In an effort to inform and train students, staff and parents on safety procedures during a lockdown event, the Snoqualmie School District hired Jesus Villahermosa, president of Crisis Reality Training, to give a seminar on what to do in an active-shooter, or other emergency situation taking place in a school building.

Villahermosa was an officer with the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department for 33 years before retiring in 2014 to focus on education through his seminars. For 30 of those years, he was the point man for the Pierce County SWAT team. He started doing educational seminars in rape and assault prevention in 1986, but soon recognized the need for more education on school safety.

“In 1988, I got interested in school safety and started teaching school safety lockdowns long before they were popular. I saw the evolution coming, I saw what was happening, these were not going away,” Villahermosa said.

“I could do the empirical research on my own, plus I could apply the practicum of being a SWAT team member and responding to these types of events. I feel very blessed to be probably one of the few people in the country who can speak to this issue with so much credibility and reality behind them. It’s a sad subject to talk about and yet it can be very empowering if it is done right.”

During his time in the district, Villahermosa spoke to the Mount Si High School students, Twin Falls and Chief Kanim Middle Schools, and Two Rivers School. On Tuesday, Oct. 11, he wrapped up his seminar series with a presentation to parents at the Mount Si High School auditorium.

For the parent presentation, Villahermosa covered what he taught the students, as well as some parent-oriented advice, and he openly answered questions from the audience throughout.

He spoke about topics including the research and data collected about active shooter-type events, dispelling the myth about “duck and cover,” the evidence supporting the effectiveness of lockdowns and about the proper behaviors that students and parents should take in these situations.

One of the facts he brought up about school lockdowns is that none of the aggressors involved in any of the school attacks making news in recent years had ever broken through a locked classroom door.

“Lockdown is the number-one life-saving tactic used in all these shootings. Lockdown has saved tens of thousands of more lives than any other tactic used,” he said. “No shooter to date, not one, has breached a locked door in an active shooting event. Did you know that? It’s way too much effort.”

‘Duck and cover’ doesn’t work

Another major point Villahermosa made throughout the night was dispelling the myth about “duck and cover” tactics. He made sure to repeat that dropping to the floor in a shooting event drastically reduces a person’s survival chances.

To illustrate his point, Villahermosa shared the story of a woman who applied that lesson from his class in the 2005 Tacoma mall shooting.

Villahermosa said he and his SWAT team responded to the event along with other law enforcement and were able to negotiate the shooter out of the mall with the hostages. After the event, he received an email from woman who had been inside the mall and had taken his seminar course three weeks prior.

“Later that night when I got home, I got an email from a woman, who said ‘I was in the mall today with my 15-year-old daughter. The shooter starts shooting and I immediately fell to the ground,'” Villahermosa said.

The first reaction from most people in a crisis when they hear gunfire is to duck and cover.

“So she drops to the ground with her daughter and said ‘I remember (you) saying people that run from the shooter typically live, people that duck and cover near the shooter typically die.’

“This woman was in my class three weeks prior to the Tacoma mall shooting. So she grabs her daughter and runs.”

The seminar left parents impressed. Many of the audience members approached Villahermosa after the presentation to express how important they felt the material was and to thank him for coming to the district.

Snoqualmie Valley School District Superintendent Joel Aune was very happy with Villahermosa’s work with district students, staff and parents and hopes that the district can bring him back in the future.

“We are very pleased with the way he interacted with the students with the staff and even tonight with the parents. He is a real pro and he is as good as there is in the country in terms of doing this kind of work,” Aune said.

“I suspect that we will give pretty strong consideration to bringing him back in the future. He has got a staff training module that does a pretty deep dive.”

Villahermosa does training across the country, but was happy to work with a district in his home state.

“This is exciting for me to have another school district at home that is allowing me the privilege to speak to their kids and it was awesome,” he said. “These kids were just incredible and it reminds me why I’m doing this and it keeps me powered if you will, the faces and the answers. I’m hoping to come back and really looking forward to bragging about this district nationally because they are doing some things that other districts are not doing.”

For more information about Villahermosa, visit http://www.crisisrealitytraining.com.