The Bridgewater Police Department hosted a training course for civilians to teach them how to respond in the event of an active shooter or threat.

BRIDGEWATER — As more than a thousand people crowded into the Bridgewater-Raynham Regional High School gymnasium for a basketball game Thursday evening, almost a dozen people gathered in a classroom on the third floor for an after-hours class.

But it wasn’t time for a typical school lesson. It was a lesson on survival.

The Bridgewater Police Department hosted a two-day active shooter civilian training course for the general public last week. Participants received an introduction to ALICE (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter and Evacuate) training to teach them potentially life-saving actions in the event of an active shooter or hostile threat.

Led by Bridgewater police officers Joe Parmeggiani, Nicholas Chmielinski and Kevin Kearns (who also serves as the school resource officer), the free course provided a mix of classroom instruction and hands-on techniques last Tuesday and Thursday.

Kearns told participants that during a threat, they have three options: first and foremost, flee the area or building if they have enough time to do so in a safe manner; second, if there isn’t time to flee, they should hide or barricade themselves in a safe area; and third, if there isn’t time to flee or hide and it’s a life-or-death situation, fight back.

Active shooter events, Kearns explained, do not often end with the arrival of law enforcement. They often end because of the shooter themselves or people taking back control of the situation.

“You gotta do what you gotta do to go home to your family,” Kearns said.

Officers told civilians to use caution when taking control of the situation using a weapon, whether it involved taking it away from the threat or using their own licensed gun if they had one. They brought up a “good-case scenario” from an incident in Taunton in May 2016, where a man on a stabbing spree was stopped after an off-duty deputy sheriff shot him.

But ultimately, Parmeggiani said, police are running off of limited information and aren’t able to tell at first glance if the civilian with the gun is a good guy or the shooter. If anything, he explained, communication with police is vital.

After the in-classroom lesson ended, it was time to act out scenarios to practice firsthand. After officers handed out clear safety glasses, the action commenced.

For each exercise, a volunteer from the class was selected to be the “active shooter.” They were handed a multi-round Nerf gun that shot out small yellow balls to use and given roughly the same instruction: shoot as many people in as short of a time as possible. One of the officers held an air gun, blowing it to signal the start of the exercise and to mimic the sound of gun fire during it.

The non-shooter participants were given different rules for each scenario, which gave them the option of fleeing to safety, barricading themselves in a classroom or fighting back. It was up to them, officers explained, to decide which classroom they wanted to start the exercise in, where they wanted to flee to if they so choose and if they chose to fight back, how they would do so.

And following the training event Tuesday, officers asked participants to not to throw any desks this time.

As the sound of the air horn pierced the silent hallway, people scrambled. They fled into adjourning classrooms, barricaded the front classroom door with desks and attempted to brace the door shut with an extension cord. As each shooter made his rounds, they ducked out of view and at one point, used larger foam balls provided by officers to "fight back."

As officers concluded the round of exercises, the group gathered back in the classroom and discussed their choices. Was running the best choice? Could they have barricaded the door better? Was there something they could have done differently?

Suddenly, one of the participants stood up, pulled out a smaller size Nerf gun and began mock shooting in one last surprise exercise. Only one person made a break for the door. The others were quickly “shot.”

After, Kearns told them that the goal was to to catch them off guard. It exemplified the worst case scenario, he said, where people were packed into a small space with little time to escape and with no warning of a threat. They wouldn't always receive a warning like they did going into the exercises in the first place, he said, where they were anticipating the shooter.

That's why it's important to come up with a plan beforehand in the event of an emergency situations, he explained, but there is no single "right" solution of what to do. It all depends on where the event occurs, how much time they have and what materials they may have with them to barricade or fight back.

Most importantly, Parmiaggni said, people shouldn't be scared of going out in the public. They just need to keep the thought of a threat in the back of their minds and stay aware of their surroundings, including any possible escape routes.

Resident Steve Sullivan said his wife signed him up for the class, as they attend church and he works security in a local hospital. The exercises are helpful both for work and church, he said, and what he learned will make him think about potential threats and his surroundings going forward.

Participant Chris Drowne, whose glasses flew off into the hallway at one point during one of the exercises as he fought back against the “shooter,” said that actually acting out the scenarios was the biggest help instead of just learning what to do in a classroom setting. He signed up because he works at Bridgewater State University and wanted to be prepared in case of a hostile situation, he said, and he thinks that people should take the class annually.

“Unfortunately, we live in a terrifying world,” he said. “Being in a school environment, I want to be prepared. That’s the bottom line.”

 Staff writer Corlyn Voorhees can be reached at cvoorhees@enterprisenews.com