“Make Believe” School Shooting at NMSU

LAS CRUCES — It’s a situation in which Rosie Pressler would have just kept working, doing what she usually does as an NMSU records technician at Hadley Hall.

“But now that I know the difference, I’ll know something’s going on and I’m going to treat it differently,” she said.

That’s the intended effect New Mexico State University police were shooting for — literally — Wednesday morning when the agency held its first active shooter drill, a simulation of a school’s worst nightmare: a gunman opening fire on staff and students. The occupants of Hadley Hall were notified of the exercise in advance.

At the stroke of 9 a.m., NMSU Police Chief Jaime Chavez entered Hadley, the campus’ main administrative building. Armed with two handguns and an assault riffle that were modified to shoot only blanks, the university’s top cop was able to go on all three floors and calmly fired about 60 rounds. It took less than a minute. It’s the kind of swiftness school shooters familiar with the targeted building have been known to have, Chavez said.

And it’s the kind of sudden attack that makes it necessary for staff to take their well-being into their own hands by seeking out a safe place until officers are able to respond.

“That’s one of the reasons why we empower you to make those decisions,” Deputy Chief Stephen Lopez told a crowd of Hadley workers. “If you can run, if you can hide, if you can wait out those first few minutes, your chances (of survival) are going to go up,” he said.

The exercise was also intended to familiarize employees with the sound of gunshots. Pressler, for one, initially thought the shots sounded like cabinets hitting the floor.

“Some of the things that to us sound like gunfire, may not sound like gunfire to the layperson,” Chavez said. Once realizing what she was listening to, Pressler said her reaction was different.

“My reaction was to close the door behind me and go to a centralized area,” Pressler said..

“This training is much needed,” Chavez said, a similar exercises at other campus buildings are planned.