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Valuable Insights Gained By Law Enforcement And First Responders In Active Shooter Training At CHS Tuesday

Photo: Officer Steve Pudenz carries out what could be a fatally injured student in the active shooter drill on Tuesday at Carroll High School

 

There were some good aspects and some bad that were revealed during an active shooter exercise Tuesday morning at Carroll High School. Law enforcement officers from the Carroll Police Department, Carroll County Sheriff’s Office and the Iowa State Patrol joined forces with members of Carroll County Emergency Medical Services, Emergency Management and the City County Communications Center in the second active shooter drill completed in the past four years. Chief Brad Burke, who manned the instant command center outside the building, says the simulation resulted in 16 student injuries and at least one, but an otherwise unconfirmed number of fatalities in the exercise which had officers apprehending the shooter in just five to 10 minutes after their arrival. Some initial reports were that the shooter, Lt. Tom Fransen with the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office, was killed, but Burke would not confirm that immediately following the event. The next step Burke says is to get together and discuss what happened.

One of the major problems uncovered during the exercise is that there was a breakdown in communication capabilities. Detective Alex Klever and new Carroll Officer, Steve Pudenz, radioed that they had taken the shooter down, but that transmission did not work in the building. Burke says this situation puts an exclamation point on the need for a reliable interoperable radio system.

He says the radios were dead and basically useless once officers got inside the building. There were about 15 officers that participated in the training. Carroll Community School District staff members were on hand, using the PA system to announce the shooter’s movements, and about 20 to 30 high school students who were spread out in different rooms throughout the building. The last active shooter training was held at Kuemper in 2015.

 

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