Emergency personnel in Oconto County will gather under one roof Wednesday to learn from experts the best way to deal with an active shooter.
The meeting will bring together representatives from the county’s fire departments, ambulance services and law enforcement offices. School superintendents and principals also plan to attend. Tim Magnin, Oconto County Emergency Management director, said more than 50 people were registered to attend the session, scheduled at 7 p.m. in the Falls Area Performing Arts Center at Oconto Falls High School.
Magnin said an active shooter incident could occur anywhere in the county, possibly at a business, a municipal building or a school.
“We just want to be ready for it,” he said.
“It seems that the news is never without some sort of active shooter story,” Gillett Police Chief Jess Keplinger said.
He said law enforcement agencies in the county have already devoted time to train together and plan their response to an active shooter situation.
“We have an obligation to supply officers with the essential equipment and training to be better prepared for such tragedies,” he said.
What’s different about this week’s training is the broader approach, which will involve representatives outside the field of law enforcement.
“It just makes sense to involve the school staff along with the fire and EMS personnel,” Keplinger said.
Attendees will hear information regarding active shooter situations in the U.S.: what trends are emerging and what’s the best response. Magnin said response techniques continue to change; what was recommended as recently as two years ago is different today.
The meeting, led by certified trainers, is coordinated by Northeast Wisconsin Technical College and the Northeast Regional Trauma Advisory Council. The trainers will repeat the information in northern Oconto County at a meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 26, at the Mountain Ambulance Garage.
After learning about current trends, attendees will begin to design standard procedures and guidelines to address an active shooter event.
“It’s going to be a uniform outlook on how to handle things,” Magnin said.
The group will meet again in the spring to fine tune the procedures, and if everything falls into place, will test the procedures at an exercise in the summer.
Magnin said a countywide strategy is important because it would be difficult for just one or two agencies to handle a large-scale active shooting event.
“If you don’t have buy-in from throughout the whole county, it’s hard to deal with these things,” he said.
Oconto County isn’t the only county making these preparations; other counties in the region also are developing plans, Magnin said.
“We’ll try to get ahead of it. Hopefully we don’t ever need it,” he said.
Categories
