Active

Patrolman Brandon Dwyer of the Terre Haute Police Department was in the hall of a school Thursday afternoon seeking an active shooter or shooters.

He heard gunfire and headed in its direction. He saw a man with a gun in a classroom and dropped him with his service pistol.

Seeing a fallen officer on the classroom floor, he checked on his condition when another shooter who had been in hiding fired at him. Dwyer pivoted and shot that man, too.

Terre Haute Police Department Sgt. Justin Sears talks about what officers can expect to face during active-shooter training Thursday at the Vigo County School Corp.’s Learning Lab in the former Meadows Elementary School.

The men he “shot” — active shooter instructors Sgt. Jeremy Sparks and Sgt. Jesse Chambers, who doubled as the gunmen — were pleased with his actions.

With a new school year coming up, the THPD has been conducting active shooting drills this week at the old Meadows Elementary School for 115 officers on the force.

“It consists of running our entire department through fundamentals for CQB [close-quarters battle] or building-clearing, and also using lifelike scenarios where we use force on force,” explained Sgt. Justin Sears, the department’s public information officer.

“Over the course of the years, our instructors look over active-shooter events over the nation and we analyze those,” he added. “We look at trends, and during this training we try to replicate that as best we can and we put our officers through that.”

THPD’s active-shooter training has taken place in a number of schools in the Vigo County School Corp. — as well as in Haute City Center when it closes early Sundays — and other buildings when they become available. The department trains monthly, Sears said.

“Active shooter is a beast,” Sears said. “No officer wants to hear that call, but it [realistic training] provides us more familiarity in a school like it does the others we train in, so it’s win-win.”

Sears is one of the instructors during the weeklong session. He also plays one of the bad guys.

“Each training is hosted by five different active shooter instructors, and they’re all seasoned veterans, all have special response team, SWAT team, training, among other skill sets in our department, so we play the bad guys,” he said.

Terre Haute Police Department patrolman Brandon Dyer enters a room under the watchful eye of fellow officer Sgt. Lance Sanders during active-shooter training at the Vigo County School Corp.s Learning Lab in the former Meadows Elementary School on Thursday.

Instructors tailor the training to meet the skills and needs of individual officers — from new recruits to officers who have been on the force for 30 years.

“We can change our training to make it fit for that officer,” Sears said. “We can pick and choose how hard those various scenarios are or work on fundamentals. Our instructors have that capability.”

Training frequently helps officers attain a certain muscle memory for how to respond.

“If you don’t get the repetitions, when you get into a serious situation like this, your senses get overloaded,” Sears said. “If you haven’t been exposed to it before, you might get tunnel vision, just little things like that.

“So when we create this lifelike scenario, it’ll make it that much easier if, God forbid, it were to happen and we had to respond to it at will.”

Many parts of an officer’s training are employed during active-shooter drills, Sears said, including firearm use, physical tactics, decision-making and de-escalation.

The guns in this training were replicas of Glock 17s — the firearm used by the police department. They do everything a real gun would do and reload the same way but weigh far less. And they shoot plastic BBs that travel 450 feet per second.

So during the drill, “You know when you’ve been hit,” Sears said. “It stings.”

Patrolman Thomas Welch joined Dwyer for training Thursday; Welch portrayed the downed officer in Dwyer’s drill.

Terre Haute Police Department Lt. Mark Phillips instructs Patrolman Thomas Welch on blind spots and corners when entering a room during the department’s active-shooter training Thursday in the former Meadows Elementary School building.

Initially, their guns weren’t loaded with BBs and the policemen searched classrooms methodically and tentatively in their search for gunmen.

Instructors told them, “Don’t pause — get in as fast as possible.” The patrolmen called out “Blue blue blue!” while entering and exiting classrooms so that other officers would not mistake them for gunmen.

The replicas were loaded for the officers’ final drill and reporters were invited to watch the action, with Sears warning them, “There’s a slight chance you might get shot.” He emphasized the word “slight” to soften the threat. Reporters, like the officers in the drill, donned protective facemasks then lined up, victimlike, against the lockers in a classroom.

Both men felled their adversaries, Welch while Bon Jovi’s “Living on a Prayer” played from a speaker and Dwyer to the tune of Pat Benatar’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot.” The music was intended to be a distracting factor for the officers.

BBs and blanks were strewn all over the classroom floor, but wouldn’t be for long. “We’re pretty good at cleaning up after ourselves,” Sears said.

Active-shooter training will remain an integral and grueling part of molding THPD officers, Sears said, never to be replaced by less stressful alternatives like online training.

“It has to be hands-on, it has to be physical and it has to be force-on-force,” said Sears.

David Kronke can be reached at 812-231-4232 or at [email protected].

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