Active Shooter

My final 16 hours of mandatory in-service for the year were completed at a recently (August) closed HISD elementary school on Wednesday and Thursday of this week. Three fellow Central night shift officers and myself joined 21 other officers for the two day school. The school was created in response to incidents like the Columbine High School shooting. That incident occurred in 1999 in Colorado. Two male students, one armed with a rifle and sawed off shotgun and the other armed with a Tec-9 and sawed off shotgun, killed 13 people and injured 21 others. They fired a total of 176 rounds. They also brought 99 improvised explosive devises of various shapes and sizes with them. Their original intent was to detonate two large propane bombs in the cafeteria by load bearing pillars that when destroyed by the explosion would have brought the library down on top of the cafeteria. They would then shoot the students as they ran from the cafeteria. The two large bombs were placed correctly but did not explode. They used cheap clocks with plastic hands for the timers. The plastic hands do not conduct electricity, so when they struck the right time, they could not complete the circuit. When the bombs did not explode, they entered the school and began shooting. Most of the killing occurred in the school library which is where they later committed suicide. From the time the shooting started to the time that law enforcement personnel entered the school was an hour and fifty minutes. That is along time for the shooters to terrorize.

Prior to Columbine, first responders to an active shooter situation were trained to hold the perimeter and call for SWAT to make the scene. This class was designed to teach the first responders, patrol officers, how to effectively stop the killing in an active shooter situation. This particular class is taught to all law enforcement personnel across the state of Texas. That means that regardless of agency, officers have been taught the same tactics. In an active shooter situation, officers from every nearby agency will make the scene. The fact that we are all trained the same way will save lives.  

Day one started with a review of two recent active shooter incidents. From there, we were taught how to move, how to clear rooms, and how to function as a team. Day two began with more team movements as well as improvised explosive devise response training. Then the real fun started. We would be assaulting parts of the school where active shooting incidents were occurring. We were given actual Glock pistols with simunition rounds (like a paintball round, but fired from authentic pistols). When it was our turn to shoot, the safety officer would tell us the situation. We were instructed to break up into 4 person teams. That was perfect for us, since four of us were taking the training together from Central nights. We were given a team number and they brought out the assignment board. We were team 2. They ran two different scenarios at a time in two different parts of the elementary school. Each team was going to be the "contact team" (shooters) twice. Our team played hostages for the first two rounds, then it was our turn.  

We put on our kevlar vests, long sleeve shirts, neck guards, and full helmets with face shields and were led to a hallway. There we told that an estranged husband had come to the school waving a gun threatening to shoot someone. The safety officer said "we are hot", and we were off. We moved together as a 4 man team. Three of us watching forward with one officer watching our backs. I was on the left side of the formation. We came to a hallway intersection and heard loud yelling coming from the end of the hallway, about 75 feet away. I checked around the corner and saw 4 hostages standing with their hands on their heads with the suspect behind them waving a gun. The suspect then yelled, shot a hostage, and ran into a classroom. The team then began moving quickly together toward the classroom. When we reached the door, two hostages were side by side blocking the doorway, refusing to move. We heard more yelling from inside the classroom. Bobby and I quickly crossed the doorway and Pedro and Todd stayed on the other side. At my instruction, Bobby grabbed the hostages and threw them out of the way. Bobby and Todd then entered the room in a hurry and neutralized two armed shooters. Pedro then jumped in to help with the numerous other hostages while I kept a watch on the hallway. The safety officer asked us a few questions and then stopped the scenario. According to the instructors, we did a great job. We made good decisions, reacted quickly, and shot very well. Apparently, we also need to listen a little better. When the suspect was yelling from inside the classroom, he was yelling "I'm sorry". We should have paused and engaged him in conversation. They were illustrating how situations can turn from active shooting to hostage situations. They said that the suspect would have started shooting again anyway, so my decision to rip the hostages out of the doorway just sped up the process.

After two more rounds of playing hostage, we were up for the final scenario. This time we were led upstairs and told that two armed members of an extremist group had entered the school. We formed up and entered the hallway. We observed a male at the end of the hallway on his knees speaking in a foreign language. As we began moving down the hallway, he quickly threw a pipe bomb down the hallway toward us. We did as trained, we ran back to where we came from and took up a defensive position. After the safety officer said that the bomb did not explode, we re-entered the hallway. We made our way to the dark classroom where the bomber fled. Upon arriving at the door, Bobby and Todd crossed the doorway and the bomber fired rounds in the room. Bobby and I used our lights to try to gather who was where in the room. Then Bobby and I went in firing. We put down the bomber who took 11 rounds from us in the chest. Bobby's gun jammed so he took up a defensive position at the doorway and Todd came in with me. Pedro came in as well and we cleared the room. As we were clearing, the "dead" terrorist detonated a flash-bang grenade that he was holding and that we did not see. Then the safety officer stopped the scenario. Once again we did very well. They said that it was obvious that we worked together. Poor Pedro did not get to fire a round in either scenario.

We had a great time in the class. Bobby would like to take the instructor school and help teach future classes. I hope that he gets in, he would made a great instructor. Hopefully they will continue this class and make it mandatory every year with different scenarios. It is just a matter of time until this type of situation happens in the area.