By: Sara Fili, KETV Channel 7 News
Bulletproof Backpack Inserts, Active Shooter Training KETV News
A bullet-riddled backpack is something no one wants to imagine.
For Bryce Raymond, it’s a thought that crosses his mind often.
“I was at Millard North High School, so I was going in between classes, so alarms started going off and we had to go hide. It was really scary,” Raymond said.
He was at Millard North in 2011, when a student walked into Millard South and opened fire on school staff, killing one, then himself.
“That fear of ‘It could happen to you at any moment,’ is kind of always with you,” Raymond said.
While at the 88 Tactical shooting range, Raymond was introduced to Angel Armor, an 8 by 11 inch Kevlar panel designed to fit into backpacks and briefcases, or be carried in books.
He said he’d buy one.
“If I was still in school or had a kid going to school, I definitely would,” Raymond said.
Kurt Sorys, 88 Tactical training director, said bulletproof backpack inserts are only one part of protecting students.
He said the Kevlar plate is designed to stop a handgun round, but in tests done with a backpack full of books, papers and the plate, the round did not go completely through the backpack.
“If you simply give this to a kid and say, ‘Hey here you go put this in front of you,’ and you don’t introduce any context, then when it actually happens, they may not even remember they have this,” Sorys said.
That’s why 88 Tactical stresses interactive training classes for students.
“If you don’t have something to draw from in your subconscious brain, you have to improvise under duress. And people don’t improvise well under duress,” Sorys said.
88 Tactical teaches the run, hide, fight model.
Instructors then put kids through scenarios to make surviving a mass casualty incident second nature. Instructors said they watch videos of shootings like those in Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas to see how people react and how they can add specific training that’s easy to institute in high-stress situations.
“A whole classroom acting against one guy is more likely to defeat that person than one person acting against one aggressor,” Sorys said.
“We think we have to be realistic with our kids. If this is a real possibility, do we sugarcoat it and not tell them, or do we say, ‘Listen, you see it on the news, your friends talk about it at school, so let’s give some strategies?”
FREE SCHOOL SAFE ACTIVE SHOOTER TRAINING CLASSES
With the school year starting, 88 Tactical is offering its School Safe class for free. Click here to learn more about the school safe class, or visit our online training calendar to view all upcoming classes.
