Police Academy Training Regarding Active Shooter Situations

[x635 4,066]

Not being familiar with the Police Academy training, let's take Westchester for example, how much time is spent on active shooter situations?

Are there any plans to expand the training, or drill inside a school or mall for rookies?

[ace84 100]

Orange County Police Academy has active shooter situations training as part of their 6 month academy

[AntMan 16]

Not Sure. But I do think that more officers should be trained in the levels of what SWAT Does for an active shooter event, Instead of having to join the SWAT Team to get a better grasp of Active Shooter event Tactical "gameplan"... If we look at the NJ Garden State Plaza Mall Incident yesterday, They waited until the SWAT Team(s) Got there to clear out the mall. I hope Westchester Spends a good amount of time on this, If they even do.

[SageVigiles 1,194]

Not Sure. But I do think that more officers should be trained in the levels of what SWAT Does for an active shooter event, Instead of having to join the SWAT Team to get a better grasp of Active Shooter event Tactical "gameplan"... If we look at the NJ Garden State Plaza Mall Incident yesterday, They waited until the SWAT Team(s) Got there to clear out the mall. I hope Westchester Spends a good amount of time on this, If they even do.

That is absolutely not how law enforcement is trained nowadays. The biggest lesson learned from Columbine (and this is pretty well publicized, so I'm not touching on any OPSEC issues) is that Officers CANNOT wait for SWAT/ESU before making entry on an active shooter incident. During the Columbine incident the shooting was over in about 20 minutes, the first SWAT elements didn't arrive until 45 minutes in.

Aggressive, well trained Patrol Officers on the street stop these types of incidents, not specialized teams that take time to mobilize. I understand that many departments in NY/NJ have ESUs on the road 24/7, but they are usually not a full complement of tactical officers for a traditional assault.

Without getting into specifics, the training and tactics of Patrol Officer responding to an active shooter are noticeably different than a "traditional" building search or hostage rescue performed by a specialized tactical team.

Edited November 6, 2013 by SageVigiles

[fac911 33]

In the Westchester County Police Academy we spent 2 days doing active shooter training. 1st day was all classroom 2nd was hands on training inside of a school. IMO it was good training but not enough of it. In Yonkers about 50% of us went though 2 days of active shooter training given by Home Land Security. IMO by far the best training i went though so far as a cop. YPD goal is to have the whole department going though this training.

[velcroMedic1987 330]

Not Sure. But I do think that more officers should be trained in the levels of what SWAT Does for an active shooter event, Instead of having to join the SWAT Team to get a better grasp of Active Shooter event Tactical "gameplan"... If we look at the NJ Garden State Plaza Mall Incident yesterday, They waited until the SWAT Team(s) Got there to clear out the mall. I hope Westchester Spends a good amount of time on this, If they even do.

The NJ mall was not an active shooter scenario. When the PD arrived the shooting was over and they appropriately waited for SWAT teams to conduct a search to clear it. As evidenced by the response, there was no shortage of SWAT personnel and the response went according to plan.

[10512 214]

Not Sure. But I do think that more officers should be trained in the levels of what SWAT Does for an active shooter event, Instead of having to join the SWAT Team to get a better grasp of Active Shooter event Tactical "gameplan"... If we look at the NJ Garden State Plaza Mall Incident yesterday, They waited until the SWAT Team(s) Got there to clear out the mall. I hope Westchester Spends a good amount of time on this, If they even do.

I do not know where your info comes from.

NJ Police did respond into the Mall prior to SWAT teams arriving.

The first Patrol cars did not wait for SWAT teams to arrive, the first cops did enter the mall and begin to clear and evacuate the Mall.

When it became apparent that this was a "perp search" and not an active shooter, it reverted to a SWAT operation.

A Perp search and an Active shooter are two different scenarios with different tactics.

Edited November 7, 2013 by 10512