Silver Supporter
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I would love to see SROs and volunteer teachers trained and armed. Training would consist of one-on-ones or team-on-team in a campus situation with paintball guns. That's as real as you can get without real firearms and live ammo."This is what we train for, this is what we prepare for, and this is what we pray that we never have to do. On this day, we realized our worst nightmare," Cameron said.
"The notion of 'it can't happen here' is no longer a notion."
"Beltrame's entire career seemed to lead inexorably to the moment when he responded to the attack Friday in Trebes, a 15-minute drive from the gendarme unit he had led since last August.
He joined France's elite police special forces in 2003 and served in Iraq in 2005. A former member of the presidential guard, he earned one of France's highest honors, the Order of Merit, in 2012.
In December, Beltrame organized a counterterrorism training session for just such a hostage situation — down to the location in a supermarket. At the time, he armed his officers with paintball guns, according to the Depeche du Midi newspaper.
"We want to be as close to real conditions as possible," he said then."
'He fell a hero:" French praise policeman in hostage swap