Active Shooter Training for Carmel, Kent Police
When a shooter attacks a venue with any number of people it can take up to 30 minutes before the emergency response team gets there. The first responders on the scene need to know the best way to handle the situation.
Last Monday and Tuesday over 40 officers from the police departments of Carmel and Kent participated in active shooter training at Austin Road School in Mahopac.
“We are conducting scenario-based training for patrol, detectives and investigators that are on the road as first responders,” said Ernie Iarussi, lead trainer with Carmel Police Department who organized the training. “In most situations it will be the officers on patrol who will respond and have to take immediate action.”
Iarussi is a as team leader on the Putnam County Emergency Response Team, a multi-jurisdictional tactical team for the county. Each department has the benefit of some of their officers being on the
Putnam County ERT, who receive much more training—these officers initially respond, with other officers enhance our abilities to stop the threat when it occurs.
The Putnam County Sheriff ’s Department periodically also practices active shooting training and has officers assigned to the Putnam County ERT.
“We get a lot more training than the average patrolman so some of us are here to help train the other patrolmen,” said Iarussi. “We are just trying to give them some tactical training.”
The Carmel Police Department has been doing active shooter training approximately every two years since 2004.
The goal is to have all the officers in the police department to be proficient in acting as a team and is also a review of the tactics in confronting an active shooter and clearing rooms whether it is in a school, supermarket, movie theatre, etc.
Carmel Police Lieutenant Brian Karst credits Iarussi with bring the training to
Putnam.
“Office Iarussi has been an innovator with respect to active shooter training, he really brought the concept to Putnam County and he has shared this training with all of the police departments in the county so he deserves a great deal of credit for that,” said Lt. Brian
The officers went through different type scenarios. During one session the officers went through a Columbine-type circumstance, where there were a number of shooters going into a school with any number of people who are at risk of getting shot and the loss of life can be ongoing.
“There needs to be immediate response to an active shooter, but then the officers need to know when to slow down and go through a systematic change,” said Iarussi. “These exercises show them some of the techniques and tactics, as well as force-on- force training, needed to deal with the situation.
The Carmel and Kent officers worked on mixed teams.
“Because of our respective limited staffs in each police department—it will be likely that other officers from other police departments will respond to such calls and should have similar training to work together as cohesive unit when confronting an armed gun man,” Iarussi said.
To date the departments have not had to put the active shooter training into a real-life situation.
“What you know can prevent issues before they happen,” said Iarussi. “Thank God for that. We are doing this for [the public], so we can stop a situation before it expands.”
Adam has worked in the local news industry for the past two decades in Westchester County and the broader Hudson Valley. Read more from Adam’s author bio here.
