Christians Depicted as Terrorists
In School Hostage Taking Drill

Commentary by Jim Day

On March 22, 2007 the School District for Burlington Township High School in New Jersey conducted a mock hostage taking exercise designed to test the schools’ and various emergency group responses to such events. School districts across the United States, unfortunately, have to prepare for tragedies. For the past decade, we’ve seen horrible incidents of school violence through hostage-taking in Colorado, Kentucky and Pennsylvania. No one disputes the need for proper preparation for school officials and emergency responders. However, this particular school district decided that in their mock hostage taking scenario the group that engaged in the terrorist activity were right-wing religious fundamentalists who didn’t believe in the separation of church and state.

The mock attack was carried out by police detectives of the Burlington Township Police Department portraying two angry Christian men armed with handguns who entered the school's front door with force. They pretended to gun down students in the hallways, then took 10 students hostage and finally barricaded themselves in the school's media center.
The mock gunmen were described as “members of a right-wing fundamentalist group called the ‘New Crusaders’ who don't believe in separation of church and state.”  According to the scenario, the mock-Christian terrorists “went to the school seeking justice because the daughter of one had been expelled for praying before class.”

To make the drill more realistic, about 10 students volunteered to act as hostages or wounded victims. Several faculty members helped simulate a complete school lockdown, followed by an evacuation. At the start of the drill, an announcement over the loudspeaker system informed faculty, staff and students that a “Code 3 lockdown” was in effect, thus requiring students to remain in classrooms, away from all windows and doors.

A School Resource Officer appeared next, maneuvering through a hallway, toward the media center, where he located the gunmen and radioed his location to police officers. A short time later, a team of five police officers entered the school and moved up the hallway toward the media center with their firearms drawn. They took up positions around the media center doors to contain the gunmen so the school could be safely evacuated. Members of the Burlington County Joint Tactical Team (a SWAT team), then arrived to evacuate wounded students and perform emergency first aid.

Observing and evaluating during the exercise were various police officials, school administrators and officials from the state and the county Office of Emergency Management.

Before the exercise, School District Superintendent Chris Manno said that they needed “to practice under conditions as real as possible…in order to evaluate our procedures and plans so that they're as effective as possible.” But Bob Pawson, a Trenton public school teacher, asked, “So what allegedly real condition was imagineered?…A grotesque scenario saturated with Christian-bashing prejudice and bigotry; a scenario which could never possibly occur.”

The Burlington County Times reported, “The purpose of the drill was to test the reactions of police, faculty and administration.” But Pawson responded, “This denigrating drill was also a test of the reactions and responses of New Jersey's Christians, along with all other fair-minded citizens of any faith, to such a blatant example of anti-Christian animosity...A public apology is in order.  The citizens of Burlington County could rightly demand the resignation or termination of school officials who dreamed up and approved this reprehensible scenario.”

Many Christian students, parents and members of the community were outraged by the school’s mockery of their religious beliefs. This kind of anti-Christian bigotry by school officials is despicable and certainly not related to the legitimate purposes of a hostage drill. In fact, the Constitution forbids public school officials from demonstrating this kind of open hostility towards religious beliefs with which they disagree. The whole predicate of the exercise was outrageous. The perpetrators of the hostage-taking were allegedly motivated because their daughter had been expelled for praying before the beginning of the school day. Not only do students have the right to pray before the school day, but Burlington Township officials acknowledge that they have that right. So this entire scenario was unrealistic, unnecessary and offensive to begin with.

How the school superintendent could say with a straight face that they needed to “practice under conditions as real as possible…” while at the same time using this unbelievable fictional scenario defies common sense. Can you imagine the outrage had this scenario featured Muslim, African American or Hispanics extremists as the terrorists? No religious or ethnic group in America would tolerate this kind of insult and the national news media would not let up until those responsible lost their jobs. Hardly a peep has been heard out of the mainstream media in the defense of those who found this “exercise” offensive.

I’m all for protecting students in public schools but not by offending people of sincere faith in the process. The Supreme Court has said that showing hostility towards religion is a violation of the Establishment Clause. Those involved in creating, approving and going along with this anti-Christian “exercise” were successful in offending all of us who take our faith seriously.

As far as I’m concerned, some lame half apology doesn’t cut it. Those responsible violated the Constitution, insulted Christians, mocked Christianity and did so knowing full well what they were doing. In my opinion they all need to be fired.