GORHAM – With school opening just days away, Gorham Police Department and school officials teamed up Tuesday to train for the unthinkable.

Police and medical personnel from several communities responded to the mock active-shooter exercise at Gorham’s Great Falls Elementary School. Police and school administrators carried out their crisis response plans.

“This is the type of incident you hope never happens,” Lt. Christopher Sanborn of Gorham Police Department said.

The training on Tuesday simulated a real-life situation – cops with rifles running outside the school and patrolling corridors inside with caution. Fake blood spattered on students volunteering as victims and blood pooled on the floor of a school corridor. “Victims” screamed for help.

Sanborn said Gorham police and schools train in tandem.

“We’re proactive to prevent this type of thing from happening,” Sanborn said.

Tuesday’s exercise involved several local agencies and administrators at the school. Gorham Sgt. Mike Nault said the school’s core administrators were on hand. Great Falls Principal Jane Esty said she had nine of her staff volunteering for involvement in Tuesday’s exercise.

“Gorham is way ahead of the curve regarding planning,” Detective Brian Ackerman of the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office said.

Before the training exercise began, fire police and Cumberland County deputies secured the road to the school with two checkpoints. Security was evident everywhere and tactics were guarded.

Ackerman spoke to students playing roles as victims, members of Volunteers in Police Service, and principals from other Gorham schools who observed the training.

“We’re doing a sweep of the building” to make sure no unauthorized people are in it, Ackerman said.

Gorham police and Esty’s staff were not privy to details of the scenario in advance and their responses were spontaneous. In the exercise, a disgruntled shooter opened fire, leaving bleeding victims on a hall floor, and then took an unsuspecting Rebecca Fortier, assistant principal at Great Falls Elementary School, hostage from the main office.

At 9 a.m. in the school, an alarm rang and a voice on the school’s public address system said, “This is a lockdown. This is not a drill. Please gather all students from hallways, bathrooms and common areas and lockdown.”

Armed officers worked their way into building and through the hallways. The challenge of the first officers to respond was to locate the shooter.

“The goal is to stop the threat,” Ackerman said.

Tuesday’s exercise also involved medical responders and ambulances to attend to victims, who were removed from the building under police guard. In a real event, parents of students would have been notified by a telephone emergency notification system.

No one would have been allowed to enter school grounds. Evacuated students would have been bused to an off-site location, where they would be reunited with parents.

Gorham Middle School Principal Robert Riley, Narragansett School Principal Polly Brann and Village School Principal Brian Porter witnessed Tuesday’s exercise at Great Falls School.

Esty said her staff runs drills during the school year with students present. Gorham police and schools continually train and update plans.

“Every drill, we debrief with police,” Brann said.

Riley recalled an incident at his school when a lockdown was scheduled but an alarm rang out hours earlier warning that an intruder was in the building. The alarm drew police, but, Riley said it was a malfunction.

“For me, my heart rate jumped,” Riley said.

The shooting incidents at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999 and Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012 have police and educators continually sharpening their response skills and updating emergency management plans.

“Columbine changed everything,” Sanborn said.

Police once would have called a SWAT team and waited for its arrival, but tactics today have changed. “It’s critical that law enforcement respond as soon as possible,” Sanborn said.

Terry Christy of Standish, 75, participated in Gorham’s exercise as a member of the county’s Volunteers in Police Service. Christy was a teacher and principal in South Portland and Windham for 39 years. He recalled dealing with Vietnam War protests like threats to rip down the school flag.

But Christy never had to face the crisis training required of today’s educators.

“We’re living in different times,” he said.

Gorham Officer Ted Hatch in a crisis training exercise advances down a corridor at Great Falls Elementary School.In a crisis training drill on Tuesday at Great Falls Elementary School in Gorham, a police officer armed with a rifle stands guard while a volunteer playing an injured victim role is evacuated.