June 01--In the wake of the Sandy Hook school and Aurora, Colo., movie theater shootings, Rio Rancho public safety personnel on Thursday took part in an "active shooter" training scenario to prepare for the unthinkable, yet possible.
"We decided it was time that we started to look at the potential of an active shooter or a mass shooter event here," Rio Rancho Deputy Fire Chief Paul Bearce said, adding that he began discussions of setting up a joint exercise with Rio Rancho police officer Ray Alderete.
"It can happen anywhere, big towns, small towns, there's no profile," Bearce said, as a combined group of about 20 police and fire department personnel prepared to take part in the training scenario held in an empty building in north Rio Rancho.
In a mass shooter scenario, the police are focused on taking care of the violent threat, while firefighter paramedics treat and rescue victims, Bearce said. Existing procedures now call for rescue to remain behind in a staging area until police gain control and eliminate a violent threat, Bearce said.
However, in this week's training, public safety personnel learned they can do both: police seeking out the threat and at the same time providing a protective screen for rescue workers as they do their jobs, he said. "By training together, the rescue and paramedics personnel will know the police and their expectations, and the police will know our needs to go in and extract victims, so that everyone involved can go into a dangerous situation and work effectively and safely," Bearce said.
During the exercise, Rio Rancho body armor-wearing SWAT police officers entered a large open hall with adjoining rooms, where both mannequin and live victims were strewn about the floor.
Officers put into practice responses learned during morning classroom sessions. In one, rescue workers held back momentarily right behind SWAT officers who entered, cleared and secured the building; then rescue workers came in to work on victims, stopping life-threatening bleeding, stabilizing wounds and carrying out victims, escorted by police. Other police meanwhile continued to search for and eliminate the "threat."
Though the scenario was just a drill, the atmosphere was tense, and officers from all agencies acted with speed and common purpose, commented Dr. Darren Braude, medical director of Rio Rancho Fire and Rescue, who monitored the training.
"You don't have to watch the news for more than a few days to realize that such an event could unfortunately happen here," Braude said. "We feel that we have to be as prepared for this kind of event as much as we are for a heart attack, an accident or a house fire."
Copyright 2013 - Albuquerque Journal, N.M.
