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Active shooter town hall held in Altoona

Wednesday, February 28, 2018
Jesse Horne | WEAU

ALTOONA, Wis. (WEAU) -- It's a sound those at Altoona High School never want to hear - a wailing siren, followed with the words: "Go into lockdown. Clear the hallways. Close, lock and barricade doors."

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That's what would be heard if an active shooter were to ever get inside.

"It's a reality check," Rich Hager of Altoona said to WEAU 13 News on Wednesday. "I mean, kids these days are dealing with things that our generation didn't have."

Hager was one of many in Altoona on Wednesday who came to have a discussion on how their school district is being proactive as well as reactive. The Altoona Police Department conducted the forum to share parts of its active shooter protocol , but also to try and answer any questions they had.

"Any question that was asked by the community, by the parents, it was it was right. It's a question that they had and we encourage that," Chief Jesse James of the Altoona Police Department said to WEAU 13 News on Wednesday. "We may not have had the right answer for them, but it definitely got our brains going and there's things that we need to think about."

James said the genesis of his department enacting a policy came in 2012, when an armed suspect was being pursued throughout the city of Altoona. That ultimately led to a lockdown, but he said it was after the fact.

"We need to be able and ready and prepared to respond to situations like this," he said.

For many years, schools like Altoona High have displayed maps around their buildings to show where students should go when emergencies happen, such as tornadoes or fires. But now, those maps are being metaphorically rewritten.

"While it might not necessarily be just posted on a sign, we definitely want to make sure it's as intrinsically inside a person's head - as it is with a fire drill, with a tornado drill and the type of procedures we have," Jason Lemay, principal at Altoona High School, said to WEAU 13 News on Wednesday.

"I think any time things like this happen, it really makes the situation become brought to the forefront. So, even as a school district, we look at procedures, we look at policies, we talk with our law enforcement and see what kind of things they change or they suggest - and as things change, we change along with it."

For Hager, it's all a sign of how much has changed.

"It's the new reality," he said. "We just have to be prepared for this. We have to talk to our kids about this. We have to talk to community members about this. It's not going away."

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