Veterans protect students on campus during lockdown
Citrus College had a six-hour lockdown due to a shooting threat on Jan. 15.
Some students were looking for shelter, others inside classrooms hiding, but student veterans had an influential impact during the event.
Student veterans provided safety, comfort and took leadership in the classroom.
“I felt more secure knowing I had trained people that knew what to do and were confident,” professor Bruce Solheim said.
Dustin Glover, a business major and veteran, was one of the students that made sure that nobody was harmed.
“Our role is to provide an extra line of defense,” Glover said.
In many classes, there were veterans that took action in prioritizing and ensuring the safety of students and professors by contributing strategies and tactical plans.
In Solheim’s classroom, there were five veterans including Solheim: Ashlyn Lobner, homeland security major, Glover and two others.
Each veteran guarded a door inside his classroom since there were four doors.
While the veterans in his classroom are blocking the doors, they could hear someone attempting to aggressively open one of the doors, so all of them prepared to tackle the supposed threat.
“We were right by the door, two in each side,” Lobner said. “Solheim had the fire extinguisher. He was ready to hit, I’m ready to take him out by the legs, Adam is ready to take the gun along with Dustin.”
The veterans’ primary purpose that day was to provide safety for their peers even if it meant putting their own life at risk.
“If something did happen, we were going to be the first ones down because we were trying to disarm the suspect,” Lobner said.
No matter the situation, the veterans wanted to ensure the safety of students.
“The other vets that were guarding the door, they were willing to do whatever or slow down the threat enough to people can jump in or get to safety,” Glover said.
Due to the way that some doors on campus close, they are inconvenient for safety.
Students had to get creative in making a classroom secure, such as the situations of veteran Ulises Bolanos, nursing major.
“What we decided to do is to take someone’s belt and tied it to a couple of desks, so if somebody will come in, you will hear it and at the same time it will take a lot for somebody drag all those desks,” said Bolanos.
“I was really grateful for my veterans, because I felt that there was someone who was just as knowledgeable about safety and emergency preparedness. Their quick reaction made me feel very safe to know I had some people on my team with me,” Loren Hanna, a speech professor said.
Veterans have the knowledge and skills to know how to react in these situations because of their training. “We were lucky in our classroom,” Solheim said. “We had four veterans and myself who were all trained to take out bad people, but a lot of teachers and staff members have not had that training. They don’t know how to necessarily defend themself or their students.”
