No one ever wants to prepare for a mass shooting — especially at a school.
But districts and first responders in western Kentucky have little choice but to do so.
Trigg County’s Local Emergency Planning Committee Meeting took just such steps last Friday, when local officials reviewed a bevy of plans and options — before taking in a wealth of knowledge from a federal agent whose name cannot be revealed to the general public.
In the name of safety, security and anonymity, this agent’s specific data and grittier, guttier details also cannot be revealed to the general public — but from a wider scope, some broader discussion points included:
+ The steps that needed to be taken in Trigg County, in order to create a safe extraction point for parents, families and caretakers;
+ The difficulties that lie within profiling individuals, kids and adults alike, capable of such atrocities;
+ The deteriorating mental health of students, faculty, staff and the general populace, which often turns those without a single incident of criminal history into potentially dangerous assailants;
+ The need to “say something if you see something,” in order to create more campus prevention and protection;
+ The measures at which districts should be drilling for lockdowns, which theoretically need to be conducted during inopportune times to shed the concepts of convenience and preparation, in order to truly simulate chaos and disorder;
+ And much, much more.
This agent did disclose one critical piece of science worth noting:
— Fire alarms and fire drills should be treated with a unique respect in future practices.
The last reported fatal fire at an elementary, middle and/or high school was December 1, 1958, when 92 children and three nuns were killed in a quickly-spreading blaze at Angels School in Chicago. Young collegians have since perished in other mishaps, including incidents at Texas A&M and Murray State, but K-through-12 has thankfully escaped the tragedy for more than 60 years.
However, smoke detectors, fire alarms and sprinkler systems can serve as unique markers of an active shooter, as gunfire creates more than one hazardous condition.
What could be discussed in open session, however, came from Kentucky Emergency Management’s David Koon, who was able to shed more light on the swatting incident that took place in Lyon County in late September.
With that lockdown, Koon said it was imperative that the same people who always connect with families during daily child pickup serve in the same roles during a crisis.
The most important thing in the madness of pickup, Koon added, is that schools must have accurate databases regarding who has parental or familial rights.
Koon noted that action plans and chains of command must be clear on premises, and for this lockdown, both the Lyon County Middle School principal and Lyon County’s superintendent gained control of the site.
Parents, Koon said, did, perhaps unintentionally, create an immediate problem — one that had to be solved quickly by first responders.
Koon said the original call came in as an “adult shooter,” and while thankfully no threat was discovered, it created a full response from surrounding counties, the U.S. Forestry Service, the Kentucky State Police and others.
Simulating the response, Koon said, might be beneficial for Trigg County Schools.
David Bryant, Trigg County’s emergency manager, said he’s been a part of three mass evacuation situations in the region during his time — and that Trigg Schools officials have run through some tabletop scenarios during his tenure.
From 2000 through 2024, more than 570 school shootings occurred in the United States — leading to more than 800 injuries and more than 450 deaths.
According to Education Week for 2025, 17 school shootings have resulted in 50 injuries and/or deaths in the U.S. There were 39 last year, 38 in 2023, 51 in 2022, 35 in 2021, 10 in 2020 (as COVID swept the nation), and 24 each in 2019 and 2018.
