It used to be that when emergency crews raced to the scene of a school or workplace shooting, police would get there first, but then they’d wait for a SWAT team to arrive. With so many high-profile tragedies in recent years, they’re now using new tactics to stop tragedies faster.
“These incidents are usually over very quickly,” Lead Instructor with the National Tactical Officers Association Anthony McVeigh says. “You can’t put a stop to it if you wait. Now first responders have the training to go in themselves.”
McVeigh used the recent example of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, where most of the killings happened in just a few minutes time.
“You’re up against the clock,” McVeigh says. “You have to try to cut down on response time. The police did a great job at Sandy Hook, it was just unfortunate how fast it all went.”
Dozens of law enforcement officers from all over central Pennsylvania gaathered in the Centre Region Wednesday. They’re learning to be instructors, so they can teach other law enforcement officers how to deal with “active shooters.”
Active shooters are defined as anyone attempting to kill others in a confined space such as in school shootings and work place shootings.
Instructors with the NTOA lead the training program held at Centre County Public Safety Training Center in Pleasant Gap. The intensive three-day course includes both classroom and field training. The class teaches also the history of active shooters throughout the world in an attempt to tailor their counter-tactics to suit the times.
NTOA was started in 1983 by then Los Angeles County County Sheriff’s Lieutenant John Kolman. It was one of the first of its kind to train officers all across the country on SWAT tactics, and has since moved on to hostage negotiation training and the training of regular patrol officers.
Some of the scenarios run by McVeigh and the other instructors include what to do when officers are under fire; when a shooter is trying to harm students; and how to handle situations involving explosives.
The funding for the program comes from the South Central Mountain Regional Task Force, partly through the efforts of State College Police Lt. Chris Fishel. Funding was secured for eight counties to train officers.
Fishel says that officers from Altoona Police, Logan Township Police, Mifflin County Regional Police, Lewistown Police, Granville Township Police, all the local police departments in Centre County as well as officers from the sheriffs offices of Blair County, Centre County and Fulton County are participating in the program.
One of the officers from Altoona, Sgt. Michael Sapienza, says active shooters are more talked about now than they were years ago. He says this is an opportunity for all the trainers to get to know each other so they can be as proficient as possible in the event of a shooting.
“This is an opportunity for us to all be on the same sheet of music,” Sapienza says. “When these things happen we’re usually calling in other jurisdictions to help.”
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