Cassie Walton: Oklahoma mom teaches son, 5, school shooting survival strategies as schools reopen
MCALESTER, OKLAHOMA: One mother is using the skills she learned in high school to prepare her 5-year-old son for a school shooting as schools throughout Oklahoma reopen. Cassie Walton, a mother of two from McAlester, told ABC News, "In the back of your mind, you just are always worried about it. And it's never off the table. It's always possible no matter where you live or what kind of school you go to, you just really never know."
Along with the typical school supplies, Walton also purchased a bulletproof jacket cover for her son’s Spider-Man backpack. Walton put her 5-year-old son through an unplanned active-shooter drill at home to get him ready for kindergarten. The 22-year-old mother expressed her hope that the instruction could better prepare him for what he might encounter in school. Walton said, "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. 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."
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Walton told ABC News that she participated in safety exercises in schools as a child and taught her son what she had learned during active-shooter drills at her high school. "We would have threats all the time, and you'd never know which ones are serious and which ones are not serious. So you have to be prepared, no matter what, to go from zero to 100 in the blink of an eye,” she remarked.
@thewaltonfamily1 Happy back to school season…. #foryoupage #backtoschool #foryou #needschange #PostitAffirmations #momiktok ♬ L$d - Luclover
Walton posted a video of herself guiding her kid through the practice on TikTok, in which he can be seen hiding in a corner while wearing the Spider-Man costume. She is also heard posing several queries regarding what to do in various circumstances during a possible school shooting. The TikTok video has received more than 1.3 million likes so far. Thousands of comments on Walton's post on TikTok expressed concern about their children, many of which came from other parents. Some of them also mentioned that they had also discussed possible school shooting survival strategies with their children at home.
One such user remarked in the comment section, "I can't help watching this without crying. I talk to my kids about this every year but I still get emotional.” Meanwhile, Walton 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. There are more and more and more shootings every single year, and it's better to be prepared than to be sorry."