An Urban Drill: Students Taught to Duck Gunfire

Luis Campos knows what to do when gunfire echoes near his Lennox home.

"You lie flat down and cover your head," the 12-year-old said matter-of-factly, demonstrating the technique on his front lawn.

Luis didn't learn this practice on the streets--he was taught the drill in elementary school.

The classroom drop-and-cover routine that became familiar amid the Cold War fear of nuclear attack has been transformed into a mechanism to protect students from nearby gunfire.

Schools from South-Central Los Angeles to the San Fernando Valley teach children to sprawl flat at the sound of shots.

They're called drop drills, crisis drills and even bullet drills. In many schools, a special alarm sounds, as it would during an actual nearby shooting. Teachers shout, "Drop!" and students duck under their desks or sprawl on the ground, covering their heads. Many schools also immediately initiate a lock-down during the drill, as they would with a shooting, sealing the campus off from violence outside.

Although crime nationally is on the decline and campus shootings are relatively rare, the most violent incidents continue to receive a barrage of media attention, driving many schools to adopt these policies.

The drills aren't new, but experts say the practice spreads every time gang violence touches a community.

*

School safety experts say the fear of errant bullets that prompts these drills has become the "nuclear war" looming over communities in the 1990s.

But unlike the distant threat of massive bombs, shootings remain an all too familiar danger many children live with every day.

"There's a big difference between 1997 and the way things were in 1957," said Ronald Stephens, executive director of the National School Safety Center, a program of the U.S. Justice and Education departments. "There have been enough incidents of shootings and weapons on campuses that the concept of shooting drills has entered discussions in schools all around the country."

Children in the Inglewood neighborhood where a toddler was killed while he sat on his father's shoulders last week say they've learned in class to duck at the sound of shots. Venice schools on turf between two rival gangs order their students to the ground every time gun battles break out near the campuses. And at Luis' school in Lennox, students learn how to avoid bullets in monthly drop exercises and an annual outdoor sniper drill.