Local emergency departments form coordinated response systems in active shooter training

SOUTH BEND — “We have a possible suspect hiding in the terminal."  

“There’s a third suspect hiding in an office."

"We have a critical patient in the main lobby where the shooting occurred.”

“One was found upstairs; that makes six victims.”

Information flooded through yellow radios as St. Joseph County first responders, though feet away from each other, communicated from team to team to gather as much information as they could and to send rescue teams in for triage. 

Separated into teams of dispatch, contact, tactical, staging, ambulance, rescue task force and watch commanders, the 70 St. Joseph County first responders approached the situation as if it was real at the culmination of a three-day Active Shooter Incident Management Training seminar at Four Winds Casino.

With reports of multiple gunshot victims and perpetrators at a seaport, followed by a separate attack at a university, the first responders kept note of each bit of intel on a white board: the number of suspects, the types of weapons and the parts of the building that had been cleared by the contact teams.

Thirty police officers from the Notre Dame, Mishawaka, South Bend, St. Joseph County, North Liberty, Pokagon Band of Potawatomi and St. Joseph County Airport Authority departments trained alongside 30 fire personnel from the South Bend, Mishawaka, Clay, Penn Township, Warren Township, Lakeville and Notre Dame departments and 10 individuals from Notre Dame dispatch and emergency management agencies from St. Joseph County, Notre Dame and Tribal Police.

The training challenged first responders to see how well they use information, communicate and work efficiently to minimize the casualties and narrow down the suspects. The ultimate challenge, however, was: How well can different agencies from all over the county work together?

“Columbine changed the law enforcement response nationwide,” Kevin Beary, an instructor with C3 Pathways, said while presenting tactics that first responders can employ in real situations. 

After the April 1999 mass shooting at Columbine (Colo.) High School, law enforcement developed a “cold, hot and warm zone,” St. Joseph County Emergency Management Agency Director Al “Buddy” Kirsits said, saying that trained firefighters and a rescue task force are taken under police protection to rapidly triage and extricate victims.

The training students were encouraged to share intelligence. 

“This country needs to connect the dots,” Beary said. “Everybody’s got to get on the same sheet of music. That’s the only way it works.” 

Kirsits agreed, saying that it’s important that first responders use the same verbiage in order to bring them together tactically. 

“It brings us all in the same sandbox working together,” Kirsits said. 

He said it’s all about marshaling your resources by identifying the objectives and applying them to organizational management. 

A secondary instructor, Juan Atkin, reminded participants that the daily responsibilities of first responders persist amid a large-scale incident. 

“Your calls aren’t going to stop,” Juan Atkin said. “The area commander needs to delegate resources.” 

‘One succinct message’

Ashley O’Chap, the South Bend Police Department's media liaison, took part in the training as one of the few civilians present and involved in the incident response.

“For me, it was important to see how all of these agencies are responding and how important it is to get one piece of information out there,” she said. 

In her role of relaying information to the public, O’Chap said, it was important for everyone to be on the same page. She moved from team to team gathering information about the incidents. 

“It may have started out one way, but each minute, it shifted drastically,” she said. “It was really important to have that ability in being able to pivot.” 

O'Chap said she feels more confident in her ability to pivot between scenes. 

“This isn’t the first time we’ve had training about active shooters, because it’s been part of our society for the last 15 to 20 years," she said. "It’s been something that we have to think about all the time.”

In situations like this, O’Chap said, social media, media agencies and the public are asking questions about what’s going on.

“To be able to get one succinct message out there is huge,” she said. 

Increased post-pandemic training

Police and fire departments within St. Joseph County, including Penn, Mishawaka and Clay fire departments, as well as St. Joseph County and South Bend police departments, have previously done active shooter training, Kirsits said, but it’s slowed down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“What’s great to me is seeing police officers working together in a unified command concept,” Kirsits said. “What we’re learning here today, hopefully, we’ll never have to apply, but more than likely we will.”

He said C3 Pathways has incredible data metrics that gives feedback to students pinpointing how they responded, where they staged and applied their resources to the incident, and how victims were transported to the hospital. 

Kirsits said he’s heard from scenario participants who said after the training that they’ve realized they’ve got much further to go. 

“That’s a good idea,” he said. “We’re much better off than we were 10 years ago, and we’re much better off than we were five years ago.”