Crime & Safety

Oswego Police Practice Active Shooter Scenarios in Rapid Deployment Training

Oswego Police do this type of training twice a year.

Oswego Police officers crouched outside a classroom door at Oswego High School, armed with guns and a black helmet obscuring their features.

“Students” come sprinting out of a classroom yelling that there’s a gunman inside. Gunshots sound from inside the classroom.

The officers rush in and take down the threat.

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This was just one of many scenarios being played out at Oswego High School last Thursday as Oswego Police practiced rapid deployment training, which prepares them for a situation in which there is an active shooter.

“We use these techniques in multiple locations,” said Captain Jeff Burgner, citing not just other schools but shopping centers and locations throughout the Village.

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“The tactics we’re learning today are what SWAT learned 20 years ago,” said Oswego Police Chief Baird. “It’s an all encompassing training.”

Watch: Second Rapid Deployment Training Video 

Baird said the approach to school shootings changed after the situation at Columbine in 1999. At that time local officers made a perimeter around the school but had to wait for SWAT to arrive to enter the building.

Now the officers are trained to enter themselves. “It’s all about eliminating the threat quickly,” said Baird.

The officers who participate in the training are from all areas of the police force – day and night officers and detectives. “They’re coming in prepared,” said Burgner.

Burgner added that the training here is combined with techniques the officers learn in firearm training.

Volunteers, many from the Citizens Police Academy, posed as either victims or shooters and acted out scenarios for the police to handle in the rapid deployment training.

All of the firearms the police use are what they would use in the field, so as to make the training as realistic as possible. The exception would be that instead of real bullets they use plastic.

Officers participate in this type of training twice a year.


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