The sound of gunshots echoed in the hallways of the Geary County Office Building on Thursday afternoon.

It was a starter pistol used to begin a training exercise for employees in the building, and for law enforcement and emergency personnel.

With high school students playing the role of shooting victims a shooter went down the hallways firing shots.

Police responded followed by ambulance personnel and a SWAT team that went through the building, removed the victims, negotiated with the shooter who had gone inside an office, and then arrested him and escorted him out of the building. Employees who had gone into hiding when the training exercise began were eventually allowed to escape outside of the building. Everyone was then debriefed after the exercise ended.  The goal…to be prepared in the event a shooter in the workplace ever does occur.

Employees agreed in a debriefing afterwards, it was a realistic exercise. Curt Janke, Assistant Geary County Emergency Management Director, told them everyone did a good job. “When we started down that hallway there wasn’t a sound in this building.”

Possible options for employees could be to take shelter or run, depending on the situation., Janke stated if the people in an office decide to evacuate they need to have a rally point. “If you decide as an office to evacuate, we’re trying to find where everybody is, we need to know that you’re at the rally point. And we need somebody from each office that you’re at the rally point and you have all the people with you.”

Observers were present to watch the exercise as it unfolded. They ranged from emergency management and law enforcement personnel to county commissioners.

Under current ( ALICE ) training, Janke noted, businesses such as this are getting hit as often as school districts. “The ALICE training that they’re teaching at the school districts transfers right over to this. You do the exact same thing. You make the choice on whether you’re going to lock down, whether you’re going to try to evacuate, or as a last resort whether you’re going to take the shooter down.”

Again…it was a training exercise for a shooter in the workplace on Thursday, not the real deal.