Biola University’s Campus Safety in conjunction with Biola’s Emergency Response Team and the La Mirada Sheriff’s station (LASD) conducted a first-of-its-kind campus-wide lockdown training exercise on Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2015 at 10:18 a.m. The exercise was based on a hypothetical active shooter situation.

Biola is one of the first and only universities in Southern California to ever host a university-wide lockdown drill.  

“In light of the major increase in the number of active shooter incidents in schools and colleges across the United States, the Biola University Emergency Response Team along with the La Mirada Public Safety team and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department have been working for years to prepare for the possibility of an incident on our campus,” said Biola University’s Campus Safety Chief John Ojeisekhoba. “The goals of this exercise are to educate the Biola community and to seek ways to improve our response capabilities.”

The internal and external Biola community was notified that a drill was occurring on Tuesday morning, but was not made aware of the time to ensure the drill was somewhat spontaneous to effectively train first responders and the community at large. The exercise lasted approximately 10 to 15 minutes. Nearly 95 percent of the campus was in lockdown mode within five minutes, which is considered very successful, according to LASD.

Students and the Biola community were encouraged to sign up for Biola’s Emergency Notification System (ENS) which sends a text message to all signed up in the event of an emergency. On Tuesday, the community was notified through ENS of the hypothetical active shooter on campus.

During the drill, first responders, LASD officers and Biola’s Campus Safety encouraged all community members to seek shelter inside the nearest building and lock themselves in a room. During the lockdown, no cars were allowed to enter campus. Another message was sent at the conclusion of the drill at 10:30 a.m.

The Biola University Emergency Response Team began a tabletop exercise at 8:15 a.m. that concluded with debriefing the lockdown drill after it took place. In addition, community members were encouraged to submit feedback on any challenges or input that would help Campus Safety in the event there was an active shooter on campus.

Written by Jenna Loumagne, media relations specialist. For more information, contact Jenna at (562) 777-4061 or jenna.l.bartlo@biola.edu.