IV Post

Calexico, California - On Wednesday, April 16, 2008, San Diego State University – Imperial Valley Campus held a shelter-in-place drill at 4:30 PM in Calexico and at 6:00PM in Brawley. The exercise simulated a shooting and had officials respond to the incident on both campuses.

In Calexico, Police Chief Neujahr was the incident commander and dispatched a team of 12 officers to respond to the scene. Fire Chief Mercado also responded with two ambulances and two fire trucks, also with 12 fire department personnel, including EMTs to attend to the “injured”. Chief Neujahr said that, “While the SDSU staff evaluated the school’s adherence to policy and procedure, the police department used the scenario to practice the department’s training and response to these types of incidents”.

In Brawley, Sergeant Soto of the Sheriff’s office and Sergeant Monita of the Brawley Police Department responded while other personnel, students, staff, faculty and administrators, played roles that included EMT functions and 911 dispatchers.   Public safety from San Diego State University in San Diego also traveled to the Valley to participate in the drills where their primary role was to serve as observers and to give campus officials feedback on how to best prepare for emergencies.

Associate dean Olga Amaral reported that the purpose of the drill was to provide the campus community of faculty, staff and students with an opportunity to practice procedures. She encourages everyone to think about their own safety and ways of preventing injury. This is the second drill conducted this year. The first was an evacuation drill conducted in the fall of 2007 where all participants were to familiarize themselves with evacuation routes, campus safety coordinators and designated safety zones.

Said Amaral, “I’d like to extend my gratitude to all who made these drills possible. I couldn’t have asked for better collaboration from local law enforcement agencies. My team of safety coordinators is also eager to help the campus gain greater awareness of safety and to assist in the planning for emergency situations. While we always hope that no serious emergencies will occur, it is encouraging to know that we have thought about what we would do in a variety of emergency situations”.