DORAL, FLA. (WSVN) - Police and school staff are taking measures to stay prepared just a few days out from the new school year.
After the tragedy in Fort Stewart Wednesday, the City of Doral Police Department held an active shooter training inside of Academir Charter School East.
“We’ve seen active shooter incidents in churches, in concerts, in schools, so we need to provide the most realistic approach for our first responders,” said City of Doral Police Chief Edwin Lopez.
As the school year gets set to begin, police underwent rigorous training active shooter exercises, focusing on improving their tactics, response time, coordination and rescue techniques.
Lopez said it was critical to make the exercises as realistic as possible for his officers to feel the urgency of the situation and get a handle on how well they work under extreme stress.
“When it comes to bringing actors, when it comes to bringing firearms, you know, to the scene, obviously, utilizing blanks, we need to create a situation where it’s real, and that our officers are in high stress situations, so we can ultimately evaluate their response, provide the feedback and it, in turn, makes a better police force,” said Lopez.
Director of Safety and Security at Academir Charter Schools, Manny Arrebola, wants to make sure everyone, including students, is as prepared as possible.
“Unfortunately, kids have to go through things in school to get prepared for code reds and these kinds of situations, so they get trained in schools and we make sure that our kids are prepared for anything that possibly can happen,” said Arrebola.
This exercise comes just after five soldiers were shot in Georgia on Wednesday.
“We just had an incident yesterday in Georgia where there was an active shooter, so these things continue to occur,” said Arrebola. “Every effort needs to be taken by everyone to be as prepared as possible, and that’s what we try to do in Academir Schools is try to be as prepared as possible.”
Their primary goal when responding to an active shooter on a school campus: protect.
“You come into our schools to harm kids? We’re gonna make you real dead real quick,” said Lopez.
Officials say the intense exercises may save lives if the time comes.
“First responders need to know where to get to, how to respond and then ultimately, how to save more lives,” said Lopez. “So the collaboration amongst all those entities are critically important, and these drills provide a platform for us to do so.”
Authorities perform several exercises similar to this one throughout the year to ensure their training is up to date.
Copyright 2026 Sunbeam Television Corp. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.