Drill is a Disaster
Parents rush to Tohatchi school after 'stabbing'

Navajo Nation Police officers walk across the Ch'ooshgai Community School campus after completing a drill simulating a hostage situation at the school in Tohatchi Thursday. [Photo by John A. Bowersmith/Independent]

By Zsombor Peter
Staff Writer

Ch'ooshgai Community School acting Principal Edie Morris looks up from her crisis procedure manual Thursday during a debriefing at the school after a dill simulating a hostage situation. [Photo by John A. Bowersmith/Independent]

GALLUP — A drill at Ch'ooshgai Community School in Tohatchi Thursday morning confused more than the responding Navajo police officers who rushed to the scene.

It also sent public schools across the street into lock-down and some parents running to the scene believing their children were in danger and demanding to take them home.

"The school apparently did make notification (to the parents)," said Navajo Nation Police Capt. Steve Nelson, whose officers responded to the drill from Crownpoint, "but apparently they didn't all go out."

Parents were notified about this drill just like they've been notified in the past, said Johanson Phillips, the Bureau of Indian Affairs school's executive director: teachers give their students a notice about an upcoming drill without noting the specific time or day to take home to their parents, and the teachers get enough copies to give to each student.

According to one teacher, however, that system broke down.

When the administration wants a notice sent home with the students, said Eve Little, a fourth-grade teacher at the school, it usually makes sure to leave teachers multiple copies because they know how busy they can get. But when she checked her school mail box Monday, Little said she found a single letter notifying staff of an upcoming drill from the principal, dated April 13, and no extra copies.

So when the day of the drill arrived, she said, "It was mixed up. It was confusion."

The sight and sound of emergency vehicles racing to the school sent parents rushing to the scene after them, according to Little.

"I had mothers, parents crying, trying to take their kids out," she said.

Because she could not immediately follow the school's release procedures making sure the people asking to take the students home were actually their relatives she did not release any of her students and managed to calm the adults down.

But with the memories of the March 21 school shooting on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota that left eight people dead still fresh in people's minds, Little said, she was not surprised by the reaction.

"Having screaming ambulances and screeching police cars taking off to where your child is, I can understand how a parent would feel," she said.

Phillips was unaware of any parents asking to take their children home, and said that no more than 10 parents out of approximately 400 who have children at the school came to the school in response to the commotion, and arrived more confused than afraid.

He added that it was normal for notices sent home with the students to miss a few parents.

"Usually that happens," Phillips said. "We will never reach all the parents."

Asked if that was a reliable way of informing parents about an upcoming drill, he answered by saying only that the local chapter officials were also warned.

One of the public schools across the street, on the other hand, was not.

According to Gallup McKinley County Schools Superintendent Karen White, Tohatchi Middle School knew about the upcoming drill; Tohatchi Elementary School did not.

So, when the elementary school got wind of the commotion at Ch'ooshgai, White said, the principal sent the school into lock-down, and shot a phone call over to the middle school. The middle school principal knew about the drill, but decided to take advantage of the occasion to practice a brief lock-down of his own.

Capt. Nelson guessed that some police scanners in private hands might have added to the confusion. Voices over the scanner said that the reports of a stabbing at Ch'ooshgai Community School were not a drill.

While the commanding officers knew the reports were false, Nelson said, the officers being tested on their response, as usual, did not. Officers in the know did, however, set up a checkpoint at the school where they filled in the others when they arrived.

On the whole, despite some confusion, Little, Nelson and Phillips all said the drill went well.

Nelson did note a few problems.

His officers and the school staff, for one, were using communication systems that operated on different frequencies, which meant they could speak with each other over the air.

For another, Nelson had concerns about the single road that leads in and out of the school, which could cause congestion problems during a real evacuation. It could also ease a hostage-taker's efforts to seal out emergency-response teams.

Phillips said the school has a second access road, although it could use some work.