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www.insideHALTON.com | OAKVILLE BEAVER | Thursday, November 28, 2013 | 4 Sheridan and police team up for safety exercise by David Lea Oakville Beaver Staff Halton police and Sheridan College teamed up to stage a drama Monday morning -- not on Theatre Sheridan's stage, but on the campus itself. And not a drama, but a drill. Officers, students and staff played out a shooting/lockdown scenario as a security practice drill, complete with makeup for wounds and fake guns and mock sounds of shots fired. The college partnered with police to see how both reacted in an enhanced lockdown scenario at the Sheridan Centre for Animation and Emerging Technologies (SCAET). Christine Szustaczek, Sheridan's communications and external relations director, said the Trafalgar Road campus undertakes lockdown drills annually in which audio systems direct staff and students to remain in their classrooms until further notice. Monday's drill was different. "The drill that's taking place today will have a simulated shooter on campus, a role that is being played by a (plainclothes) Halton police officer. He will have a replica handgun that will mimic the sound of real gunfire. It will be shooting blanks," explained Szustaczek shortly before the drill began. "We will have a number of students from our Halton police teamed up with Sheridan College for a lockdown drill at the school's Trafalgar Road campus Monday morning. Here, Halton police officers, bearing replica handguns, climb the steps at the college entrance at the start of the drill. | photo by David Lea ­ Oakville Beaver (Follow on Twitter @halton_photog) Bachelor of Music Theatre Performance acting as potential victims. They are being placed in different parts of the building. We don't know how many will pretend to have been shot and how many will pretend to have been fatally wounded." The drill culminated with the so-called shooter taking student hostages in a classroom and then being shot by police. For Sheridan, the exercise aimed to ensure faculty and students know what to do in such circumstances and to test emergency systems. Szustaczek said student and staff `observers' were secreted among the population to make sure lockdown procedures, posted in every classroom, were followed. These rules instruct people to remain calm, cease teaching or meeting, lock or barricade the door of the room and turn off lights, computers and other devices. "It's the kind of thing nobody wants to think about," said Szustaczek. "At the same time, you have to plan for it." "We do the lockdown drills for all the secondary schools throughout the region. This is the first time we've actually had live role players, in the form of the theatre arts students," said Sgt. Barry Hughes, Halton police. "This is going to be a good test for the officers because they are going to encounter wounded individuals, people who are in need of help and people who are going to engage them." Besides having students serve as victims, Sheridan had those in special effects and makeup design make it real by simulating wounds on those participating. When the scenario began, four police initial responders arrived on the scene, drew replica handguns and entered the campus. Hughes said that's standard practice given see Sheridan on p.12 Voted the Best in Oakville We Invite you to find out why! Call today for your personal tour. We'd love to have you join us! Retirement Living 380 Sherin Drive, Oakville, Ontario (905) 847-1413 www.vistamere.ca At Its Best