Florida principal suspended after “regretful” unannounced active shooter drill

A Florida middle school principal has been suspended after a decision to administer an unannounced lock down drill that had the school’s SRO officer and a patrol officer going door to door brandishing firearms.

The incident drew national attention and a tidal wave of criticism as a number of students were said to have been terribly frightened by the armed men – believing that they were under siege and claiming that during the procedure guns were pointed directly at them.

Via FOX Tampa:

Stacy Ray also said her daughter, Lauren, was terrified.

“I’m panicking because I’m thinking that a legitimate shooter is coming, that something bad is happening at the school,” said Ray, who also received frightened text messages from her other children, including one that read, “I thought he was going to shoot me.”

“A lot of people started getting scared because we thought it was a real drill,” Lauren told us last week. “We actually thought that someone was going to come in there and kill us.”

Via The Ledger:

A Winter Haven Police Department spokeswoman said last week that one officer involved in the drill had a loaded handgun out while checking a classroom and the another officer had an unloaded AR-15 rifle with no magazine, and both were pointed toward the ground.

On Tuesday Jewett Middle Academy Magnet principal Jacquelyn Moore was suspended until an internal investigation is complete.

Suspended principal Jacquelyn Moore / The Ledger

At a school board meeting this week, School Superintendent Kathryn Leroy said, “Obviously, the school administration at Jewett Middle Academy Magnet, which was responsible for the co-ordination of this drill, exhibited lack of good judgment… I very much regret that this occurred.”

At first Winter Haven Police Chief Charlie Bird defended the decision:

“It’s very important that, when you do your drill, you do it without everyone knowing that it’s a drill,” Bird said. “How you train and how you prepare is how you’re going to react when everything goes bad. It really is to protect the children and at no point in time would we endanger any of the children.”

After “evaluating procedures they changed their tune and announced that, “Further lock-down drills that occur at schools within the city limits of Winter Haven will be performed by uniformed officers without weapons.”