The Covenant School's teachers and staff performed "flawlessly." That's what the instructor of their active shooter training is saying.
I happened to attend the training back in 2022, and today I had a conversation with instructor Brink Fidler right after he toured the school.
HM: Have you ever instructed a group of people who have had to put it into practice?
BF: Not until now. I knew it was inevitable just statistically speaking. One of these large corporations or organizations — eventually it was going to happen. And when this unfolded Monday, I can't believe it happened. Everybody, people talk about all the time how they never thought it would happen to them, and statistically speaking, it's probably not going to happen to you. But I'll tell you Katherine Koonce and Ben Gatlin and this staff and these teachers and the facilities personnel — who didn't have to be there but chose to sit in on the training — that was the difference maker for what could've been a much more tragic outcome than it was.
HM: How seriously did TCS take this training?
BF: Extremely seriously. They reached out in the fall of '21 originally. Katherine Koonce, the head of school, contacted us, sat in on our training at another school. She hired us on the spot at that training and brought us in on our first available date and was excited to bring this to her faculty as bad as that sounds. But she really felt strongly about her staff’s ability to perform with the right information.
HM: Was it surreal to be back in The Covenant School after spending so much time talking about this?
BF: Very, yeah. It still doesn't feel real — the broken glass and like all of it, the DNA evidence, the breached doors. I mean, you almost have to compartmentalize it or I do as I work.
HM: What did you see that makes you say that the teachers performed flawlessly?
BF: I mean like under that amount of stress, there are police officers that can’t operate under that amount of stress. They did exactly what they knew to do and did it well. Those kids are alive because of it.
Brink Fidler is a former Metro Nashville Police Department officer. His security consulting firm is called Defend Systems.
