Security and Emergency Personnel Tested During Two-Week Training Exercise

Photo By Donna M Cipolloni | PATUXENT RIVER, Maryland (Jan. 31, 2017) - A Department of Defense police officer and Master-at-Arms assigned to NAS Patuxent River perform room-clearing in an active shooter drill at NAS Patuxent River Jan. 31 during the Solid Curtain/Citadel Shield 17 exercise. The anti-terrorism/force protection exercise ran from Jan. 30 to Feb. 10 and evaluated both the Navy’s and NAS Patuxent River’s ability to provide an integrated response to an emergency situation.  

PATUXENT RIVER, MD, UNITED STATES

02.17.2017

Story by Donna M Cipolloni 

Naval Air Station Patuxent River

Week one: Citadel Shield

The first week of training, focusing on installation-level incidents, included scenarios involving a suspicious person surveilling the air station and taking photos, a crowd of protestors gathered outside one of the entry control points, a suspicious package left outside an office, a gate runner with a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (IED), and an alarm response to confront a person carrying an IED at one of the squadrons.

“In each exercise, the responding unit and how they handled the situation was being evaluated to see whether they took appropriate actions in accordance with their pre-planned response (PPR),” explained Chief Aviation Structural Mechanic Rafael Custodio, installation training officer for Pax River.

A few of the scenarios included an “integrated” response, one that involved more than one agency responding to the situation.

“For example, the driver of the vehicle-borne IED pulled into a vacant parking lot and then waited until the responding security officers arrived before detonating the device,” Custodio said. “That resulted in [simulated] casualties which then involved a response from the fire department EMTs. The Military Working Dogs (MWDs) were also called out on that exercise.”

One of the largest integrated response exercises involved the Emergency Services Team from St. Mary’s County being called in to assist with an active active shooter/hostage barricade scenario in Building 1489.

“Two active shooters entered one door and stayed on the first floor while another entered a side door and went upstairs,” Custodio noted. “Someone in the building reported it after hearing shots fired, dispatch sent officers to the scene and once it was determined there was an active shooter situation, further help was requested from the county. Since there was a hostage taken during that exercise, the sheriff’s department also worked with NCIS on negotiating that situation.”

Week two: Solid Curtain

The second week of training entailed a national-level exercise centered on communications between all echelons Navywide where something happening on one installation affected other installations, if only in a minor way.

“This exercise is based on various incidents that occur across the CNIC enterprise,” explained Chief Master-at-Arms Alex Europa, operations leading chief petty officer at Pax River. “This year, that included an active shooter at Annapolis and other incidents on the west coast that prompted us, as a region, to go into FPCON Charlie.”

The heightened force protection condition, FPCON Charlie, set in motion increased security at the gates, throughout the installation and within the tenant commands.

“Security, as a whole, had a host of additional measures we did internally to secure the safety of the installation, tenant commands, housing and personnel around the base,” Europa said. “The exercise also gave the host and tenant commands the opportunity to exercise their individual anti-terrorist plans and make any modifications necessary, based on what was learned from it.”

Lessons learned

Following each exercise is a “hot wash,” an immediate discussion and evaluation of any agency’s — or multiple agencies — performance.

“During an exercise, each agency involved has its own training evaluator present and they’ll write down what they see and what issues may have occurred,” Custodio said. “At the hot wash, everyone involved will discuss whether the training was effective, did they meet their objectives, what issues they noticed, etc.”

Later, there will be a more in-depth briefing within each agency to go through the scenarios and discuss what went right or wrong, Custodio said, followed by a detailed After-Action Report created for all the events that is then sent to region.

“There were a couple weak spots identified, like some inconsistencies with terminology used between the agencies that might create confusion,” Custodio added. “But that’s why we train with such intense realistic scenarios. There are always lessons learned.”

• Date Taken: 02.17.2017
• Date Posted: 02.17.2017 10:37
• Story ID: 223964
• Location: PATUXENT RIVER, MD, US