[03/15/02]RAYMOND Recent years’ worsening of violence in schools has prompted area law-enforcement leaders to develop a three-county plan for such situations.

Warren, Hinds and Rankin county officials have cooperated to prescribe and begin teaching a standard set of practices and protocols to be used if necessary in a school-violence crisis.

Law-enforcement and school personnel, including 49 officers from Warren County, have participated in training at Hinds County’s Raymond Detention Center, Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace said at a press conference in Raymond Thursday.

“This is a way to very quickly render a hostile situation safe,” Pace said.

Both Pace and Hinds County Sheriff Malcolm McMillin stressed the importance of law-enforcement officers in the three counties having common sets of signals for communication so they can more easily back each other up if necessary. “We can help each other,” said McMillin, whose office initiated the planning.

McMillin said the content of the training program, which he believes is the first of its kind, came down to brainstorming. “There aren’t any real experts,” McMillin said when asked if outside experts were consulted in the development of the program. “This is a series of problems law-enforcement officers have never had to encounter.”

Two people were killed at a Pearl High School by a 16-year-old student in October 1997, and, in the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history, 15 were killed April 1999 at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo.

Pace said he and Undersheriff Jeff Riggs participated in the first training session, and Riggs is now a certified instructor in the course, which leads to a certification from the state board of standards and training.

Vicksburg Warren School District Law Enforcement Official Mike Ouzts said he and Superintendent Donald Oakes attended the training late last year and endorsed the program. “Everybody understands it,” Ouzts said.

The program simulates threatening situations for teachers, and addresses topics like teachers’ handling of their schools’ physical environments and safe evacuation of students to alternate locations for pick up by parents, McMillin said.