The Guymon Public Schools bus sat silently — surrounded by nothing but hard-scrabble earth and the sound of the wind — decorated with pink bunnies, a fading memory of Easter. Suddenly, Guymon Police Captain Michael Babb lurched onto the front bumper of the "yellow dog" and onto the hood — weapon drawn — pointing through the windshield. Flanked by members of the Panhandle Special Response Team, other Texas County Sheriff's Deputies and members of the Guymon PD, Babb jumped to the ground, put his weapon down and repeated the procedure.
So went tactical response training this week on the Guymon shooting range at the city's wildlife reserve.

"We had the training all week," Guymon Police Chief Eddie Adamson said Friday afternoon. "We're working with agencies around the Panhandle region to get them geared up and ready for any situation."

With the recent shootings at a Nebraska shopping mall and the anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting still fresh, the training is local agencies' way to be proactive in the event such an event takes place here. "The bottom line is we hope we never need to use (the training)," Texas County Sheriff Arnold Peoples said. "(But) it's proactive."

Using Chief Adamson's vehicle as a prop, officers took up position and fired live rounds into the targets and hillside at the firing range.

"That's rubbish!" yelled Paul Castle, as the officers regrouped to make another run at the hillside. Castle is a former training officer and detective originally from Great Britain who travels the country teaching law enforcement agencies Sabre Tactical Training — tactics law enforcement agencies can use when dealing with an "active shooter," or when dealing with other high risk situations.

The training was paid for by the Texas County Sheriff's Department using drug forfeiture money, Peoples said.

And Castle is coming back to the second week of November."We're getting our officers the best training in the country," said Adamson, who worked with Castle while in Arkansas. "Paul is world-renowned. He has taught the FBI, federal and state agencies, and for him to come to Guymon is a very good thing."