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NEW JERSEY COPS n MAY 2014
‘Active-Shooter’ training getting more active
The term “Active Shooter” is relatively new to law
enforcement, but by now we all know what it is and
when it happens anywhere in the country there is
24-hour coverage on FOX NEWS, CNN and a host
of other cable television channels. I would point to
the shooting at Columbine High School in 1999 as
the starting point that defined how law enforcement would respond in an Active-Shooter situation.
When the officers responding to the Columbine
Training
Shooting did what they were trained to do - they
Adviser
called for the SWAT Team - the officers and the
police department was severely criticized.
“How could you set up a perimeter when kids are dying?” became
the underlying question.
Following Columbine a tremendous amount of resources went
into training front-line officers to deal with Active-Shooter scenarios. Some of the training has led to great gains for the front-line officers. Equipment like carbines, long guns, helmets, shields and
command-post vehicles did not exist for the front-line officer before
Columbine. And more training opportunities became available in
the form of tactical courses and incident command courses following the Columbine Shooting.
The “Diamond Formation” became the most common response
for entering into an Active-Shooter situation. This formation offers
360 degrees of coverage for officers to move through a building or
structure, and, provided that if each officer handles his or her area
of responsibility, threats can be addressed from every area. There are
other formations such as a “T-Formation” and a “Stack Formation”
but the Diamond Formation has become synonymous with ActiveShooter response.
Bill Fearon
With Active-Shooter response, seconds count as we saw with the
shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012. The police responded very quickly and
made entrance into the school shortly after the call, but there were
still 26 victims.
With training, Active-Shooter response tactics are looking to
change in order to save those valuable seconds that can save lives.
The “new techniques” require only two officers instead of four, and
the pace at which the officers are making entry into a facility is much
faster. Basically, officers are to move in as fast as they can. They must
also communicate much more with each other.
Officers are being asked to perform tactical maneuvers that were
once only used by SWAT teams and high-level military units. These
new techniques use terms like “over watch,” “leap frogging” and
“bounding.” The new techniques have acronyms, just like everything else in the police environment. One technique is called LASER
(Law Enforcement Active Shooter Emergency Response) and another technique is called IARD, (Immediate Action Rapid Deployment).
These new techniques do answer questions about manpower for
a lot of police departments. Now, there is no need to wait for the
four-man team to arrive. However, these new techniques will
require law enforcement officers to be trained at an even higher level
than they are right now, but it will eventually become just like any
other call that we get: Mindset is key. d
Bill Fearon is a training supervisor for the New Jersey State Police,
a firearms instructor at the Woodland Park Shooting Range and the
founder and owner of the training company, No Games Gear. For
more information, log on to www.nogamesgear.com.