TULSA, Okla. — Every year Broken Arrow police do active shooter training to prepare should something like that happen here.
This training was already planned even before the incident in Texas.
It's the kind of scenario nobody wants to imagine, but Captain Josh Russell, lead active shooter response instructor, said it is a reality Broken Arrow officers have to face and be ready to respond to.
“We’re all parents, we all live in this community, we all have children that attend schools int his community and it’s something hard that we have to face," Captain Josh Russell said. “We want to have all of our officers on the same page, in regards to tactics, teamwork, interagency cooperation as when it comes to responding to an active threat as it can be and complex situation,” Russell said.
The training prepares officers not just for those specific scenarios, but for the physiological effects as well.
Captain Russell said officers experience all the sensory effects involved when responding to a chaotic situation.
“Kind of give them the feel, they experience the stress, they experience the auditory exclusion, the tunnel vision, role players running out pass them as they are trying to go mitigate or negotiate the threat,” Russell said.
While this is simulation training, Captain Russell said when it's a real situation and lives are on the line, time is of the essence.
“ There’s not a lot of time for critical thought…you’re going to have to fall back and rely on your training,” Russell said.
He said that is why they try to make the scenarios feel as real as possible. Officers use simulation and blank ammo to create the active shooter scenario.
“We have to paint a portrait of what you may be responding to, whether that would be injured victims, victims that are deceased…people running out…just essentially chaos,” Russell said.
Officers have to have a strategy in place to stop the gunman and save innocent lives.
“If we can stop the killing, then we can stop the dying, and start treating injured people as soon as possible and getting other first-responders in,” Russell said.
Russell said thanks to a partnership with Broken Arrow Schools, they are able to make the training possible.
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