Military security, fire, and medical personnel were trained to respond to an active shooter threat during a simulation exercise today at the naval air station of meridian. With recent attacks on military facilities in Chattanooga, TN, and San Diego, CA, the exercise comes at crucial time.
“It’s so that the people on the installation are aware of what emergency actions they need to take during an event like this. And obviously there’s been many happening in recent weeks. So what we try to do is recreate that, make it as real as possible, and get the installation personnel to perform their actual emergency action plans.”
It took about 3 months to prepare for the drill, which involved the scenario of a disgruntled military officer who shoots a clerk inside the navy exchange store. Military and civilian response teams kill the shooter and rescue the victim.
“We do work hand-in-hand in a response like this with the sheriff’s department and with meridian police department. Normally, in a real-life situation, they would also respond to assist our guys in handling the situation.”
The simulation is one of many exercises that are taking place throughout the entire navy for the next 2 weeks. Exercise drills are performed about 4 to 6 times each year. The main objective is to neutralize the active shooter.
“The longer the shooter has to go around and shoot people, because they didn’t go there to talk to people, threaten them, they went there to kill. And they’re looking to kill as many people as they can, at least statiscally on the years of active shooters and studies that have been done. They’re going there to kill. And they are going to continue to kill until somebody stops them from killing. So the quicker we get there, every second counts, that could be one more person’s life saved.”
The next objective is to rescue victims and stabilize their injuries.
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