Depot, community exercise active shooter response plan

By U.S. ArmyMarch 5, 2010

Depot, community exercise active shooter response plan
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Depot, community exercise active shooter response plan
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ANNISTON ARMY DEPOT, Ala. - The depot hosted off-depot emergency response personnel here Feb. 17 to exercise measures that would be taken on depot and in the surrounding community if an active shooter incident were to occur on the installation.

In what depot officials called the Active Shooter Incident Response Tabletop Exercise, approximately 75 people representing city, county, state and federal departments and agencies evaluated Anniston Army Depot's draft active shooter incident response plan. Non-governmental organizations like the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army also participated.

"The table top exercise was a strategic planning approach used to increase awareness of the critical processes, issues and activities distinctive to active shooter incidents," said Kent Latimer, depot emergency plans and operations specialist with 22 years of U.S. Army military police experience.

ANAD's Depot Operations Office and Directorate of Emergency Services hope to have a completed plan by the end of May with recurrent adjustments of standard operating procedures, said Latimer.

He said a completed plan is dependent upon pending data analyses.

City of Oxford Fire Chief Gary Sparks said any time different agencies come together to plan for one type of incident, it builds a relationship that carries into all other aspects of the job.

"I thought the exercise went well. When you work to build a relationship like that with other agencies, you are more aware of what each agency can do," said Sparks.

"And that's an opportunity that no one should pass up. It may not be a shooter but something else, and it's the relationships that will help get you the answers you need."

Latimer said the shooting incident on Nov. 5, 2009, at Fort Hood, Texas, served as the catalyst in reviewing the depot's force protection measures.

More recently and much closer to home, a professor at the University of Alabama-Huntsville has been charged with allegedly killing three colleagues and injuring three others during a Feb. 12 on-campus shooting.

Through an unfortunate situation for the U.S. Army and for the family and friends of Fort Hood's 50-plus shooting victims, Anniston Army Depot and its community partners benefited from hosting Fort Hood Director of Emergency Services Charles Medley at the Feb. 17 exercise.

Medley proved to be a valuable resource for responders here as he described Fort Hood's emergency response procedures.

Fort Hood DES had even reviewed its own approaches to situations like this just nine months prior to the shootings there, he said.

Medley said several thousand calls to 9-1-1 and dispatch operators poured in, and, surprisingly, the system didn't collapse.

He said Soldiers and civilians were gathered around the victims providing first aid and encouragement.

"What I saw impacted me significantly," said Medley, who served with U.S. troops in Iraq in 2003. "There is no preparation for seeing something like that."

Latimer said a major lesson learned from the Fort Hood incident is that of resources, something the depot's plan must address.

Even though the depot has a "robust" emergency response training and evaluation program, Latimer said active shooter plans are relatively recent advancements in force protection planning. He described the tabletop exercise as a success due to the magnitude of response and target capabilities discussed by the community partners.

"It's very important to leverage mutual aid agreements with community stakeholders," Latimer said.

Exercise participants are planning to meet again in mid-March for an after-action conference, and some of the support-specific groups have agreed to hold monthly or quarterly meetings from this point on.

Other exercises on the installation like the quarterly Chemical Accident or Incident Response and Assistance exercises and the annual Anniston Community Exercise will sustain these relationships.