PCOM South Georgia hosts active shooter drill

Published 5:30 pm Tuesday, November 15, 2022

MOULTRIE, Ga. — Two days after a gunman killed three students and wounded two others at the University of Virginia, PCOM South Georgia faced the question: What if it happens here?

The medical college on Tallokas Road hosted its first active shooter drill on Tuesday afternoon, Nov. 15. Heidi Browning, the campus’s assistant director of public safety, said it went well.

“Nothing’s ever perfect,” Browning said. “That’s the point of a training exercise. But it was good.”

Browning, formerly of the Valdosta State University Police Department, joined PCOM South Georgia in February and soon started planning for the drill. The campus opened in 2019 and had never hosted one.

She said one of the biggest take-aways was simply seeing the way the Moultrie Police Department and Colquitt County Sheriff’s Office responded.

“I’m 13 years prior law enforcement,” she said in a phone interview after the drill, “but my security has never seen anything like this.”

Browning teaches an active shooter class to the students and faculty at PCOM South Georgia, and she said she hopes the drill will increase interest in it.

The drill provided the opportunity for both PCOM and local law enforcement to evaluate their plans and capabilities should such a horrific event begin at the school. It helped show the areas that need to be improved, she said.

Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, Moultrie police and Colquitt County deputies participated in active shooter drills about once a year, including at Colquitt County High School, C.A. Gray Junior High, Willie J. Williams Middle School and what was then Moultrie Technical College.