Can you confirm that these drills took place on July 15-16.
Yes, the 15-16th.
Are some of the (roughly 12) kids that did participate in the drills a part of the Explorer's program? I want to gain clarity on the demographics of kids.
Their were definitely some kids there from the Explorers program, but those are not the only kids who were there.
Did notifying people who wanted to volunteer about this specific drill fall on the sheriff's office, or was that based on the school?
You mean notifying anyone who wanted to volunteer?
Yes.
The explorers that would have fallen on us and the ROTC from Venice that would have fallen on us to notify them, because we work with them. But the school part was handled by the school was my understanding.
Can you expand on the school part?
I have been told that the school sent out an email to get volunteers I have not seen that email, but I was told that was what was agreed upon. They would send out emails to get volunteers through the school who wanted to be part of it.
Are kids regularly involved in these drills? Or was this like a one time occurrence?
this type of program has been when we do training if, if it's something like this. I mean, I'm not saying every time, because we don't do it every time at a school or what, or it's just different types of training that take place. But when we've had something similar before, there have been volunteers, which have been kids before,
gotcha, but the youth. So the use of kids is a regular practice, maybe not every single time, but a regular practice.
It has occurred, yes, before.
Is this the only form of active shooter drill training that you guys do?
I can't really answer. I have not always been involved. I'm sure there's all different types of training for all different types of units within the sheriff's office. So I can't say specifically. I know we have practice shooter training, and we hold it in different places at different times that are available to us.
Do you have a partnership with other schools throughout the district?
I mean, we work closely with the school board in Sarasota County, just for all types of things, with the sheriff's office, not just specifically training. I don't know [if] it's just Pine View, I don't know for sure if we've done it at other schools before. I just know specifically this time we did it at Pine View.
Is there anything about the drill that we've talked about, and I didn't get enough clarification on that you'd like to speak about?
I just really want to emphasize that the sheriff's office really is highly focused on training to keep the community safe. So that's our main goal in doing this, is to be prepared for the worst situations and hope that they do not happen. That's our goal, always, is training to keep people safe. So that's what we're doing. And then in these opportunities, when we allow for volunteers to participate, it's, it's helpful to us, because the training is more realistic, but it's also an educational opportunity for those who want to participate.
One last question. But are you familiar with the existence of a no-holds agreement with these drills?
I can't speak to that because I don't have the knowledge...I don't send out those types of emails, so I can't say that something that I would necessarily be aware of at this time...I could ask about it, but I don't particularly know of anything.
So you don't know about the hold harmless agreement.
I don't know if that had something to do with school, or if that has something to do with us. I don't know. I just You spoke of it earlier, and I'm not familiar with it, and I don't know anything else about it.
