PICATINNY ARSENAL, N.J. -- As the nation continues to mourn the deaths of 49 persons gunned down at an Orlando, Florida, nightclub, Picatinny Arsenal engineers have begun scouring through hours of footage they captured that same weekend at an active shooter training exercise at Fenway Park in Boston.
Analysis of the footage will hopefully help law enforcement officials understand how to better react to similar tragedies.
More than 30 Picatinny employees supported the Boston active shooter training event on June 12, which was hosted by the Boston Police Department with help from the Boston Fire Department, Boston EMS, the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate, Fenway Park Security, and other agencies.
The exercise scenario called for multiple active shooters with an improvised explosive device to storm their way into the ballpark.
More than 200 Boston residents volunteered to act as role players for the event, pretending to be spectators attending a baseball game. Volunteers were given specific roles and instructed to react as though they had encountered an active shooter in real life.
In addition to allowing the police to practice tactics, the exercise tested new tools and equipment designed to help law enforcement respond to an active shooter and simulated Improvised Explosive Device event.
"This training will give my staff an opportunity to test our critical response plans, our ability to work hand-in-hand with our city of Boston public safety partners and it couldn't be more timely," said Charles Cellucci, Red Sox Director of Security.
To support the event, Picatinny employees, along with DHS, provided technologies that were evaluated by the Boston police and the other agencies who were involved in the exercise.
Picatinny personnel, who are employees of the Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC), also captured video of the event for later analysis. The ARDEC New Equipment Training team captured the police maneuvers with "follow cameras," stationary cameras and with small cameras worn by police officers.
At the event, ARDEC's video footage was displayed on the big screens and TVs in a VIP area so that people could observe the scenarios occurring in "real time." ARDEC engineers have also started to analyze the footage to provide feedback to the Boston police on their tactics, how the crowds dispersed, how well the police maneuvered in the crowds, and what actions the police can improve in the future.
"When you think about police tactics, they're similar to the military tactics -- how squads form and maneuver through a situation," explained Ray Carr, Director of the ARDEC Fusion Cell.
"And procedurally, how communications is managed with the squads or individuals, and procedures that have to do with securing part of an area while others are entering another part.
"ARDEC provides an enormous amount of data collection in the form of motion-tracking and video, which can be used to analyze tactics, procedures and even new products that are used by the first responders," Carr added.
"We have cameras upstairs where we're critiquing everything that is being done -- what went well, what didn't go well and where we can improve," said William B. Evans, Commissioner of the Boston Police Department.
This was seventh time that Picatinny personnel participated in similar exercises.
SHARING KNOWLEDGE
In addition to assisting the Boston police and Fenway Park security, the exercise was also valuable to the Army.
"In this active shooter exercise we demonstrated a couple of technologies that are either currently being used or eventually going to the Soldiers," said Tanya Fogg, a Program Support Specialist at Picatinny. "So feedback from the police officers using the technology in an operational environment is helpful."
Before a technology is provided to Soldiers, engineers test the product in an operational environment so that it is exposed to all the challenges or environmental issues an operator, or Soldier, is expected to encounter.
"That can be very much the same in an urban environment compared to what the military might have to engage in," said Carr. "So the feedback from police is relevant. They have to make sure the product works, that they can handle it with gloves, that it doesn't break, and that while moving in response to a threat, the technology helps them as opposed to hindering them."
MIGRATING THREATS
"It's convenient, it's relevant and the fact is that a lot of the threats we see overseas have now migrated to the United States," Carr added.
With current trends showing that the world's population is gravitating towards urban areas, the military is also researching the future threat of potential military operations in megacities.
Megacities are metropolitans with more than 10 million residents.
Thus, the Army is researching technology potentially needed to fight in densely populated, urban environments. Exercises like the one in Boston help to provide research on potential equipment.
"It's very synergistic," Carr said of ARDEC's relationships with DHS and law enforcement agencies.
"We hope to continue to offer technical support and use training exercised as a venue to investigate the utility of the equipment from which the military would gain value."
The exercises also help the ARDEC Target Behavioral Response Laboratory to develop its analytical techniques, which will be applied the next time it is hired to look at threat-effects, squad behavior and crowd behavior for military operations.
"When you develop a skill, you work for different customers and end up honing it in different manners," Carr said. "And what you learn from your experience at one venue makes you better at the next one venue though it isn't exactly the same."
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The U.S. Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center is part of the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command, which has the mission to ensure decisive overmatch for unified land operations to empower the Army, the joint warfighter and our nation. RDECOM is a major subordinate command of the U.S. Army Materiel Command.
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U.S. Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center
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