From The Burlington County Times:
BURLINGTON TOWNSHIP — The scenario has played out in real life across America: Gunfire echoes through a school and students are held hostage.
But police, faculty and staff lived out their own make-believe version yesterday of just such a tragedy at Burlington Township High School, complete with Kevlar-clad officers, armed suspects and students portraying the wounded and dead.
The purpose of the drill was to test the reactions of police, faculty and administration.
“You perform as you practice,” Superintendent Chris Manno said prior to the exercise. “We need to practice under conditions as real as possible in order to evaluate our procedures and plans so that they're as effective as possible.”
The mock terror attack involved two irate men armed with handguns who invaded the high school through the front door. They pretended to shoot several students in the hallway and then barricaded themselves in the media center with 10 student hostages.
Two Burlington Township police detectives portrayed the gunmen. Investigators described them as members of a right-wing fundamentalist group called the “New Crusaders” who don't believe in separation of church and state. The mock gunmen went to the school seeking justice because the daughter of one had been expelled for praying before class.
This has Christians rightly upset. In an area where the column of smoke from the World Trade center could be seen rising above the treeline on 9/11 the police department and the school district could think of no more likely potential terrorist threat than a group called "New Crusaders" (the word crusade means "war for the cross".
It is also interesting to note that the school apparently thought it was a plausible scenario to have a girl expelled for praying before class. I suspect that this represents some kind of wish fulfillment fantasy on the part of the school administration. Because it certainly does not reflect the state of the law, at least at the present time.
In the US a student is not required to check her religious beliefs at the door of the school house. Students may pray, or read the Bible and even proselytise as long as it is not done in a way which disrupts school activities.
At the very least his is an example of the kind of run amok political correctness which is crippling the West's efforts to fight the global war on terror.
The police department and school district are getting a well deserved spanking. Let us hope that the correct lesson is learned.
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