Berlin talks school safety

BERLIN, Conn. (WTNH) -- Parents, educators and police met in Berlin tonight to discuss ways to keep their kids safe in schools after another school shooting happened in St. Louis on Tuesday.

"We can't pat search everyone so we are just going to have to have faith and keep our eyes open. I mean everyone has to put a little bit in," said Angel Medina of Berlin.

At the Berlin High School basketball game, word of the latest school shooting in St. Louis was making it's way through the crowd and as the players were doing battle on the court, next door at the Library parents, educators and police were meeting to come up with new ways to keep their kids safe in school.

"My children play a lot of basketball around the state of Connecticut and some are locked, some are not and that is a big concern for me," said Debbie McKinnon of Berlin.

Now tonight for the basketball game, they usually have 2 or 3 officers on hand because it is a public event but during school hours they normally have an armed school resource officer on duty and the superintendent says they plan to keep it that way. They also plan to do more lock down drills to make students more familiar with the policies.

"We've had one formal lock down drill in each school since the tragedy happened in Newtown. Four were police supervised and they all went well," said David Erwin Superintendent of Schools.

"My son was involved in a practice lockdown last week. He said it went very well in his particular classroom," said McKinnon.

"What kind of things did they do," asked News 8's Bob Wilson.

"There was a code called. He said he did hear screaming in the hallway," said McKinnon.

In the meeting the deputy chief talked about what can be done if a gunman gets into the school. It is something they have been training and drilling for the last ten years.

"As a police department we have developed a really detailed plan for each of the schools and how we are going to react to something like that should, god forbid it happen," said Deputy Chief John Klett.