An Urban Drill: Students Taught to Duck Gunfire

Luis Campos knows what to do when gunfire echoes near his Lennox home.

“You lie flat down and cover your head,” the 12-year-old said matter-of-factly, demonstrating the technique on his front lawn.

Luis didn’t learn this practice on the streets--he was taught the drill in elementary school.

The classroom drop-and-cover routine that became familiar amid the Cold War fear of nuclear attack has been transformed into a mechanism to protect students from nearby gunfire.

Schools from South-Central Los Angeles to the San Fernando Valley teach children to sprawl flat at the sound of shots.

They’re called drop drills, crisis drills and even bullet drills. In many schools, a special alarm sounds, as it would during an actual nearby shooting. Teachers shout, “Drop!” and students duck under their desks or sprawl on the ground, covering their heads. Many schools also immediately initiate a lock-down during the drill, as they would with a shooting, sealing the campus off from violence outside.

Although crime nationally is on the decline and campus shootings are relatively rare, the most violent incidents continue to receive a barrage of media attention, driving many schools to adopt these policies.

The drills aren’t new, but experts say the practice spreads every time gang violence touches a community.

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School safety experts say the fear of errant bullets that prompts these drills has become the “nuclear war” looming over communities in the 1990s.

But unlike the distant threat of massive bombs, shootings remain an all too familiar danger many children live with every day.

“There’s a big difference between 1997 and the way things were in 1957,” said Ronald Stephens, executive director of the National School Safety Center, a program of the U.S. Justice and Education departments. “There have been enough incidents of shootings and weapons on campuses that the concept of shooting drills has entered discussions in schools all around the country.”

Children in the Inglewood neighborhood where a toddler was killed while he sat on his father’s shoulders last week say they’ve learned in class to duck at the sound of shots. Venice schools on turf between two rival gangs order their students to the ground every time gun battles break out near the campuses. And at Luis’ school in Lennox, students learn how to avoid bullets in monthly drop exercises and an annual outdoor sniper drill.

Although the drills may be a practical response to street violence, safety experts say they also offer ominous testimony to the level of danger in society.

“It’s a national tragedy that a bullet drill would have to be part of any children’s regular routine at school,” Stephens said.

Like many others, the Los Angeles Unified School District doesn’t have an official “shooting drill,” but the drop-and-cover routine for earthquakes, explosions and other emergencies is also taught and used as a response to gunfire, district officials said.

“During the Cold War years, with the danger of an atomic attack, these ‘drop and take cover’ drills came into existence,” said Pete Anderson, director of the district’s Office of Emergency Services. “Now that the Cold War has gone lukewarm, we do it for different reasons.”

All schools must practice the drop drill at least once a semester, and many have modified the general emergency drill specifically for shootings, a procedure that some administrators say is one of the few ways to cope with gunfire near campuses.

Several years ago, Principal Anna McLinn instituted “pancake drills”--so called because children lie flat--at Marvin Avenue Elementary School because shots were regularly fired in the Mid-City neighborhood. Drug deals were made on the corners and gang members lounged across the street from the school.

“If students heard a loud noise, they were trained to drop to the ground and crawl as if they were in the service, keeping their bodies flat,” McLinn said. “If you stand up, the bullet could hit you. You can imagine what it was like with 1,000 youngsters on the playground.”

McLinn’s students practiced the drill every other week until Los Angeles police began a program to clean up the neighborhood around the school.

“This was an area where Uzis would go off next door,” she said. “It’s nothing for my youngsters to see a shooting a couple blocks from school. When you’re looking at a community where this is almost normal, you have to be prepared.”

And even schools where the sound of gunfire is not familiar have started training children in how to react.

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Students at Burbank Boulevard Elementary School in North Hollywood know to sprawl flat on the ground at the sound of a long, continuous bell. The campus adopted the drill because “you never know what could happen,” said Principal Sharon Greene.

“It does tell us that we, as a society, are out of control,” she said. “And children have to live with this fear.”

The drop procedure was used by students at Figueroa Street Elementary School in February 1996 when teacher Alfredo Perez was hit by a stray bullet.

Perez’s fifth-graders ducked when the bullet flew through the window, and then they crawled out of the room and stayed on the floor until teachers told them they could get up.

Principal Rosemary Lucente credits the drop drill, which they practice at least once a month, with keeping the students out of further danger.

“It’s unfortunate when you live in a big city, but those are facts of life,” Lucente said. “It’s important that parents feel this is an oasis, it is a safe place to be. I think we’re accomplishing that with these procedures.”

But some fear that shooting drills, like campus security guards and metal detectors, are eroding the image of schools as safe havens.

“Overall, I’m confident that our schools are very safe,” said Larry Hutchens, assistant school district police chief. “However, it’s our responsibility to prepare for all potential problems.”

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In the 1995-96 school year, the most recent for which statistics are available, one person was killed and another was injured in shootings on Los Angeles school district campuses. In addition, five students were shot--two fatally--as they walked home from school, school police said.

Jim Garbarino, a child psychologist who has written about the effects of violence on children, said he worries about the anxiety the drills could cause, fears similar to those many students felt in the 1950s and 1960s when they practiced nuclear attack drills.

“It’s risky,” Garbarino said. “If these drills convey a sense of insecurity about being in school, that may outweigh the benefits.”

Garbarino, director of the Family Life Development Center at Cornell University, said he thinks the essential question surrounding the practice is: “Does having these drills convey to children the sense that adults are in charge, or a sense of panic?”

He said there are other precautions schools can take to ensure that campuses remain safe places, including pressuring gang leaders to declare schools neutral territory, working with police on enforcement efforts and developing a violence prevention curriculum.

Some educators agree they need more than drills to combat the gunfire that riddles neighborhoods and leaves communities shaken. But for now, they say, it is the best tool available to protect their students.

This spring, Stoner Avenue Elementary School in Mar Vista was caught between two gangs waging a deadly war of retaliation.

“We had a lot of practice” doing the gunfire drills, said Principal Farryl Weitzman.

Guns were fired near the school at least three times in the spring, forcing administrators to employ emergency procedures. A long bell rang until every child lay prone and teachers were sure the shooting had stopped.

During the last incident, 4-year-old preschoolers were being dismissed for the day when shots were fired across the street.

“The whole atmosphere for children is like being in a war-torn situation,” Weitzman said. “You’re always on the lookout and listening for popping sounds.”

But some children said at least the drills help them feel more secure.

“Kids feel better because they know they’re safe” under their desks, said Venice High School freshman Anay Cruz, 14, who learned the drill in kindergarten.

“It’s good, ‘cause you won’t get shot,” added seventh-grader Oton Garcia, a student at Marina del Rey Middle School in Mar Vista.

In April, alleged gang members fired at two Marina eighth-graders as they walked home from school. One of Oton’s friends, 14-year-old Rafael Adan, was killed.

After his death, Marina students practiced the drop drill almost daily, Oton said. During lunch one day, he and other students had to duck behind a wall when teachers heard shots fired nearby.

“The teachers shout, ‘Get down!’ and you lay down so you don’t get hurt,” he said. “When it’s finished, you run somewhere where it’s safe.”

But sometimes, Oton said, watching the traffic whiz through the busy intersection where Rafael was gunned down, “you still feel scared.”