Acorn

Issue date: 3/28/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Sheryl McCabe Leslie Pillepich ('11), playing an injured student during the fake shooting over Spring Break to test emergency services reactions.

In a simulated event, two Drew University students were injured and one was killed just before a call came to Public Safety that a man with a gun was shooting at students inside the Dorothy Young Center For the Arts. A white van pulled up in the parking lot behind Tilghman House, where a SWAT team hopped out and quickly surrounded the Arts building. Luckily for the students, this was only a training exercise that took place over spring break on March 11. A joint effort from the Madison Police Department, Public Safety and the Theatre Arts Department made the drill a cohesive and frighteningly realistic episode.

Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts Andrew Elliott agreed to play the part of a gunman to test the effectiveness of the Public Safety and the Madison police while all the victims were played by Theatre Arts majors. "I didn't want to put a student in that position," Elliott said, about why he didn't want a student playing the part as a shooter. "I didn't want to create that dynamic between two students with one being a shooter. I would rather that happen to me than to a student. All the Theatre majors, they know I wouldn't hurt them. I wanted the students to feel as safe as possible."

The whole exercises took less than 30 minutes to complete. Teresa Calves ('10) was taken out of the Arts building first and taken to the back of Tilghman House, which was considered a "safe zone" during the exercise. She was apprehended on suspicion of being the shooter. "My scenario was what if the shooter dropped one of his weapons and a student picked it up," Calves said. "They told me [later] that I was too slow when I put down the gun. They told me that if this was real, I would have been shot."

Minutes later, Anthony Capasso ('11) was brought to the Tighlman porch with stage blood covering his left forearm. He was one of the students who had already been injured along with Leslie Pillepich ('11), who showed up a few minutes later with a head injury. Both students were put into an ambulance that appeared on the scene with police and received medical attention. "They were very good, caring and concerned," Capasso said. "Once I was in the ambulance, I was more at ease. I felt calmer."

Continued...

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