But that’s exactly what happened at 11:18 a.m. Monday during lunch period for the 130 eighth-graders at Madison Jr./Sr. High School. A 14-year-old student, called “a good kid” by many, pulled out a .380 caliber handgun he allegedly stole from a relative, and fired several shots, hitting two classmates and injuring two more.
James Austin Hancock, the alleged shooter, was apprehended by the school resource officer a short time after the shooting was reported. He faces two counts of attempted murder, two counts of felonious assault, inducing panic and making terroristic threats. He remains in Butler County Juvenile Detention Center awaiting his next pre-trial hearing is scheduled for April 5 before county Juvenile County Judge Ronald Craft.
All four students injured are expected to recover from their injuries, school officials said.
Law enforcement departments in the region have trained for years for active shooter incident in schools and in business situations. But Monday wasn’t training.
“You never think you will have to use that training. You hope deep down that it is something that never happens,” said Middletown Police Chief Rodney Muterspaw. “But that’s why you train so hard and invest so much time and money into it because you owe it to your community to be ready and that is exactly what happened.”
Muterspaw said when the shooting happened, his department immediately sprang into action - sending teams to Madison and Middletown schools.
“My first thought was to immediately secure our schools here in Middletown in case it spilled over into here. We immediately sent two teams out - one to Madison High and the other to our schools. Everyone dropped what they were doing to get to those two assignments,” Muterspaw said.
The chief added, “We have trained schools, businesses and our own city personnel. We have three active shooter trainers currently and we continue doing it. By completing this, it makes it much easier to assess a situation and it gives the people we train an idea what to expect when they encounter one. Our SROs are among those trained. They work hand in hand with the schools to set protocol and policy should one occur.”
Hamilton Police Chief Craig Bucheit stressed training is important to keep everyone safe.
“I want all Hamiltonians - but especially our students, teachers, and staff in our schools - to know that we regard their safety and our commitment to shielding them from harm as our highest priority. The shooting at Madison High School reminds us that these types of situations, although rare, can happen anytime and anywhere” Bucheit said. “With that in mind, we continually focus our school safety efforts in two areas: prevention and preparedness. As part of that continuous process, three years ago, in close collaboration with our partner, the Hamilton City School District, HPD undertook the extraordinary task of completely redeveloping the crisis plans and active threat response protocols in every public, private, and parochial school in the city.
“We have continued to perfect and refine these plans, including a joint training exercise between Hamilton Police and Fire Departments last month,” he said.
The chief said earlier this year the department began hosting Active Threat classes at HPD.
“The feedback has been overwhelming and hugely supportive,” Bucheit said.
The classes are free and open to the public. The next class is scheduled for April 14 from 6 to 9 p.m.
Butler County Sheriff’s Captain John Sons said the ongoing training, often with departments throughout the county, paid off when Monday’s incident occurred.
“It was very noticeable when all the other agencies started responding. We worked well, they were asking what we needed and where do you need us,” Sons said, but he noted in a stressful situation like Monday’s it is always “organized chaos.”
Much of the training deputies, school staff and SRO receive is ALICE training, referring to “Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter and Evacuate.”
At Madison, those principles applied. Sons said a perimeter around the school was quickly established and they believe it is one reason why the alleged shooter was captured quickly.
In the days since the school shooting — the 160th in the United States since 2000 — Madison school officials have praised the efforts of the district’s school resource officer, Kent Hall, a retired Butler County Sheriff Deputy and the Madison Twp. fire chief, staff, teachers and students.
Seconds after the shooting was reported, the district’s elementary and junior/senior high schools were put on a Level 3 Emergency, the most serious, said Superintendent Curtis Philpot.
The training and drills paid off, he said. On Monday, all that investment — time and money — may have saved lives.
“We were very lucky that day,” Philpot told the Journal-News in an exclusive interview. “A very positive outcome.”
He said all of the students in the cafeteria were evaluated within 10 seconds. “I couldn’t ask for any more,” he said.
After allegedly firing several shots — one student said the first shot was a warning — Hancock allegedly dropped his weapon and ran out of the school. This scenario was much different than other school shootings when the suspect, fully armed, walks through the school, randomly shooting classmates and teachers.
“We are just lucky that his motive wasn’t to kill a bunch of people or he didn’t have the heart or he wasn’t able to do it,” Philpot said. “Because he got out of the building super fast that was a blessing for us.”
Philpot, an assistant eighth-grade boys basketball coach, was in the cafeteria talking to his players minutes before Hancock allegedly fired the first shot. When Philpot left the cafeteria and headed toward the main office, he was followed by Hall.
Seconds later, the first shot rang out.
Hall, Philpot and others raced back into the cafeteria, and as Hancock allegedly dropped his gun, and fled out of the school and into the woods, Hall pursued. Philpot told a school secretary to call 911, then, instinctively, called two junior high school teachers to tell them their children, both eighth-graders, weren’t involved in the shooting.
When the superintendent returned to the cafeteria, there were only two students left, the two students shot. They were treated by a school nurse until paramedics arrived, Philpot said. Then they were flown to Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton.
Unsure where the alleged shooter was located, and his next move, Philpot said he stood at the cafeteria door in case the student tried to re-enter the building. The whole situation lasted less than one minute.
“Everything seemed fast to me. Not slow, but fast,” Philpot said. “Don’t ask me why.”
While this was happening, all of the eighth-graders had run out of the school. Most ran into the woods, others hide under cars in the parking, some jumped the fence and ran across Ohio 122 and into their neighborhoods. The other 1,500 students in the district were locked down 30 seconds after the shooting was reported, he said.
They did just as they were trained, Philpot said.
The staff also followed protocol, he said. The teachers rushed their students into their classrooms and locked the doors. Many of the kindergartners were placed in bathrooms attached to their classrooms. Philpot said latches were recently attached in all the kindergarten bathrooms that have solid doors.
He said every year the district performs emergency drills, including Level 3 Emergency.
“We stepped up our game,” he said. “There was no panic. School safety is never off our minds as school superintendents.”
As Hall captured Hancock, and other Butler County sheriff deputies cleared the buildings, looking for additional possible shooters, Philpot announced over the district’s public address system for everyone to remain in their rooms until the Level 3 Emergency was lifted.
Later, after it was determined the teen suspect acted alone, Philpot told them: “You are not in danger.”
Philpot said some time passed before those in the elementary school, which is attached to the junior/senior high school, were told there was an “active shooter” in the building. Eventually, the emergency was lifted, and the students were dismissed from school early.
Philpot was asked whether the district is considering metal detectors to deter anyone from bringing a gun to school. He said that’s a conversation for the future, not this week. Then he added: “We are not going to rule anything out at this point. I don’t know if that’s the answer.”
Last week, the security presence at the school increased from one SRO to four Butler County Sheriff’s deputies. Philpot wasn’t sure how long the four deputies would remain on campus.
Since the shooting, Philpot has viewed the school’s surveillance footage of the events that day in the cafeteria. He hopes the video never is released to the public. One thing is clear: As bad as the shooting was, the outcome could have been much worse.
“It could have gone bad in so many way,” he said. “We were totally blessed on Monday.”
He mentioned the tape again: “We were blessed.”
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