School and police officials in Burlington, Vermont, apologized Friday after high school students on a field trip to a police station encountered an armed robbery drill that included a mock shooting, upsetting some students.
The training, which took place Wednesday and was approved by both the school and police, was meant to be a “realistic armed robbery demonstration,” according to a statement released Friday by police and the Burlington School District.
But officials acknowledged in a statement that the training, which Vermont's independent weekly newspaper Seven Days reported included a masked gunman pretending to walk into a room and open fire, was a mistake. “What happened this week was the result of a miscommunication between two groups that were trying to work together to create a positive experience for students,” the statement said.
The district said it has offered counseling services to the students and said in a statement that staff and students will hold a “restorative meeting” on Friday to “process and discuss the events of the day.”
The Burlington Police Department said in a statement Thursday that it had communicated with school officials in advance about details of the training exercise, including the plans to use a fake firearm in the mock shooting.
In a May 23 exchange with Burlington High School staff, police asked, “Would you consider such an incident to be OK for your group of students? This is very much a reality and exactly the type of incident we deal with most frequently.”
According to police, a school official responded, “We believe the students will be fine in this simulation. We will inform parents and students in advance.”
“We deeply regret that this incident occurred, and we are working collaboratively internally to improve our systems to ensure this never happens again,” police and school officials said in a joint statement Friday.
School and police officials “will strive to be clear and accountable for the circumstances, expectations and challenges as we work together in the future,” Burlington Schools Superintendent Tom Flanagan and Police Chief John Murad said in a statement. “We do not want to see this happen again in the future.”
“I also want to apologize for the harm and pain this incident has caused to the students at Burlington High School, who have sadly grown up in a society where gun violence, including in school settings, is commonplace,” Burlington Mayor Emma Mulvaney Stanak said in a statement Friday.
She said she expects the school district and police to “take responsibility for the harm caused, reflect on how they should have handled this incident differently, and ensure this doesn't happen again in the future.”