situations in schools: 'We're not taking a day off'
TAMPA - School resource deputies with the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office (HCSO) have been going through active threat training at different schools this week.
"As children and parents get to enjoy some summer break, we're not taking a day off," Sheriff Chad Chronister said during Thursday’s training at Steinbrenner High School. "We're out here making sure we're prepared for the year ahead."
Training included clearing rooms, implementing lockdown procedures, and administering emergency first aid to simulate the response to various scenarios, including an active shooter.
"What if they have a smart bomb? What if they have an IED? What are they supposed to do?" Chronister said.
The sheriff said this training also included looking for ways to improve communication among crews.
"These schools are hurricane shelters. So imagine having a hurricane shelter used as a school. And you could imagine with them being cement and steel, well-built as they are, the obstacles and challenges that are created with communication. We don't have that now in Hillsborough County," Chronister said. "We can communicate with each other with these bidirectional antennas and with school administrators because every school resource deputy has a school administrator radio along with their police radio. So again, this is all efficient and effective in keeping our children safe."
The sheriff said his agency has incorporated important lessons learned from past tragedies, including the deadly 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
"We will actually have access to all the cameras at the schools," Chronister said of new changes coming this year. "So if there's a propensity for violence or some type of threat of violence towards the children in any type of school, our real-time crime cameras – we’ll be able to tap into that and pop up and now we can relay that information to the responding deputies (and) to the school resource officer," Chronister said.
In an attempt to make campuses safer, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a new law that will require all doors, hallways, and gates in and around schools to be locked during all learning hours.
"Wholeheartedly support the governor and what he's doing," Chronister said. "One of the (training) scenarios here today is they have to carry a special apparatus that if they come upon that locked door -- maybe it's a locked door without assailants in, maybe it's a locked door for whatever scenario -- they have to be able to know how to breach that door."
Last year, HCSO says 265 tips were submitted to FortifyFL, an app that allows students to send information about potential threats. Those tips led to 31 arrests in 2023. That’s up from nine arrests the year before, according to Chronister.
"What we're seeing is students are tired of it, too. Students are tired of it, too. They're tired of being worried whether they're safe in class as well, so they’re taking advantage of their smartphone app -- whatever they need to do -- and they’re reporting other students," Chronister said.
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