Mukilteo BeACoNIn thIs Beacon

YOUR HOMETOWN NEWSPAPER

help keep gulch history alive p4something wiggly this way comes p5 Ride ct bus free to festival p8Vulnerable long enough to heal p10

InsPIReD tRIPKamiak senior to form Guatemala non-profit group

neW PoLIce caRsFour more next-generation patrol vehicles hit streets2

8806 5th Street, Mukilteo, WA 98275 www.mukilteobeacon.com Volume XXII Number 3 Aug. 28, 2013

The 911 call came in just after 3:10 p.m.

A business owner requested that police stand by as he fired an employee.

As officers arrived, the em-ployee shot his boss in the back – yelling “bang bang!” and pointing a toy gun. He then ran into a back room where he had tied up some of his co-workers.

The shooter had two de-mands before he would let any hostages go: He wanted a sausage and cheese pizza, and he wanted said pizza delivered by helicopter.

It was all part of an “active shooter” training that the Mukilteo Police Department held for its police officers and other first responders on Aug. 15 at the Sterling Business Park at the corner of 44th Avenue W. and 84th Street S.W.

An active shooter is someone who is killing or attempting to kill others, usually with guns.

Patrol squads trained throughout the day, practicing their responses, so that they’ll know what to do if or when a shooting like at Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech or Aurora Mall ever happens here.

“Anything can turn into an active shooter situation,” Officer Cheol Kang said. “It could be an isolated incident or a mass shooting. The first responders to the scene have to do something to stop the threat.”

The Police Department has held several active shooter trainings since Columbine. The last was in 2008. Officers also meet with Mukilteo

School District educators an-nually to go over active-shooter responses, such as evacuations and lockdowns.

The scenario-based train-ing on Aug. 15 covered how to safely enter rooms, move as a team, scan rooms for threats, disarm a shooter, and mitigate harm to victims – all done by making split-second decisions.

Each squad of 4-5 officers practiced these tactics and techniques in up to five scenar-ios. Each was set up like a 911 call from dispatchers: a welfare check or a civil standby gone wrong.

“Each squad already works together,” said Officer Joe Hamilton, a training instruc-tor. “They’ve already gone on calls with each other in real life. In training, that [team-work is] tested.”

Officers were armed with pel-let guns and a ballistic shield to protect themselves from “ac-tive threats” – fellow officers pretending to be aggressors.

Some scenarios also involved “hostages,” portrayed by volunteers, or booby traps – a pretend trip wire or bomb strapped to a chair.

The scenarios played out like a “Choose Your Own Adven-ture” book, where each deci-sion altered the outcome.

Once on a call, many of the officers said they were “in the zone.” It didn’t matter that it was just practice. They reacted as if the gunshots they heard and the hostages they saw were real.

“My adrenaline kicks in as soon as you go in and you hear the firing,” Officer A.J. Dodd said. “It means it’s time to go to

Preventing another Sandy Hook crisis

by SARA bRUESTLEmukilteoeditor@yourbeacon.net

Kamiak High School junior Roger Klaaskate of the B96 Rush Nero soccer team heads the ball in a game versus Seattle United West B96 Blue team in the Big Foot Tournament held Aug. 15-18 in Snohomish. The Rush team defeated Seattle United 1-0 on Aug. 15, secured another 1-0 victory over WPFC Fury the following day, and lost a close game to Rainier Soccer Alliance on Aug. 17, 1-0. The team went on to qualify for the semi-final competition on Aug. 18, but were defeated 2-0 by the soon-to-be tournament champion, Snohomish United Black.

Photo courtesy of Liz Ferry

Rush makes it to Big Foot semi finals

see tRaInInG page 12 u

The dance crew Rated Next Generation is now a two-time winner of Hip Hop International’s U.S.

hip-hop dance competition.The Mukilteo-based hip hop crew – made up of seven

kids ages 14-17 – placed first in the U.S. Hip Hop Dance Championships and 10th in the World Hip Hop Dance Championships held Aug. 6-11 in Las Vegas.

The kids’ crew competed against the best 32 crews from across the country and the best 60 crews from around the world in their age division. RNG also won the U.S. competition in 2009.

Aneeka “Neeks” Acode, 15, Jennique “Nikki” Derous-seau, 16, Alexandria “Alex” Porter, 15, Erin Anderson, 15, Maya Sharpe, 17, Marina Morga, 15, and Paiton Hamilton, 14, danced a routine to Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal” at the Red Rock Resort in Las Vegas.

“It felt crazy,” Nikki said of their championship win. “I’ve never screamed so loud in my life. We all started

crying and screaming. It felt like all of the hard work was actually paying off.”

As a tribute to MJ, each of the dancers wore white suits and hats reminiscent of his iconic 1930s nightclub look in the 1987 music video. They also wore black masks to cover their faces, forcing the judges to focus on their choreography.

RNG performed their routine to a medley of “Smooth Criminal” remixes and the original recording. They mixed a variety of artistic styles, from classical to groovy to dub step, to showcase their artistry.

“It was extremely precise,” Nikki said. “Because Mi-chael Jackson is so clean and his dancers are so crisp that we had to look exactly the same.”

With their matching masks and white suits, not only did they all look alike, but no one in the audience knew they were girls. When they took off their masks, the audience exploded with applause.

They were shocked that the seven MJs they’d been watching on stage weren’t boys.

“I really loved the fact that you couldn’t tell we were girls,” Nikki said. “When we took our masks off, ev-eryone was freaking out that we were girls. Jaws were dropping. It was gender defying.”

RNG was in 17th place by the preliminaries of the World Hip Hop Dance Championships. They promised themselves they would improve in the next round, at least to 12th place. They did two better, jumping from 17th to 10th in the semi finals. Only the Top 7 moved on to the finals.

“We were really surprised we jumped seven places,” Aneeka said. “While we were waiting, it was really intense. Our hearts were pounding and we were filled with anxiety and excitement.”

The girls rehearsed for just three weeks before the competition at the Connection Performing Arts Center in Mukilteo. They were at the studio 4-5 days a week, up to four hours a day.

It was hard work made harder because they had to move around in hot suits and with no peripheral vision, due to their masks.

“We didn’t have that much time, but we work pretty

Hip hop crew places 1st in U.S., 10th in world

see hIP hoP page 3 u

by SARA bRUESTLEmukilteoeditor@yourbeacon.net

All-girl Rated Next Generation makes audiences’ jaws drop

12 - Mukilteo Beacon www.mukilteobeacon.com August 28, 2013

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work and do what you’re sup-posed to do.”

They take the training seri-ously because they know that any call they go on could rap-idly turn into what many said is a “worst-case scenario.”

“It’s not something you have to psyche yourself up for,” said Officer Michael Rexach, new to the department. “With the regular calls you go on every-day, we know that any minute something can turn really quick.

“Any time you get hit with an airsoft gun, OK, that could have been real that time.”

The training not only re-viewed police tactics, it also covered teamwork and com-munication. Officers had to

practice negotiating and deter-mining why a shooter was out to kill.

“I want officers to not rush in, and actually work as a team and come out safely,” Hamilton said. “I want to get them think-ing outside of the box and working out problems.”

Though they had pellet guns, Kang said the officers’ most valuable weapon was not a weapon at all: It was their words.

“If you don’t have to result to physical confrontation, that’s a win,” he said. “It’s not all about fight[ing] and cuffing; it’s com-munication. That’s our most important tool we have as law enforcement officers.”

To make the scenarios more realistic, a SNOCOM van was parked nearby. Dispatchers

set up inside to radio officers and relay each scenario as if it were an actual 911 call – after all, they need the practice, too.

The training was held in a vacant building with a “maze of rooms” at the business park. Officers were moved to different rooms for each scenario, so that they wouldn’t become too famil-iar with their surroundings.

“It kept the scenarios as real as possible, because a lot of times police don’t know the layout of the inside of a build-ing,” Hamilton said. “That way, this isn’t easy because they remember a room. They have to stop and think every time.”

Hamilton has been an active-shooter instructor since 2003.

After each scenario, he de-briefed officers. They explained why they took an action or held back, and where they could improve.

Hamilton said he was im-pressed with how well the officers, dispatchers and fire-fighters did. If they made mis-takes, they worked them out

and improved in the following scenarios.

“The squads did really well,” Hamilton said. “It’s a good thing to see them work with equipment and work through

a scenario and have the desired outcome.

“I feel that, as a department, we are more prepared to deal with a major event if or when it occurs.”

u from TRAINING page 1

Beacon photo by Sara BruestleOfficer Michael Rexach and Cpl. Jeremy Ballinger practice moving as a team and protecting themselves with a ballistic shield during an active shooter training on Aug. 15.

u from PLUMMER page 10

Sometimes, if we let others in, we find our brokenness is not exposed—but it is healed.

And maybe, those moments when we thought we were totally alone, maybe we will begin to see the shadow of a friend coming to sit with us in those dark mo-ments.

I’m not saying it’s easy, this be-ing vulnerable stuff. No, I think being vulnerable takes great courage. But it is beautiful be-yond our greatest imaginations.

Vulnerability has the power to liberate the loneliest soul and to bind up the broken hearted.

We often think that being vul-nerable means to lose ourselves; I think being vulnerable puts us on a path to help us find our true selves.