Local Police Receive Active Shooter Training
WINONA LAKE — The growing frequency of active shooter scenarios has law enforcement across the country being proactive in order to counter such situations in the name of public safety. Local police are no exception.
“The idea is to try to stop the killing and save the wounded as quickly as possible,” said former FBI agent Gary Galdes. “Unfortunately, active shooter situations aren’t going away.”
Galdes is an instructor with a program called ALERRT, or Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Tactics. Galdes and a team of current bureau agents were on hand Thursday and Friday, July 19-20, to pass on the latest strategies for combatting active shooters to local law enforcement professionals.
Taking part in the training were officers from the Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Department, Warsaw Police Department, Winona Lake Police Department, Syracuse Police Department, Milford Police Department, Pierceton Police Department and Bremen Police Department.
The training was coordinated by the Winona Lake Police Department and was held at the Beta Residence Hall of Grace College.
“All of the agencies participating believe it’s imperative that we work together effectively and efficiently if an active shooter event should occur,” said Winona Lake Police Chief Joe Hawn in a Grace College Press Release. “I’m confident that we will all be better equipped after this training,” he said.
According to Galdes, each tragic shooting has the potential to throw a new scenario at law enforcement, making constant evolution a must. In addition, officers from a variety of separate departments would likely converge on such a scene at the same time. ALERRT training gives all police a common language so that when they arrive, they can meld together as if they’ve worked such operations together before.
“Tactics change over time,” said Galdes. “They can all work together because if an incident happens, they’re all going to respond to it. And, being able to do that and have common base language of these tactics and how to work with each other, even though they’re not in the same departments, is essential because now they know how to handle these situations because they’ve had all the training.”
Galdes estimates that there are approximately 300,000 law enforcement officers in the U.S. He said about one third of those officers have already been ALERRT trained.
While the training helps to keep those responding officers as prepared as possible, the one variable that continues to stump everyone in regards to the increase in public violence is the “why.”
“It’s very unfortunate,” said Galdes in reference to the frequency of active shooter incident. “I wish I could say differently, that part of society would change to where we see a decrease in it. But, the statistics are showing just the opposite. Over the last four years, we’ve seen over a 115 percent increase. There’s a myriad of reason why these things happen, it’s not just single-faceted.”
On Friday, July 20, the officers involved in the training not only learned proper strategies for clearing a building, room by room and what to do if they encountered surprises such as explosives; they also learned how to approach a building that houses an active shooter.
“You just can’t pull up to the front,” said Galdes.