LAKE HUNTINGTON, NY — Sullivan County Undersheriff Eric J. Chaboty says there’s an old saying in law enforcement circles: “Failing to train is training to fail.”

On October 7, the Sullivan West Central School District will host two Active Shooter Drills taking place at the high school in Lake Huntington at 8 a.m. and at the elementary school in Jeffersonville at 12:15 p.m.

No students will be present because that Friday is a scheduled Conference Day on the school calendar. Participation by administrators, teachers and staff is voluntary.

The New York State Office of Homeland Security will guide emergency responders through a scenario that will be kept confidential to maintain the element of surprise. They will supply “blue guns” that are inert from firing and other equipment.

The Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office is serving as lead agency and will have its armored vehicle on hand.

Fellow law enforcement agencies will include a tactical team from the National Park Service and the New York State Police.

The Sullivan County Office of Emergency Management led by Richard Martinkovic will be represented, along with the volunteer fire departments and ambulance corps that have local jurisdiction for each campus.

“Our aim is to eventually cover every school district in the county,” Undersheriff Chaboty says. “We want school staff to have situational awareness on how to react in these situations and, on the law enforcement side, we’re honing our skills.”

Chaboty says that the paradigm changed after the tragic Columbine High School mass shootings on April 20, 1999 in which 13 people were killed and 24 were injured in a Colorado suburb.

“Prior to Columbine, the accepted response was to surround the building and ask the shooters what their demands were. One of the lessons learned from that incident is that you don’t sit back and ask what the demands are anymore. They have no demands. They just want to hurt people,” he says.

Now, the objective has become: “Confront and neutralize.”

Chaboty says there should be no community impact or alarm, since all of the activity will be confined to the school campuses.

“It’s an unfortunate reality, the situation we live in today, that you have to prepare for this stuff but we’re up to meeting the challenge,” he says.