Iowa School Shooter Sim Scenario Revealed

You may recall our recent post Iowa School Shooting Sim: White Supremacist Run Amok. Conservatives and militia leaders were offended when they caught wind of the “plot” of an active shooter drill scheduled for a local school. “Operation Closed Campus” was based on the idea of a racist high school student and his pal going postal over open borders. After the story hit the ‘net, officials backpedalled, backtracked, finger-pointed and weaseled. When the shitstorm reached its peak, those involved pulled the plug, allegedly due to a threat to enact the sim for real. Since then, we’ve unearthed the playbook for Operation Close Campus. Here’s the Scenario Set-Up and the “trigger” for the start of the training exercise. Question: what does “ill-perceived” mean . . . .

In the past 6 months, the City of Treynor and Treynor Community School District has received a significant influx of minority residents. Increasing economic instability and public service cuts in a neighboring metropolitan area had forced minority populations into smaller, more affordable rural communities where commodities and cost of living is significantly less.  The economic migration of minority residents, both legal and non-legal into Pottawattamie County Communities has sparked controversy regarding national immigration policies as well as racial tensions with a few embedded, typically silent, white supremacy affiliates.

This tension has sparked public demonstrations, propelled city and state illegal immigrant legislation proposals and the law enforcement community has seen an increase in incidents of racially motivated crimes and incidents. Earlier in the school   week, staff found a hand-written note left on a cafeteria table that stated “If you won’t get rid of them, we will.” Similar notes have been found twice before over the past 3 months. Law enforcement, aware of the situation, have found no strong evidence to take action or make an arrest. Similar occurrences have happened in other schools and public places over the past 6 months throughout the region . . .

Suspect 1 approaches a small group of minorities in the northeast corner of the cafeteria. Suspect 1 begins blurting racial slurs and that he is tired of them moving in and stealing jobs and money from Americans. As the altercation is about to become physical and is noticed by a staff member, Suspect 1 pulls a handgun from his waistband, shooting one of the minority students. As chaos ensues, suspect 2 yells “the Revolution begins” and pulls out a weapon himself.  The suspects begin firing upon anyone in their path and chasing down anyone who is against their ill-perceived stand as they make good on their unanswered written warnings.

The spin on this set-up: it was written to secure a Department of Homeland Security grant. DHS says uh-uh. It’s easy to see why various immigration reform groups got bent out of shape: the text blurs the line between genuine concerns about illegal immigration, racism and violence. On the other hand . . .

There are plenty of bad people out there, from all sides of any political debate. The gentleman at the top of this post was a white supremacist who killed two guards outside of a Holocaust museum. There are also Jared Lee Loughner-style psychos who don’t need much of a tipping point to resort to murder and mayhem. Strategically, their motivation is important.

For example, if  the authorities deployed a Mexican American hostage negotiator to talk to the actors, they would have had a major “oh shit” moment. If the shooters’ motivation was a factor in Operation Close Campus, then it seems that political correctness killed the drill. If not, if the text above was simply gratuitous fantasy, then they ought to be ashamed. Either way, they need to try again.