Response exercise conducted on-site
Officer T.J. Major is training in the active shooter response exercise.
Staff
Reports
On Tuesday and Thursday, Aug. 15 and 17 officers with the Clay County Sheriff’s Office are participating in rapid deployment exercises for active shooter response training at Hayesville High School.
The training is held every few years and was developed after the Columbine High School massacre on April 29, 1999, according to a release from Sheriff Mark Buchanan. Prior to that time, officers were trained to secure the perimeter of an active shooter location and await the arrival of a tactical team to make entry.
“We all know how long that held up the operating procedure on that fateful day,” Buchanan said.
Active shooter response training teaches the arriving officer or officers to immediately make entry into a building where gunfire is ongoing. Officers are trained to proceed non-stop to an active shooter or shooters and stop them.
As unnatural as it is for them, officers learn that they should not delay their progress toward an active shooter by tending the wounded or answering cries for help. Stopping the active shooter or shooters is priority No. 1 for officers.
During this training Clay County officers practiced advancing solo and in teams down hallways and into classrooms.
“Although this training is usually associated with protecting our treasured children in schools, rapid deployment for active shooters can be used for any building that houses large numbers of people at a given time,” Buchanan said.
Instruction for this training was provided by Blake Buchanan of Centrifuge Training LLC out of Fort Worth, Texas.