Police train for crises over break

The sun shone, birds chirped, and the breeze tousled new leaves as a team of four Pitt police… The sun shone, birds chirped, and the breeze tousled new leaves as a team of four Pitt police officers stormed Bellefield auditorium and unleashed a spray of pellets upon the hapless shooter inside.

Luckily for the officer posing as the shooter, the Special Emergency Response Team doesn’t make a habit of shooting one of its own – at least not while students are around.

The team took advantage of an empty campus on March 12 to engage in a series of hypothetical scenarios as part of a module created for the officers’ tactical and timely response training to emergency situations.

Lieutenant Shawn Ellies, the officer in charge of training, said Thursday’s session was the third training module the team has completed this year, with the previous two taking place over the summer and winter breaks.

To maintain the most realistic conditions possible for the drill, the site of the operation remains unknown to the officers until the radio call is given. However, unlike a normal call, officers are not briefed on the situation until they have assembled at the target site.

“There are just too many people with radio access,” Ellies said. “We don’t want to announce the situation because we don’t want to scare anyone.”

Once the responding officers arrive, they have their weapons removed and placed in “hot boxes” for safe keeping during the training session.

“I need you to remove everything – guns, ammo, magazines, pepper spray, night sticks – everything,” a commanding officer instructed the team.

After becoming weaponless, or “cold,” the officers lined up on the sidewalk like a soccer team awaiting pregame inspection from the referee.

“Safety is our biggest concern, so we always check in case one of the officers forgot something,” Ellies said as the officers were patted down.

Their guns and weapons traded for harmless pellet rifles, the team received their first assignment:

A female student has called from a class of 200 in Bellefield auditorium.

She said a white male wearing a black overcoat has entered the auditorium through the fire exit and is now shooting from the stage. The call was disconnected and another came through immediately thereafter with audible gunshots in the background.

The team jumped into action, falling into formation and striding into the lecture hall, guns at the ready.

Shots rang out from behind a chalkboard and in a blur of black clothing, the shooter rolled back into a difficult corner.

The team repositioned and returned fire, thus “neutralizing” the threat.

At the commanding officer’s signal, the group broke and headed upstage for their critique.

The critique after each scenario is based on the team’s execution of the rules and formations outlined by the National Tactical Officer Association.

“They give you the standard [for emergency response] and if you stick with the standard, then the NTOA will stand by you if any problems should arise,” Ellies said.

This means that in the event that a situation occurs and it is retroactively determined that the NTOA-approved plan of action was not the best response, the Association will back up the acting squad with legal support.

Standards outlined by the NTOA changed after the shooting at Columbine High School in 1999.

“At Columbine, 1,000 officers showed up, but because the standard procedure at the time was for police to contain the area until special forces could be called in, no one went in and the shooters inside had time to do some damage,” Ellies said.

Now however, teams like Pitt’s Special Emergency Response Team routinely engage in training modules to stay prepared and keep their skills sharp.

“These are perishable skills, so if you don’t use them, you’ll lose them,” Ellies said.

While the NTOA standard is well-researched and respected, Ellies recognizes that no procedure can be thought of as having one-size-fits-all effectiveness.

In addition to practicing for active shooter, hostage or barricade situations in their conventional settings, Pitt’s team makes sure to take into account the campus’ unique features and to ensure that the national skills and procedures can translate to a local setting.

“We practice all over. We take into consideration the features of this campus like the Cathedral, so all of the officers participate in endurance training to make sure they can do things like climb all 36 floors in the Cathedral,” Ellies said.

Another break, another mock crisis averted, and with students back on campus and classes back in session, the Special Emergency Response Team will at the ready, this time without their pellet guns.