Cole County deputies participate in active-shooter training at Lincoln University
Erika McGuire
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)
Cole County deputies on Wednesday took part in an active-shooter training session at Lincoln University, giving deputies a realistic scenario to prepare for the worst.
Inside an empty Perry Hall, about a dozen deputies practiced their response.
“So the training is about the response to an active shooter, we try to make it as realistic as possible whenever we show up on the scene. There’s chaos, so we try to train out staff to do the best they can to go in, make entry and eliminate the threat,” Cole County Sheriff John Wheeler said.
Wheeler said deputies undergo the training once a year, teaching them to not follow the normal human response in a crisis.
“If you try to make entry and you’re going in and there injured people laying down and they’re asking for help common sense says top and put bandages on or get them out of the building, but the first one in can’t do that, “Wheeler said. “They have to go directly to the threat and it’s hard, It not hard, but it’s training to make sure they understand that they have to go to the threat first and stop the killing,”
The training involves, fake weapons and volunteers that play victims and suspects giving officers the intensity of a real life shooting.
Cpl. Joey Matherne, of the Cole County Sheriff’s Office, said the training gives the best hands-on experience to be prepared. While the gunshots aren’t real, Matherne said the sound adds to the realism.
“Gunshots in the hallway like that, that’s not something you hear day-in and day-out. And you hear people explain active-shooter situations that have been in them, and what they perceive that sound to be. So to hear that is a good take away for us, to give you an idea of what to expect,” Matherne said.
Cpl. Meredith Friedman has been in law enforcement for years and said while the training can bring a mix of emotions, it’s crucial for deputies to perform under pressure.
“It does amp you up a little bit, it does give you a little bit of sense of anxiety and nerves and a little bit of pressure,” Friedman said. “Because there’s people watching and you’re going to be critiqued and all these things, a lot of it, it’s so important that we do these because then we fall back on all the trainings that we had,”
After each exercise, Wheeler said, deputies undergo a debrief to learn rom their mistakes.
“Its immediate action evaluation, so when they go through, they get two of the hour-and-a-half of training, classroom training,” Wheeler said. “Then they go through the scenarios, if they’re up there and they make and they need corrected they’ll get immediate correction on the spot,”
There is no law in place requiring officers to do a certain number of trainings each year. While Wheeler said more training a year is necessary, he said costs and time can be a challenge.
“It’s costing the citizens money because while if I have to pull somebody off the road to go to training, I got to cover that, so that maybe overtime for that individual work in the road,” Wheeler said. “So, realistically, do I think there should be more training? Absolutely, but fiduciary wise, you got to look at the finances on it,” Wheeler said.
Every deputy in the department who carries a weapon must undergo the training, Wheeler said, which involves about 60 deputies. Last Wednesday, one group completed the exercise, and another is scheduled for Aug. 30.
Deputies undergo the training once a year.