FORT CARSON, Colo. -- The fire alarms are deafening, drowning out the crack of gunfire. Panicked victims rush at the two military police Soldiers, who fight through the noise, chaos and their own adrenaline rush. The two-man team goes from room to room, evacuating civilians, pinpointing the location of the gunman. Their mission: to stop the shooting.
The training exercise at Mountainside Elementary School July 18, was the first of its kind on Fort Carson. A joint venture between the 759th Military Police Battalion, Fountain Police Department, Fountain-Fort Carson School District 8 and the Fort Carson police, the drill was an opportunity for Soldiers to learn from their civilian counterparts.
The Fountain PD provided evaluators who debriefed MPs after each scenario.
"They are the true experts … coaching, teaching, mentoring our young military police Soldiers, expanding what they've learned from basic law enforcement, and what we've learned being in a deployed combat environment to an active shooter in a school scenario," said Lt. Col. Christopher Heberer, commander, 759th MP Bn.
After years of deployments in combat areas, MPs are learning to deal with the challenges of being community police in noncombat areas.
"Our (civilian) parameters that we have are much different than from a Soldier who's overseas," said Todd Evans, Fountain chief of police. "It's teaching them."
One goal of the program is to make the response seamless between civilian and military law enforcement agencies, said Bill Vinelli, Department of the Army training sergeant.
"We're trying to keep it in line with our civilian counterparts outside the gate. That way, if Fountain responded here for an active shooter, or we responded down there, it's all the same. It's all one training. The MPs get the same training that our civilian police officers get," he said.
The exercise was set up with five different stations, one on a school bus and the other four inside the school. Every station was different, and Soldiers rotated through in one-, two- and three-man teams. At each station, three to four different scenarios were run, each one increasing in complexity.
"Different scenarios, different variables, different decision-making skills, from people hanging (onto) them to hostage rescue," Heberer said. "We turn on the alarms. Now (they) can't hear their radios. Each time they do a scenario, it's different, and there's more variables."
About 40 to 50 civilian volunteers, many of them District 8 employees, participated in the drill, acting as perpetrators, panicked victims and dead bodies.
The addition of civilians made the experience more realistic for the officers, but also helped train the civilians.
"Every scenario is going to be different," said Ines Nichols, special needs paraprofessional at Abrams Elementary. "Even these scenarios are scary, and they are so real. … I think I have a better understanding of what it's going to look like, but I still cannot imagine going through this, and I hope I never will."
Training for active shooter situations was revamped nationwide after the shooting at Columbine High School in 1999. Prior to that, patrol officers waited for the SWAT team to arrive before entering the building, said Heather DeLaurentis, Fort Carson police officer.
"In the meantime, there were people getting injured, getting killed … we can't wait," she said. "Active shooter really started changing the way law enforcement did things."
There is a need for training like this on Fort Carson. During the last school year there was a threat by a disgruntled District 8 employee, Heberer said. They locked down Fort Carson and surrounded the school. It turned out to be a false alarm.
"That was a great wakeup call. It was a good battle drill for us," he said.
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