TORRINGTON – Pandemonium erupted Wednesday when a disgruntled parent barged into Trail Elementary School here, past school officials, and began running through the hallways, peaking into classrooms.

By the time it was over, students at both Trail and nearby Lincoln Elementary had been evacuated and a bomb squad called in to remove a suspected explosive device from the school.

If this had been an actual emergency . . .

But it wasn’t. With the help of trainer Chris Stoddard of LaGrange – who portrayed the assailant/parent in what was labelled a mock crisis scenario – school officials, local law enforcement and other emergency responders got a chance to practice for an event everyone hopes will
never happen.

Officers from the Torrington Police Department and Goshen County Sheriff’s Department quickly removed Stoddard from the Trail building, but not before the mock bomb had been planted. They then went in to response mode, checking classrooms, offices and other areas of the school for students, faculty and staff, and hustling them out of the building to safe areas.

When all was said and done, students reunited with their parents, then later back in class to finish the school day, participants had an opportunity to reflect on the exercise.

The first issue raised was how far Stoddard, as the assailant, made it into the school before he could be stopped. Trail Elementary Principal Tyler Floerchinger said, if it had been “the real deal, he probably would have tried harder to stop Stoddard from getting as far as he did.

But Stoddard pointed out it wouldn’t necessarily be that easy.

“In the real deal, you’re dealing with someone who’s had multiple contacts with law enforcement,” Stoddard said. “He’s not going to just push you out of the way. He’s going to knock the **** out of you.

“Are you going to be able to deter them from going down the hallway?” he said. “You’ll find out how good you can fight.”

Overall, officers agreed the exercise went well, with only a few issues. At the top of the list was communications, with different agencies struggling to talk to each other through sometimes unfamiliar radio protocols.

“Radio was very patchy,” said Lincoln Elementary principal Tim Williams. “Our radios – that’s probably something we need to look at. We couldn’t hear much, in my office under my desk.”

Shelly Kirchhefer, emergency management officer for the county, agreed.

“Communications is always the first thing to go,” she said. “It’s definitely something we need to work on.”

The other big issue law enforcement encountered, officers said, was access. Even though they’d been given master keys to the building, there were still problems getting inside, while Stoddard was engaged in his mock-mayhem and even after, when it came time to start evacuating the children and adults from

In the immediate aftermath, Goshen County School District No. 1 Superintendent Jean Chrostoski agreed about the communication issues.

“I think the drill went pretty well as expected,” she said. “I didn’t notice any big surprises.

“There was a legitimate concern from law enforcement about access to the building,” Chrostoski said. “We’re at the point now where we want to try to find a system where law enforcement can gain access to the buildings when they
need to.”

The players in the scenario plan to gather again Monday. Evaluators from various backgrounds were placed throughout during the event. Their observations will be tabulated and shared as the different agencies move forward.