OMAHA, NE (KMTV) — Most schools run lock-down drills with students; locking the door and hiding in the classroom.
Kurt Sorys, Training Manager at 88 Tactical, doesn’t believe schools are teaching a complete program. That’s why they created “School Safe.”
“They're assuming the door is always going to stay locked for them,” Sorys said. “And maybe it will. Maybe. But what if the door doesn't get locked? What if it’s an employee that has a key?”
“School Safe” is a class modeled around the run-hide-fight method.
“If you have to hide like what the teacher talks about at least be on your knee so you can get up and you can move,” Sorys tells students. “Because if someone comes through that door with a gun I don't want you to just stay in that corner and let that person just walk up If everyone at least moves we're not a whole clump of kids in a corner with no defenses at all.”
It's geared towards kids at least 10-years-old. They cover a lot of adult material; and run hands on drills with fake weapons.
“There really is no way you can take an active shooter response and turn it into a kid type of a program,” Sorys said. “It’s a very serious adult matter. We're very blunt with the kids about that. But we feel the parents who bring their children here have already made the decision.”
“It’s a little bit scary that,” Phil Abraham said. “As a parent you're going to worry about them in any situation. But I think having the option and knowing what to do is better than being a victim and being helpless.”
Abraham brought his two children, Sophya and Dono, to the class.
Students ran through drills like running from the shooter, finding an exit, and fighting if it’s their best option.
“If he sticks it (the gun) out, I grab it, bring it in here,” Sorys said. “All I want to do is hang on tight and then I'm going to ask for help from you guys.”
The class is designed to help students feel more prepared.
“I feel safe now around when I'm in school I feel safe I know what to do at school if it’s happening,” Sophya said.
“It’s not terribly likely something is going to happen in their school,” Sorys said. “But if it does, they have an opportunity to be a leader in their classroom.”
Sorys tells the students the skills they just learned were to harden their minds; but it's important to keep a soft heart.
“We're all going to have struggles in our lives,” he said. “We're all going to have pain in our lives and if we become part of the problem or we decide we are going to add to that persons pain we could end up contributing to whatever turns that person into someone that comes back and wants to shoot all of us.
88 Tactical offers a number of self-defense classes for youth and adult civilians.
