Photo By Staff Sgt. Angela Parady | The Augusta Police Department Special Response Team takes a role player into custody...... read more read more
AUGUSTA, Maine - “If we have our heads in the sand, telling ourselves it will never happen here, then we aren’t prepared,” said the police officer. “If we prepare ourselves by thinking it will happen, if it does happen, we are ready and trained for the situation.”
The Maine National Guard in conjunction with the Maine State Police tactical bomb squad, Augusta Fire Department and Augusta Police Department spent March 12 at Camp Keyes in Augusta conducting a simulated active shooter scenario.
The day kicked off with a disturbing Facebook message tracked by the personnel office. When the role player, a disgruntled soldier, was discovered heading to the installation, the Augusta Police Department were notified of the situation.
Sgt. 1st Class John Knoblach, the security manager for Camp Keyes, helped plan the exercise.
“The Augusta Police would always respond first,” said Knoblach. “We encourage everyone to call 911 first. These are trained emergency responders who know the area, they are out in the community, with their gear staged. They are the most properly prepared to handle this situation.”
As part of the scenario two assailants forced their way through the main entrance of Camp Keyes, killing several and causing injury to many others. The Augusta Police Departments Special Response Team arrived and swept the building, following the sounds of shots and screaming as they cleared the hallways looking for the shooter. One shooter was subdued, while the other eventually surrendered to the police, but not before the intruders back up plan, a bomb in their car, was discovered.
Knoblach said he felt the event went fairly well.
“We had screaming people, we had bleeding victims, we had police running down the hallways,” he said. “They had to ignore the wounded, which no one wants to do, but they have to. They had to communicate with us, with their dispatch, with their team, and the negotiation team that was at a different location. “
This is the first time this type of training has been done at Camp Keyes. Augusta Police Sgt. Vicente Morris, patrol supervisor and team leader for the Special Response Team, said having the whole installation involved made it more real for his team.
“They didn’t know what to expect going in,” he said. “What they would encounter or how the scenario would be laid out. They had to follow their instincts and their training.”
Morris said it is very atypical for these agencies to train on Camp Keyes, but being unfamiliar with the area was actually a training aid, rather than a hindrance.
“For us, our intent is to stop the killing,” he said. “We don’t need to know the layout. Our movement is direct and in response to the threat. This situation gave us the opportunity to really hone in on that, follow our training and the standard responses.”
The other challenging factor to any active shooter scenario is the shooter themselves.
“Here, we have people who are trained at a higher level than your typical active shooter suspect, a high school kid or a disgruntled employee,” said Morris. “It puts our heads on a swivel, because we know these guys could know our tactics, or at least know tactics, and could pose a more significant threat to us.”
While the exercise provided hands on training for Morris’s team, employees of Camp Keyes got a little bit different type of training.
For Camp Keyes, the purpose of the exercise was twofold; to incorporate multiple agencies who will be challenged to find the best ways to work together , and to familiarize people with new procedures following an active shooter threat.
“This is a real world problem that we have to address,” said Knoblach. “Here, most of the employees are soldiers and airmen who have seen combat. They are trained to ‘shoot, move, communicate.’ They want to move to the contact and eliminate the threat, but the new standard is to stay safe and stay alive. It is the same standard wherever you are, school, library, office. You run, you seek cover, you hide and only as a very last resort do you try to be a soldier and take out the threat. It is a hard role change for many, but it is what keeps more people safe.”
At the end of the day, the mock shooter was in custody and Maine State troopers mitigated the bomb threat. Everyone has a basis with which to go back, refine and retune their processes. All those involved will be looking at better ways to communicate, the Augusta Police will work on communicating with their emergency center, and Camp Keyes will look at revising their alert systems.
The purpose is to keep as many people safe in case this happens.
“I think the joint cooperation went well, and I think we should be doing more of it,” said Morris. “This is an area we aren’t familiar with, but we should be. It is a possibility. We had the shooting at the Veteran’s Administration Hospital, Togus, and no one that thought that would happen, but it did. We got the call, suited up, and headed there. Luckily that one incident was over before it really started. If we don’t train with our military counterparts, we could be caught unprepared for this situation.”
| Date Taken: | 03.12.2014 |
| Date Posted: | 03.18.2014 12:46 |
| Story ID: | 122170 |
| Location: | AUGUSTA, ME, US |
| Hometown: | AUGUSTA, ME, US |
| Web Views: | 195 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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