The action, drama, and even humor that an officer experiences during a shift can sometimes be difficult to imagine, let alone experience. This journal presents unique perspectives & chronicles events of a typical mid-western city's Police Department.

Friday, June 10, 2005

A Unique Perspective on Terror

I can't begin to understand what any of the students and teachers went through or how they felt during the ordeal at Columbine High School and other schools in our nation that have been the arenas of senseless death and injury over the last several years. I can, however, understand Law Enforcement's early response to the new form of terrorism they faced. And, I do not fault it. There had never been a policy in place to deal with that type of situation, and first responding officers and even SWAT teams fell back on their training and tried to adapt. Unfortunately, short indeed is the window of time when lives are being taken at that very moment beyond the immediate reach of potential rescuers. Time is of the essence to prevent further loss of life. Falling back on your training is still an option. It's just time for new training. These previously mentioned comments seem like common sense statements to officers now, and departments everywhere are enacting procedures to handle this dangerous situation. As we've all seen, it can happen in any community now and everyone must be prepared. The concept behind the training is to immediately engage the enemy and stop the threat. Again, not an alien concept. All that is needed is a re-evaluation of the oath officers swear. In some form or fashion, we all swore to protect lives. Examining the hierarchy of that protection is necessary. Innocent civilians rank number one and the police officer is a close second. The suspect ranks last-- as it should be. The problem in the thinking for many is, when it comes down to it, where the officer fits in. When faced with the barbaric mindset of these killers and what they put their victims through, it is easy to see they must be stopped by putting the officer in immediate harm's way at great personal risk. But, let's not give up sound tactics. We still plan on coming home after putting down the suspects. Hence, the Active Shooter Response Training. Our department has two training tools to help with this. They are both based on the previously mentioned theory that when you experience something and gain familiarity with a situation, it will be easier to work through it the next time. One involves a large interactive videoscreen displaying several scenarios. This is still in the experimental phase in our department. The most effective, and most intense, training we employ involves a simulated mass shooting in progress in a social setting-- ideally a school. Our department uses a semi-abandoned military facility to mimic a school environment. There are several large multi-floor buildings with long hallways and numerous classrooms and wide open stairwells. It's a cold winter morning when I arrive for orientation in a wing of one of the dilapidated structures that stands ready for renovation. The lack of activity in the halls, my unfamiliarity with the dank, dull surroundings and the nagging cold temperature, key me up for what is to come. We break into small squads of four with one instructor and practice various room entry techniques and hallway sweeps. Eventually, we suit up for the real-time training, involving Simunitions, as mentioned in the previous post. We are led to another area on the property-- one we haven't been practicing in. There are several instructors in the zone who will not be actors and we are not to shoot, wearing vests declaring "TRAINER." They will be with our group and within several of the rooms to observe our progress and comment on it later. The scenario is this-- available crews have been dispatched to the High School on reports of shots fired, several people down. Not a lot of information, but we're used to that on a daily basis. We are arriving on scene with a total of four officers. There's no time to wait for additional crews as the idea is to take immediate action with what you have at the moment. We are led to a set of hallway doors and told this is the school's main entrance where we have pulled up. When the instructor gives the go ahead, we proceed like it's the real thing. We are encouraged to behave as if on a real call, interact with people we observe, or simulate the use of our radios if need be, as if actually communicating with dispatch or other responding crews. Our send off is not what I expected as the instructor shouts, "What are you standing around for? There's some guy in there killing kids! Get moving!" We run through the doors, guns drawn. Suddenly, I'm assaulted by a loud barrage of industrial hard metal music and intense lyrics coming from a blaring radio somewhere in the hallway, in addition to a pre-recorded loop of sporadic automatic gunfire from another sound-system elsewhere. To get the most of this, I tell myself this is the real thing, even if it ends up scaring the daylights out of me. I feel a need to broaden my knowledge across the realm of human emotions and experiences, but deep down would still not wish the real encounter on anyone. There are real bodies on the floor in the middle of the long hallway. Others come running out of classrooms, screaming. Some fall down and don't get up. Some approach, bloodied, try to grab me, screaming for help. I can only tell them to run, get out of the building. We have only one objective here. Head to the sound of the gunfire. I simulate contacting the dispatcher to advise him of what we have in here, but the scene becomes too dynamic. I must concentrate on getting down the hallway without getting shot. More "students" come running past. One shouts, "He's in there! He's killing her!" He points back to a room off to my left over fifty feet away almost to the end of the hall. That's when I see him. He comes out of that very room, his arms leveled with a pistol pointed right at us. He's moving in our direction with a purpose that says to me he's not afraid to die and he wouldn't mind taking a few of us out with him. There's no place for immediate cover and retreat is not an option. If I lose sight of him, he may disappear into another room and continue shooting. My only thought is "Engage." My backdrop is clear-- no innocents behind him, but it's a heck of a shot with everything that's going on around me. I fire several shots down range as the suspect shoots at me simultaneously. I'm suddenly aware of a stinging sensation in the middle finger of my gun hand. Apparently a round from the suspect hits right above my knuckle at the base of my middle finger as my gun was raised eye-level outstretched in a firing stance. An inch or two either way and it would have sailed right by and struck me in the face. I face a small conflict that gets handled in microseconds. Assimilating myself into the training, I first behave as if my gun hand has been rendered inactive from a bullet wound and am about to adapt and go to my weak hand. However, in reality, the wax bullet didn't hurt that badly, and I fall back on the mantra of "Keep fighting, no matter what." If you behave as if you're hurt badly, your body will react appropriately. If you keep going, not giving up without a fight, you can survive a lot longer. I decide to keep firing with the same hand. The guy goes down from fifty-plus feet. I find out laterthe shot hit right under his gun arm in the chest. A "fatal shot," as for this drill, the suspect was not wearing body armor. I fall back on involving my radio and dispatch by advising we have one suspect down, but quickly abandon using the radio as we don't know if the situation is over. The pulsating hardcore music still drones on, and now there's screaming from the room the suspect had exited. The fellow officer with me at the front of our 4-man formation takes my cue to do a "button-hook" entry on the room. I'm in for another shock as I approach from the left side of the classroom door and "hook" around quickly to enter to the left side of the room. My partner had approached from the same direction, but angled in to the right to cover that side of the room. The entry door is off-center and near the left side of the class room-- not much area for me to cover, however there's a closet in the far corner on that side. In the doorway of the closet, there's another gunman standing over several hostages. He's the only bad guy in the room. He shoots one and exits the closet upon seeing our entry. This one has me a little shaken up as I fire three rounds at him from less than twenty feet. I'm able to run back out the door for cover and to evaluate. I'm surprised when my partner hasn't come out with me. We need to clear more rooms to look for more shooters. I peer around the doorway and see why. He's still engaged with the suspect. I approach the closet and order the two others out at gunpoint, ready for anything and anticipating one may be another shooter. They exit with hands up and have no weapons. I tell them to get out as my partner downs the other suspect. The music stops and the observing instructor ends the exercise. I try to fathom what happened those last few seconds in that room. Then, I see. My three "perfectly placed" shots show as flecks of blue on the far wall, at chest level, just two feet to the right of where the suspect had been when I fired. How could I have missed such a close shot? My sense of failure is overwhelming. That's not supposed to happen. We get the bad guys at that close range. I could have cost my partner his life for not finishing the job. I should have emptied my magazine into that dirtbag until I saw him hit the floor. I was too quick to assume just by firing, that I got him. I'm brought up a few notches and my level of confidence is restored as the instructor who played the shooter in the hall came up to me during debriefing and congratulated me on my long range shot. He shows me the "hit" after a pat on the back. It's going to take me a while to get rid of all this adrenaline and bring myself out of the simulation and back to reality. What an eye-opener!

I would never want a school shooting to feel routine, however, the training had its desired effect and made me realize we need to know what we're going to do before we do it. And, if we can deal with the oncoming emotions because we've done so before, then we'll perform that much better. I also learned that nothing ever works like clockwork and mistakes can happen. It hasn't been my intention over the last two entries to glorify anything or to bring worry to anyone, but to explore the realities Law Enforcement officers encounter and to deal with the emotions of those experiences by writing about them-- the humor as well as the terror.

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