school safety

School-wide active shooter drills gets mixed reaction from parents, law enforcement

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While active shooter classes are ongoing at DeWitt High School, the idea of a full-scale active shooter drill has been met with mixed reviews from parents, law enforcement and school officials. According to DeWitt Township Chief of Police Brian Russell, law enforcement and the school have been having ongoing conversations about school safety, but the idea of an active shooter drill has yet to come up. “I think they should train for the real world,” said Russell. “You learn things by repetition, I think it would be a good thing for them, but if something really happened, I think they’d at least be more prepared for it. I just think it’s a good thing for life, period, it’s good training.

Bath-DeWitt

Following Parkland, DeWitt High School starts active shooter drill classes with police and fire departments

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DeWitt High School has started a program of classes with township fire department and police department staff to help prepare students and teachers in the case of an active shooter situation, Fire Chief Dave DeKorte announced during the  DeWitt Township Board of Trustees meeting on March 12. DeKorte, who leads the instruction in the classes, said the planning process had been going on for the last couple months, but the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, helped expedite the process. “With everything going on, it just kind of made the ball roll a little faster,” said DeKorte. The program is a daily occurrence, running between 45 minutes to an hour long, where the fire and police personnel visit three different classrooms to give formal instruction on what options they have when an active shooter is present. “Basically, teaching them: if you can, you run; if you can’t, then it’s lockdown in the room, you barricade the door; you get ready to counter, where you’re going to basically throw whatever you can at them; and swarm the person if they come in the room, and then hold them down until we get there,” DeKorte said.

Bath-DeWitt

DeWitt continues to see an increase in drugged driving cases

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By Zachary Manning
Bath-DeWitt Connection Staff Reporter

DEWITT — The city of DeWitt has seen a rise in the number of drugged driving cases over the past few years. Drugged driving is driving while under the influence of drugs. From 2012-2015, the city of DeWitt has seen rises in drugged driving cases. In 2012, the city had six cases. In 2013, the city had seven cases.

Bath-DeWitt

City of DeWitt Police Department seeing less crimes being called in

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By Brendan Wilner
Bath-DeWitt Connection Staff Reporter

DEWITT — Over the past few years the city of DeWitt has had an average amount of crimes for a small city, including assaults, larceny, and even accidents. Those are just a few reasons people would call the police department in DeWitt. Chief Bruce Ferguson, who has been the chief since 2013, said that having a smaller city has allowed him to get closer to the citizens. “I don’t know if anyone in the city doesn’t have my cell phone number,” Ferguson said, “The city is close and small, so some people actually just drop by on their way home or something and talk to me directly.”

According to Ferguson, the police department will send officers to do house checks for the citizens. He said that they do around 250 checks a year.