CLINTON - Law enforcement agencies from across East Feliciana Parish gathered at the Silliman Institute to train for active shooter situations on Thursday.

"Our children are our greatest asset, we want our deputies to be prepared for that time so they can protect our children," Sheriff Jeff Travis with the East Feliciana Sheriff's Office said.

The exercise included officers from the East Feliciana Parish Sheriff's Office, Dixon Correctional Institute, Lane Memorial Regional Medical Center Hospital Security and five local police departments.

"We move this training from school to school so that our local officers who are going through can get familiar with the layouts of the schools and things like that," Travis said.

Participants were given fake firearms and sent outside to respond to a shooting scenario where they had to find the perpetrator and stop the threat without injuring bystanders.

"There's a little classroom and there's a lot of going through the drills and understanding and being critiqued, how you did and this is how you can be better at it," Travis said.

Agencies say these exercises identify both strengths and weaknesses before an event like this could happen.

The training also covers situations beyond school shootings, such as the Mardi Gras shooting in Clinton earlier this year.

"A lot of our deputies that have been through this training understood exactly how to respond, they got in the fight, they stayed in the fight and they didn't shoot the wrong people," Travis said.

The training will run through the end of the week, and the sheriff expects to hold more similar exercises in the years ahead.