The head-to-toe business of active shooter prep
New tech and established programs contribute to a holistic approach for training
As it turns out, lightening can strike the same place twice. Or in this case, substitute “active shooter” for “lightening” and you have Fort Hood, Texas. On Wednesday, April 2nd—for the second time in Fort Hood history—the nation’s largest military base was the site of a mass murder. Just five years earlier, on November, 2009, a gunman opened fire, killing 13. This time around Sgt. Ivan Lopez, an Iraq war vet, was apprehended for killing 3 soldiers and wounding 16 more.
These scenarios always comes as a shock. But as time goes on, similarities and patterns can be drawn from the chain of events. Plenty of first responders now take notice of these patterns and implement them into well-organized, highly effective training scenarios. As time goes on, this specialized training becomes a bigger, bolder machine involving a greater periphery of public safety.
Spontaneous killings, methodical response
Not one week before Lopez opened fire at Fort Hood, members from the 720th Military Police Battalion, “Soldiers of the Gauntlet,” 89th Military Police Brigade, and local civilian law enforcement agencies, conducted joint law enforcement training in Killeen, Texas to help develop active shooter response techniques. Members of the DOJ-sponsored Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training (ALERRT) program held court at Texas State University to teach responders how to isolate, distract and neutralize a shooter of this sort. Attendees also brushed up on their weapons manipulation, threshold evaluation, team movement and force-on-force scenarios. The Texas-based program has doggedly made its way around the country since 2002 and to date has trained more than 40,0000 officers in 37 states. As the program develops, demand for the training outweighs supply.
“It is my vision as the (720th) battalion commander and the installation provost marshal that soldiers who work every day with our community are trained and are going to react the same way that a local police officer is going to react,” Lt. Col. David Stender said on the US Army’s website. “We’re doing joint training so we can professionalize our MP training.”
Unification
Increasingly, active shooter trainers in law enforcement emphasize single and double-officer response (rapid deployment) as opposed to traditional deployment of setting up a perimeter and waiting for backup. Michael Snyder, a retired Illinois State Police officer, agrees: “It’s not going to be a SWAT person that stops the threat; it’s going to be long-over before SWAT gets there.” In reality, the first to arrive on-scene is going to be the first in the hot seat. This is the mindset behind ALERRT, we well as various other training methods and tools emerging on the market.
Back in 2007 South Bend (Indiana) Police Department sent five officers to Texas for ALERRT training. Since then the agency has adopted ALERRT methodologies and trains its own. They also have a regional academy to educate other agencies. South Bend Detective David Smith has helped his PD usher in comprehensive active shooter training since 2000. “Tactics haven’t changed; it’s just the incidents are becoming more frequent to where we want to make sure everybody is familiar with the system and can work in conjunction with anybody,” says Smith. Though not a huge metropolitan area, there are dozens of other agencies within the South Bend region that commonly train together.
“We started out with just a few pieces of equipment,” says Smith, “but resources have grown exponentially since 2007. It was easy to justify why we needed that equipment.”
To date, ALERRT has received $25,316,176 in state and federal funding, not including private and state-based funding. That’s a lot of time and money dedicated to training for an event that historically resolves in ten minutes or less. Training equipment options are diversifying, as well. South Bend is certainly not alone in building up its cache of instructive resources. A number of departments are researching technology ranging from simunitions to computer software to “smart” body armor.
Mind games
One new option centers on getting officers to think hard about a situation before picking up a weapon, before the adrenaline kicks in. West Point graduate and developer of Active Continuous Training (ACT) Tim Conners began working with police agencies after 9/11 when he was part of the think tank tasked with analyzing how police agencies were adapting to the 9/11 attacks. He worked exclusively with NYPD for a while, before moving on to LA and overseas. From there Connors began developing educational programs. At one point he got in with a company doing cultural awareness and training for troops going to Iraq and Afghanistan.
“I thought gee, they out to get into the police market. Because…talking with a lot of police in the field and chiefs, they all seemed to mention they needed a better tool, especially for young officers, which was engaging and computer-based. The people who were coming up weren’t learning the same way officers had in the past.” As a trainer, Conners saw a need for dramatic, efficient, computer-based practice that centered on decision-making.
The problem, of course, came down to money. But the seed had already been planted. Imagine a television episode that’s professionally written—dramatic and interesting—and fuse it with an interactive video game. The ACT program focuses on one thing: critical decision-making. In a way the related series of scenarios resemble a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ book, except you may be the only responder on-scene in the halls of an elementary school, searching out the shooter.
“It’s backed up with research,” says Conners. Users can view vetted source material relating to any decision he or she makes.
“At the end of it, we’re hoping you will have thought very deeply about this one, seemingly minor thing. It’s a big decision to make, but in the course of the situation it’s going to take only a split second. Every action is subjective, but that's just the point.
“We want to shy away from saying ‘right answer’ ‘wrong answer;’ really the only thing we’re after is to make you think about being in the moment, what choice you’re going to make, and how you’re going to make it…based on what and being able to talk to other officers.”
The full-body approach
Another way to work with interactive video is to put oneself—physically—in the middle of the scene. If you can't get to a staged active shooter course, or want to do something in between events, live-fire simulation programs offer another way to train. The company Milo Range recently introduced a 300-degree, 50-screen version of its simulation program. All screens display professionally written and acted live, interactive video. Officers are literally enveloped within the action.
Michael Steinbeck, Milo Range’s marketing manager, says “You can see what’s going on to your right and to your left, and look down hallways.” The company’ laser and live-fire versions allow officers to use their own weapons and shoot live rounds at a screen in the range. Trainers can choose from about 650 to 700 off-the-shelf scenarios, or even make their own. And the quality is about to get even sharper as the company makes the transition to shooting video in high-quality 4k.
To create a scene producers shoot true-to-life “worst-case-scenarios” and all the twists and turns they could possibly take over the course of a few seconds or minutes. “You’re going into a school shooting and there are teachers being held hostage, or kids held hostage…you can go one way or another, take certain paths. It forces officers to make a decision,” says Steinbeck. It’s his job to ensure scenes are as realistic as possible. “If anything takes you out of it you kind of lose the training value,” he says.
As technology improves, companies in this business strive to provide a real experience that engages the mind and the body. The International Training Conference and Expo (ILEETA) in March in Lombard, Illinois offered plenty of products meant to supplement active shooter training, including simulators, training weapons and software. Exhibitors IR Laser explained how its new Stress Vest aims to fire up synapses connecting the mind and body. The black, lightweight vest fits over one layer of clothing and administers five levels of pain--1 is a mere annoyance while 5 is more of a hard shock. The idea is to exercises muscle memory. Also, a lack of helmets helps officers to detect important emotional facial clues.
Trainers can control up to 12 vests (or stress belts) with a tablet during the course of training. They can also monitor heart rate or play back a drill, as vests are outfitted with cameras.
Over as quickly as it began
Forming Illinois State Police officer Michael Snyder, now president of the Hero911 app, remembers his own involvement during the Illinois State Capital shooting in the fall of 2005.
“It was mass confusion,” says Snyder. “No, we didn’t know what was happening and…not to criticize…all major critical incidents appear that way. The information constantly changes; communication tools, radio frequencies…a lot of this has gotten better over tie, many communication tools are better but they are still not where we need to be, by any means.” Snyder recalls during the state capital incident the information changed constantly, and there were so many witnesses and so many people involved, information often conflicted. “One person would say yeah, it was a guy in a blue coat and he’s still in the building. Another person would say no, it was a guy in a red shirt and he’s already left.”
The experience drove some of the passion behind a new app project that hopes to alert on- and off-duty officers within a 10-mile range of an active shooter. The new app alerts on- and off-duty officers to opt-in for alerts of active shooters within a 10-mile radius.
As active shooter training as a whole continues to work its way into the routine fabric of police operations, Snyder feels it should be mandatory, and maybe it will be soon. “I don’t know too many places around here that it’s not mandatory per the state,” he says. State academies are teaching a lot of AS training, and departments either send offers to train or host training themselves.
Now that most levels of law enforcement are on the same page strategically, and training is considered de rigueur in structures and circles, what’s next in terms of methods? No doubt agencies will continue to see value in tools and scenarios that strive to manufacture something akin to the ‘real thing’, until somehow the ‘real thing’ can be described as a thing of the past.
