Police training: What comes next after school shooting

FREMONT - Although local officers have been trained on active school shooter scenarios, many were not prepared for what to do after the threat has either been eliminated or moved to a different area of a building, leaving casualties behind.

Fremont Police Chief Dean Bliss said he was one those officers who was not sure what happens in the aftermath of a school shooting, and said being organized can help save lives and calm confusion surrounding the incident.

"We all know what to do with an active shooter call, but we don't really know what is next," Bliss said.

To further educate local authorities, Bliss invited members of the Rescue Task Force (RTF) with Bowling Green Fire and Police to speak Wednesday to members of Sandusky County law enforcement, EMS, school, and mental health professionals about what happens during and after a school shooting.

"I think this is a great starting point for us, and maybe we can have a big training event," Bliss said. "We all need to come together."

Noel Crawford, a patrolmen with the Bowling Green Police Department, said an RTF could mean the difference between life and death when rescue personnel respond to a mass shooting scene.

"If you look at the Vietnam War, 90 percent of deaths occurred prior to care," Crawford said. "

Crawford said an RTF team will divide an active shooter call into three zones.

The first, a hot zone, is where active threats are happening, and is a zone where only police personnel will be permitted.

The next zone is a warm zone, or area that is not completely cleared, but where casualties have occurred.

A warm zone could be where a shooter has already been, Crawford said.

The final zone is a cold zone, in which rescue personnel and police can respond.

This zone will also be a safe zone where those who were injured can be transported by EMS for additional care.

Crawford said a team of between two and three police officers would escort a team of two or three fire and EMS personnel into warm zones where they could extract the injured to receive life-saving treatment.

"The law enforcement would lead movements and protect RTF members," Crawford said. "Fire and EMS will never go into hot zones."

Sandusky County EMS Director Jeff Jackson said his staff will be required by the state to have online training in RTF, and he said he supports his staff working towards being on the RTF.

"It's really not different than what we do now, other than have a scene cleared," Jackson said. 

Jackson said seconds save lives, and noted being active on the RTF team would be similar to providing rapid care to those in cardiac arrest or who overdosed on drugs.

As RTF teams stage, Crawford said the goal is to have multiple teams because fire and EMS will tire as they carry victims from the scene.

Crawford said there are four different models that RTF teams can use to extract the injured during an active shooter situation.

The first model is an escorted warm zone, which Crawford said is the most popular, where police will escort RTF team members into warm zones to find victims of a shooting.

The second model is called a warm zone corridor, where police lock down a portion of a warm zone — in the event of a school shooting this could be a hallway — to create an access point for staging and helping victims.

A third model, called "warm zone island," is a plan where a room in the building is used as a treatment area, Crawford said.

Crawford said the final RTF model is law enforcement rescue, which means only police officers enter the scene to rescue victims. 

No matter the plan, Crawford said communication among all involved is key to saving as many lives as possible, and having a plan will eliminate confusion.

"Some police will come into a school and start banging on classrooms and calling for evacuations, but that leads to chaos and confusion," Crawford said. The first priority is to neutralize the threat and then have the task force enter the building.

"Then we want to make announcements or go door-to-door to find victims, and the last thing we do is evacuate," Crawford added. 

Another addition to the response team will be the Mental Health and Recovery Services of Sandusky County, which can provide victims with Critical Incident Stress Management.

Executive Director Mircea Handru said the CISM team has 39 active members and is available 24 hours a day to provide mental health support to victims of mass shootings.

The crisis text line number is 741741.

"I think Mircea plays an integral part to all this," said Tom Anway, director of facilities and operations at Fremont City Schools. "We would always be there to support, and I know all the school districts in the county would help with counseling, but we have to get everyone on the same page."

cshoup@gannett.com

419-334-1035

Twitter: @CraigShoupNH