> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Pre-empting Columbine - URL: https://www.smdp.com/pre-empting-columbine/ - Published: 2007-09-14T15:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-24T02:52:35.000Z - Author: Kevin Herrera - Tags: Education, Santa Monica, #archive-import SAMOHI With their rifles at the ready, the three Santa Monica College officers and their chief gathered in a tight, diamond-shaped formation and quickly, but cautiously, walked down a second-floor hallway here, scanning from left to right in search of the armed gunman. “Closed door right,” the point man shouted, identifying their next target. The diamond stopped moving. The left flanker shifted into position behind the right flanker and squeezed his colleague’s thigh, letting him know he was ready to proceed. At that moment, they heard a loud clapping sound coming from a classroom on the other side of the hallway. “Shots fired, shots fired.” The officers responsible for protecting the roughly 30,000 students at SMC were running through drills drawn up by the Santa Monica Police Department’s Special Entry Team (SET) — commonly known as SWAT — as part of an eight-hour training session Wednesday night on how to respond to a horrid scenario, but one with topical poignancy — an armed gunman in close quarters firing at innocent victims within a school. “This is probably one of the most dangerous situations an officer can find themselves in,” said Sgt. Greg Smiley, the SET team leader who introduced the drills to the SMPD roughly six years ago. Wednesday marked what is expected to be the last training session of the year and a milestone within both departments. Now, all officers in Santa Monica have been trained to deal with an “active shooter” scenario such as those that occurred at Columbine High School in 1999, and more recently at Virginia Tech University, where crazed gunmen entered the campuses and began opening fire on students and faculty, killing more than 40 and injuring dozens more. The tactics were developed by the National Tactical Officers Association shortly after Columbine, according to Smiley. In that incident, officers formed a perimeter around the school and waited for SWAT to arrive. Today, officers won’t wait. They must be prepared to strap on their gear and go after the shooter before he or she does more damage. The training session started at 3 p.m. at Samohi’s Science and Technology Building. Smiley, who praised the school for allowing officers to train there, began with a debriefing on the Amish school shooting that occurred in October of last year in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. In that incident, the gunman, Charles Carl Roberts, took several students hostage, eventually killing five girls, aged 7 to 13, and himself. The incident is important to study, Smiley said, because it can teach officers the proper way to breach a room where the doors and windows are locked or barricaded. Smiley and his team also instructed officers on how to use the SMPD’s armored Humvee for rescue operations. Officers then broke out into groups of four or five, grabbed their rifles and practiced for more than an hour on their diamond formations and how to enter a room to search for suspects. That proved to be a challenge for some, who were not familiar with all of the little things an officer has to remember, such as the all-important thigh squeeze or how to hold a rifle so that one can scan quickly without getting too focused on their weapon. “I’ve had guys that will hold their weapons right up (to their cheek) and peer down at that barrel and totally lose site of what’s in front of them,” Smiley said. “I’ve laid on the ground and had guys trip over me because they just weren’t looking … There are a lot of little things that you need to learn and that only comes with repetition. You have to do it over and over and over again until it just becomes second nature.” Officer Brent Crafton, a member of the SET team and an instructor, had to remind some of the officers to slow down and “keep you diamond tight.” If an officer fails to take their time and enters a room without their backup, they expose themselves to more danger. “You’ve seen too much of that Hollywood stuff,” Crafton said, telling his fellow officers to wait and make sure their team members are with them before they try to clear a room. “I don’t know what it is, but we all have a tendency to want to rush in when that door swings open.” Following the drills, Smiley and his team put the officers through several scenarios, this time with sirens blaring and weapons that shoot paint-filled projectiles in an attempt to mirror a real-life situation as much as possible. SMCPD Interim Chief Gary Gallinot, a 32-year-veteran of the SMPD, thought the training was vital and was glad that his 15 officers could work so closely with the SMPD. “This training is extremely important,” Gallinot said. “This is another great tool to have in the toolbox and I’m thankful for the great relationship our officers have with the SMPD. We are working side-by-side with them and have a commitment to ensure the safety of not only the main campus and our satellite campus, but the city of Santa Monica as a whole.” SMCPD Officer Kurt Trump said he benefited tremendously from the training session and believes the tactics he learned will go along way in making SMC a safer place to learn. “The most important thing is that it teaches everyone to be on the same page as everyone else,” Trump said. “You really learn what it takes.” *Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 14, 2007.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/091407.pdf?ref=smdp.com)