Published: June 25, 2009 07:49 am      

Training for crisis

“Drop the gun! Drop the gun,” yelled the police officer dressed in combat gear as he crouched outside the middle school building.

“Get down! Get down,” shouted another officer before he tackled a suspect who emerged from a side door of the school.

The drama was not real, but the response was. It was a training exercise for emergency 911 dispatchers from 17 Kentucky law enforcement agencies.

“When a police special response team is called to an emergency, prompt provision of correct information can make the difference between a peaceful resolution or tragedy,” said Elyse Christian of the state Department of Criminal Justice Training in Richmond.

Emergency response dispatchers are trained to handle emergencies, but an intensive training Tuesday and Wednesday at two Richmond locations emphasized the role that dispatchers can play as part of a tactical response team.

The 20 dispatchers, including one from Madison County E-911 and another from the Eastern Kentucky University Police Department, were divided into groups of 10. One group trained at Clark-Moores Middle School with the Richmond Police Emergency Response Unit, while the other trained with the EKU Police at the Telford Residence Hall.

Both sessions simulated responses to armed hostage takers.

When a response team deals with such an incident, a tactical command post usually is set up near the scene and assigned its own radio frequency, Christian said.

“This training was designed to prepare dispatchers to support a response unit’s tactical command post,” she said.

Bobby King, a Madison County E-911 dispatcher, said the training reminded him of an incident in early March when a man with a gun threatened to shoot himself in his car outside a local supermarket parking lot.

“I was on duty when that happened,” King said.

Dispatchers can assist a response team by anticipating their needs and supplying crucial information, King said the dispatchers were taught.

“We also can play an important role, during and after an incident, by keeping a moment-by-moment log of the event,” he said. “Accurate record of scene descriptions and actions may be needed as evidence when a suspect goes to trial.”

An RPD emergency response team member said dispatchers also can be helpful by anticipating needs on the scene.

For example, if a dispatcher can obtain a photo of the scene from the (property valuation administrator’s) office without being told, that will free the officer in charge to concentrate on tactics, he said.

A large aerial photo of the Clark-Moores campus and a copy of the school’s floor plan was taped to the side of school buses that served Wednesday as an impromptu tactical command post.

If the suspect’s identity is known, obtaining a photo can be of great help to the team, King said.

All 20 of the dispatchers were brought to Clark-Moores for a Wednesday afternoon session as the RPD team simulated an assault on a school bus to free children being held hostage.

Several of the dispatchers winced as an officer fired a blank from his pistol before team members ran through the bus door.

“Get down! Put your heads against the seat in front of you,” an officer yelled as a suspect was taken to the bus floor. Dispatchers played the role of schoolchildren for the exercise.

“This training is good for us as well as the dispatchers,” an emergency response team member said after the training.

“We hope we never to have an incident like this, especially involving schoolchildren,” he said, “but we always have to be prepared.”

Bill Robinson can be reached at brobinson@richmondregister.com or at 624-6622.