By Randall Rigsbee
Pittsboro, NC – As Chatham County students prepare to return to classrooms later this month, Chatham County Sheriff’s Office Student Resource Officers and members of the Special Incident Response Team spent several hours Thursday training for one of the most difficult scenarios law enforcement can face: an active shooter inside a school.
The August 13 exercise was conducted at Bennett School, which was empty of students and staff. CCSO personnel created a realistic training environment throughout the building, placing cardboard representations of innocent victims in classrooms while deputies participating in the exercise played the role of an active shooter. SROs then responded to the simulated threat using SIMS training rounds.
The exercise was designed to test the SROs’ ability to respond quickly, move through the building, identify and engage a threat, and make split-second decisions under the pressure of a simulated active shooter situation. Trainers evaluated the officers throughout the exercise, with participants treating the scenario as they would an actual emergency.
A whiteboard in the training area summarized the priorities of the exercise: Hostages. Innocents. Law enforcement officers. Bad guy.
Senior Deputy Matthew Mitchell, who helped lead the exercise, emphasized the reasoning behind that order.
“Their safety comes before ours,” said Senior Deputy Mitchell, who understands firsthand the risks involved in responding to a violent incident.
In December 2025, he was seriously wounded while responding with other CCSO deputies to a hostage situation on Pittsboro Goldston Road. During that incident, Senior Deputy Mitchell was shot in the arm and leg as deputies entered a residence to rescue a hostage. The hostage was rescued without physical injury, and Senior Deputy Mitchell has since returned to duty.
The experience has given him an especially personal perspective on the importance of training for situations in which officers may have to place themselves in harm’s way to protect others.
“As SROs, the worst thing that can happen is to have an active shooter,” Mitchell said.
Training in an empty school allows officers to practice the movements, communication and decision-making required in an actual crisis without putting students or staff at risk.
Capt. Ronnie Miller, who oversaw the exercise, said officers understand the risks they face but also understand their responsibility to move toward danger when students or others are in danger.
“If there’s an active shooter, we’re not hiding,” Capt. Miller said. “We’re wearing our uniform; we’re coming in the school. This is our job.”
Capt. Miller said officers responding to an active shooter are prepared to draw the attention of the gunman away from students, teachers and other innocent people.
“I don’t want to get shot. I don’t want to die,” Capt. Miller said. “But my job as a law enforcement officer is, if there are kids in there, I want him to shoot at me instead of the kids. So the attention should divert to us.”
That willingness to move toward a threat is precisely what the annual training is intended to reinforce.
“You’re training for that,” Capt. Miller said. “That’s what we’re doing now.”
The training comes less than two weeks before the start of the 2026-27 traditional school year, with Chatham County Schools scheduled to welcome students back on Aug. 25.
While no one wants to imagine an active shooter situation occurring at a Chatham County school, CCSO officials say preparing for the possibility is an essential part of the agency’s responsibility to protect students and staff.
“We hope we never have to use this training in a real situation,” said Sheriff Steve Maynor. “But if that day comes, we will be ready to go in and protect the people inside.”