Security forces, lawmen train together for crises

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Elliott Sprehe
  • 27th Special Operations Wing Public Affairs
CANNON AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. (AFPN) --  Bodies lay strewn about on the floor like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Cries for help reverberate off the walls as four-man teams search for the creator of this carnage. Gunshots cut through the cries, and the acrid smell of gunpowder fills the air.

Fortunately, as real as this scenario seemed, it wasn't. The location was Cannon Air Force Base's vacated dormitory and the action May 8 was a simulated shooting, part of a training course taught by members of the National Tactical Officers Association.

Created in 1983, the NTOA teaches courses ranging from basic SWAT to crisis negotiation for law enforcement agencies across the country. The three-day course at Cannon AFB, N.M., included security forces, Clovis SWAT and a few other agencies.

"This is the first time NTOA has conducted training on Cannon," said Master Sgt. Kimberly Grewe, assigned to the 27th Special Operations Security Forces Squadron.

The course, Patrol Response to Active Shooter, teaches law enforcement officers how to handle deployment/rapid intervention techniques. Some of the topics covered are history of active shooter situations such as school shootings, movement tactics and classroom instruction.

"We're training to respond as if there was a shooter inside a largely populated facility, such as a school, the Base Exchange, or a large office building," Sergeant Grewe said.

The first two days of training are in preparation of the third day, when four-man fire teams run through different scenarios. The scenarios range from one gunman in a room to a hidden gunman waiting to be apprehended.

Increasing the realism and tension felt in an active shooter situation was the use of paintball guns by the "bad guys" and the use of simunitions by the fire teams. Simunitions are similar to live rounds and use gunpowder to eject brass shells, firing rounds like a paintball.

The distractions of gunfire and casualties escalate over the course of the third day, testing the reactions of the fire teams. The NTOA instructors critiqued the teams after they completed the scenarios.

"The course will prove itself extremely worthwhile and valuable if we ever have an active shooter situation on base," Sergeant Grewe said.


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