To listen to the story told by Zach Campbell, one of the 24 students and staff held hostage by an armed gunman at Marinette High School in Marinette, Wisconsin, their classmate’s snapping was unexpected. After a film strip on Greek mythology, the armed gunman (whose name has not been released) pulled out a handgun, shot the projector, then ordered the students to pile their mobile phones in the middle of the room.
“It was a very scary event. We just wanted to be on his good side,” Campbell said of the students, who spent most of the six-hour standoff talking about hunting and fishing with their armed hostage-taker. Campbell added that the gunmen seemed depressed, “but he didn’t really seem like he wanted to hurt anybody”. except for, perhaps, himself. With police closing in, the gunman shot himself. He’s been transported to a nearby hospital, where his condition is unknown (aside from the fact that he is still alive).
The school was prepared for such a crisis. “They just spent a whole bundle of money on classroom doors to make them secure but they don’t have metal detectors at the school,” said counselor Bradley Behrendt. According to Marinette schools superintendent Tim Baneck, the school and local law enforcement had gone through emergency response training last year to prepare for just such an event. “The local law enforcement officials as well as the educators were all involved in a mock shooter situation, so it is actually very fresh in our minds.”
Going through drills is one thing; being prepared for a real shooter is something else entirely.
Tags: Marinette High School, Marinette, Wisconsin, Bradley Behrendt, Zach Campbell, gunman storms high school in Wisconsin, hostage situations, hostages taken in Wisconsin high school, high school hostage situation, armed stand-off, hostage scare, unusual criminals, Tim Baneck
