Gallery • 5 Photos

By Luke Wood

Advancing through the hallway, two officers make their way to the next classroom.

From June 20-30, the Shawnee Police Department ran an active shooter training at Mill Valley. Training sessions like these help prepare officers to handle active threats.

Matt Seichepine, the captain of the police department’s special operations bureau, planned and led the training with specific goals in mind.

“The objective of the training was to get all of our people through the training but then to make it as realistic as possible,” Seichepine said. “We invited officers from agencies that border us [because] we know if something’s going to happen, they’re likely to come into our city. So we wanted to get our officers working with those officers.”

According to Seichepine, officers from Bonner Springs, Lenexa, the sheriff’s office and Merriam all went to the training. In order to train the many officers in attendance, the police needed student volunteers to help roleplay. One of these student volunteers was junior Aiden Lehr.

“Several of the times we were running out of classrooms when a school shooter was running in,” Lehr said. “Several times I was injured, like I was pretending that I got shot in the leg, shot that arm and [the officers being trained] were just reacting to what I was doing. They were going to help me and still get the shooter at the same time.”

School Resource Officer Darion Hillman was one of the people being trained. He thought the realness that having student volunteers provided was the most valuable part of the training.

“In law enforcement, whenever you do training you want it to be as close as [possible to the real thing],” Hillman said. “Getting the student involved with all the yelling and screaming and also knowing we’re going to have to run upstairs and downstairs, there’s going to be fire alarms going off [made it feel real].”

Lehr thought helping at the training was a positive experience and a great opportunity to give back.

“I decided to help because they do a lot for us,” Lehr said. “It’s really great to get that experience for me and to help them so they know what to do.”

Knowing what to do in case of crisis situations is important for officers. Seichepine explains why the police department prioritizes this preparation.

“Unfortunately, we know that these things can happen anywhere,” Seichepine said. “There’s really no rhyme or reason to when or where they happen, so we have to be prepared. It could happen at any given point in any of our district buildings, whether it’s DeSoto or Shawnee Mission. The unfortunate reality is we have to be ready.”