By Billy Davis

In the end, the bad guys lost. But it came with a price.

Batesville school resource officer Mark Lott, 30, was “gunned down” at South Panola High, the only law enforcement “casualty” in an hour-long training exercise held June 25.

In and around the school, authorities were immersed in a challenging, real-time scenario known as “Active Shooter,” which depicts first responders’ reaction to an armed gunman.

Fireworks, simulating gunfire, rattled through the school’s hallways. Floating trails of firecracker smoke set off fire alarms, adding more noise to a scenario that was already nerve wracking. Over piercing fire alarms and rattling fireworks, officers tried to hear and be heard on radios.

“It was chaotic,” said participant BPD Detective Tommy Crutcher. “The students were panicking and asking for help, at the same time we were asking them for information about the shooter.”

Two fast-moving teams, one of police officers and the second a mixture of agencies, tracked down three shooters, “killing” one and “arresting” two others.

The first team, which included Crutcher and three uniformed officers, entered the high school’s main mall at about 9:20 a.m.

The second team, several minutes later, responded to a 911 call that shooters were seen in the nearby “vo-tech” building.

Posing as gunmen were Bill McGee, an officer with the Panola County Narcotics Task Force, Panola constable Raye Hawkins, and Hawkins’ son, Wesley.

The scenario was planned and overseen by Daniel Cole, director of Panola County Emergency Management, with help from seasoned personnel with Mississippi Emergency Management.

Troopers, paramedics, dispatchers, school resource officers, school staff and others participated, some in a hands-on role and others as observers.   

A command post was set up at Batesville Junior High, where BPD Chief Tony Jones oversaw a hectic scene that unfolded in and around the high school, located up the hill. Panola Sheriff Otis Griffin joined Jones at the junior high.

For safety, participating law enforcement entered the scenario with their firearms unloaded.

The first team

A team of Batesville police, searching only a portion of the mammoth high school, tracked McGee to a first-floor classroom. Armed with a mock pipe bomb, and surrounded by terrified students, he barricaded himself inside an Air Force ROTC equipment room.

“C’mon man, let the kids go,” an officer told the gunman. McGee eventually did, and the students fled.

Minutes earlier, patrolmen had peeked around hallway corners to locate the shooters. They walked warily past the “dead” and the “wounded,” while a team of trained observers circled around them, recording their actions and reactions to the scene.

In addition to Crutcher, officers who entered the high school were identified as patrolman Richard Stonestreet, Sgt. Denver Donahu, and Lt. Ruby Myers.

Lt. Robert Ales, who also approached the high school, was tasked with evacuating Lott from the scene.  

There were a few problems, small and great, that were addressed in a post-scenario meeting held in the school library.

McGee observed that officers should have used a mirror, not their necks, to peek around corners.

“If you stick your head around a corner, you’re gonna die,” McGee said.

Cole, addressing McGee’s concern, said Panola EMA is equipped with cameras that can be deployed for such a scenario.     

“I bought this from the parts store,” interjected Mississippi conservation officer Marion Pearson, who served as an observer.

He pulled, from a pants pocket, a quarter-sized mirror attached to a telescoping handle. The point was hard to miss: in a real-life shootout, even a cheap mirror could save someone’s life.

The Panolian is not reporting other possible problems at the request of BPD Chief Tony Jones, who voiced concern about officers’ safety in a real-life scenario.

BPD Chief Deputy Don Province did confirm that improved communication among officers is already being addressed.

“That’s the whole goal of the scenario: to find out our weak spots and strengthen them,” said Province.

The second team

A Mississippi state trooper and two Panola sheriff’s deputies joined Batesville police officers at the vo-tech building. Inside the building, the elder Hawkins was holding students hostage, with his son posing as one of the students.

Wesley Hawkins had expected to hide among the students, then surprise officers with a hidden handgun. He never got the chance.

“I’m giving them a clue,” he said before the exercise, when he pulled a t-shirt over a bulletproof vest.

Participants said BPD officer Jamie Tedford, when he searched the students, felt the bulky vest and pulled the younger Hawkins from the crowd of students.

Outside the vo-tech building, students were evacuated to the parking lot. Once outside, the crew of law enforcement officers was told via radio that a shooter was located on the second floor of the school. The report was incorrect, but officers had to respond to the intelligence they were given. So the trooper, police officers, and sheriff’s deputies, all sweating and weary, huddled with the students behind an ambulance.

“We need to get these students out of here,” someone radioed. “We need them out of here.”

Then state trooper Shane Phelps fixed the problem.

“Let’s put ‘em in the ambulance,” he said.

Within thirty seconds the students were crammed into the ambulance and whisked away.

Participating in the second team were Phelps, Tedford, sheriff’s deputies Fred Sanders and Billy Lambert, and Batesville police officers Charlie Tindall and Nick Hughes.

There have been numerous high school shootings in the United States, but the most infamous occurred at Columbine High School. Two high school students killed 12 students and a teacher, and injured 23 others, before they committed suicide on April 20, 1999.

Closer to home, student Luke Woodham shot and killed two students, and injured seven others, at Pearl High School on October 1, 1997.  

When the exercise at South Panola High concluded, participants were reminded that they encountered only four mock pipe bombs and evacuated 25 students.

More than 1,100 students crowd the hallways at South Panola High during the school year.

At Columbine, the killers had built and deployed more than 90 homemade bombs.