In A Sign Of The Times, Mom Walks Son, 5, Through Shooter Drill: Video

McALESTER, OK — Her 5-year-old son Weston’s question after the Uvalde, Texas, school massacre that left 19 children and two teachers dead was a jolting reminder to Cassie Walton of the anxiety of millions of schoolchildren nationwide.

Weston asked if the same thing could happen at his school.

The 23-year-old mother of two from McAlester, Oklahoma, knew that it could, telling NBC’s “Today” show that she’s scared “something will happen to him in a place where he is supposed to be the most safe.”

As a mom, her job was to calm her son’s fears but also prepare him for the worst. She had included a $140 bulletproof insert for her son’s Spider-Man backpack on her back-to-school shopping list, but knew she had to instill some Spidey sense in her son, too.

In other words, as surely as kids learn their ABCs through rote practice, Weston needed to know how the backpack could protect him if someone got into his classroom and started shooting. Her TikTok video of an active-shooter training drill has entered the viral stratosphere, with coverage by national news networks and millions of social media shares.

“In the back of your mind, you just are always worried about it. And it's never off the table,” Walton told ABC News. “It's always possible no matter where you live, or what kind of school you go to, you just really never know.”

While filming the video, “I was pushing back all of the tears, trying to get all of that out,” Walton told CBS News. “He’s very smart, and he took in all of the information very well, and he wasn’t scared of the drill. He knew it was a serious situation.

“But, you know, as a 5-year-old, he was concerned about the bad guys, and him being 5, he was just like, 'I'll just karate chop him if I need to.' And I was like, ‘No, not quite, it's a little more serious than that.’ Then, after that, he was able to take it a little more serious.”

In the video, Walton walked her son through an active-shooter drill, reinforcing what he needs to know and correcting misconceptions.

“I think that it’s important for him to at least know a few ideas of what he should be doing rather than just going in blindly and not knowing anything,” Walton told ABC. “He has been doing a very good job of remembering what to do and how to do it, and of course I told him that when it's in the moment it may not be exactly the same, that he may have to do something different.”

• Related: The Debate Over Clear Backpacks: Do They Really Stop School Shootings?

In the video, Walton asked her son what he would do “if a teacher calls over the intercom and says, ‘This is not a drill.’ ”

Carrying his backpack, he walked to the corner and crouched, telling his mom, “Get in the corner and be really quiet and still.”

“Show me how you use your bulletproof backpack,” his mom commanded.

He shielded himself with it, earning a “good job” from his mom.

What would he do if a teacher said he didn’t need the backpack?

“I say, ‘No, I need it; it’s bulletproof.’ ”

Walton asked her son what he would do if police said they were outside the door. “I say, ‘I’m here.’ ”

“Absolutely not,” Walton corrected her son. "You don’t say a word. If the shooter is in there, you don’t say a word. You stay absolutely silent.”

If he were able to escape, what would he do?

Weston replied he would run outside.

“Where outside?” Walton persisted.

“Home.”

“You run as far away from the school as you can go,” she said emphatically. “Mom will find you.”

‘In The Blink Of An Eye’

In the 2021-22 school year, 42 people were killed, and 53 others were injured in 51 school shootings, according to a database kept by EducationWeek, a news site covering school news and related topics. It describes a school shooting as one in which a firearm was discharged, wounding at least one person (other than the perpetrator) on school grounds, on a school bus or at a school-sponsored event.

By that measure, there were 10 school shootings in 2020, when schools were largely on lockdown, and 24 each in 2019 and 2018. Since 2018, there have been 119 school shootings, EducationWeek said.

• Related: Girl Smeared Blood On Herself, Played Dead In Uvalde School Shooting

Mass school shootings — those defined as resulting in the death of four or more people, not including the perpetrator — are less common, but a frightening reality in the years since the 1999 Columbine school shooting, where 12 people were killed.

There have been 14 such events since then, killing 169 people at U.S. schools and colleges, according to a tally by The Associated Press, USA Today and Northeastern University.

Walton told ABC she grew up in the shadow of the Columbine massacre, and she wanted to explain to her son in terms he could understand that active-shooter drills are a way of life.

“We would have threats all the time, and you'd never know which ones are serious and which ones are not serious,” Walton told ABC of her high school experience. “So you have to be prepared, no matter what, to go from zero to 100 in the blink of an eye.”

'Have This Important Talk'

Walton told “Today” she hopes the video will spur other parents “to break the ice and have this important talk.”

Kids are thinking about it.

“He could see what was going on in Texas and, as kids do, he had questions, so I answered his questions (as best as) I could,” she said.

“I just wanted to show that even though it is sad, it's starting to be our reality with the way things are going,” Walton told ABC. “There's more and more and more shootings every single year, and it's better to be prepared than to be sorry.”

Educators and school resource officers are worried about what the new school year will look like.

“I’m an optimist, so it’s hard for me to say what I’m about to say, but I think it could look worse when school starts back up,” National Association of School Resource Officers executive director Mo Canady told Patch earlier this summer.

“Just from talking with the psychologist friends I deal with, it is going to take years to undo the damage the pandemic has caused. The psychological and mental aspects of it will go many years past the physical health issues,” he said. “I dare anyone to tell me their mental health has not been affected over the past two and one-half years. I know mine has.”

Watch the video.

Gun Violence In America

The common denominator in gun violence is that it happens in towns and neighborhoods across the country to people we know. It touches our communities in multiple ways, from children who pick up their parents’ handguns and accidentally shoot themselves to adolescents who end their lives with handguns to mass shootings. In this reporting project, Patch explores those and other ways gun violence impacts our lives, and what is being done to make our communities safer.

Do you have a story idea for this series? Email beth.dalbey@patch.com.