The training exercise began around 9:01 a.m. Thursday with what sounded like gunshots inside Greenwood Community High School.
In a matter of minutes, first responders from across northern Johnson County descended on the school as part of a multi-agency active shooter training Thursday morning. The training comes more than five months after the deadly mass shooting at Greenwood Park Mall.
Officials conducted an after-action review of their response to the mall shooting and came up with a series of recommendations to improve their response, said Jim Ison, Greenwood police chief. Thursday’s exercise was the first opportunity for those recommendations to be seen in action.
The exercise
The exercise began when a mock active shooter opened fire near the high school’s cafeteria. The first 911 calls came in around 9:01 a.m., and multiple people were injured, Greenwood Police Community Relations Officer Jason Grable told reporters during a mock press conference as part of the exercise.
Inside the building, Greenwood school officials and students who were role playing for the exercise reacted as realistically as possible. People screamed, others ran for cover.
Some role players were covered in fake blood. Others played dead and feigned injuries.
Once officers arrived at the school, they immediately made entry in teams. Heavily armed with training weapons, they rushed toward the cafeteria looking for the threat.
When they found role players who were not the threat, they helped escort them out, while other officers scoured the building for the shooter.
Once he was found, he was apprehended. For this exercise, it was a juvenile, Grable said.
Officers then secured the building before escorting medics in to help the participants we mock injured. As part of the exercise, some had to be dragged out.
Later, police would discover a suspicious bag near an exit door as part of the exercise. The Johnson County Bomb Squad, which was taking part in the exercise, deployed its bomb robot to deal with the bag before blowing it up.
Multi-agency effort
More than nine agencies took part in the exercise: Greenwood, Bargersville, New Whiteland, Whiteland and Center Grove Schools police; the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office; Indiana State Police; and fire departments from Bargersville, Greenwood and White River Township.
“What we’re trying to do is make it as real to life as possible and bring all the agencies that would respond to a situation like this. Anywhere in Johnson County, we’re all going to go,” Ison said.
Multi-agency exercises like this typically take place at least once a year in different high-profile locations. Past trainings have taken place at the Greenwood Park Mall, other schools and factories, he said.
Officials wanted to do another exercise in the aftermath of the mall shooting and the after-action review because it would still be fresh in officers’ mind. The timing and location for Thursday’s exercise worked out because it was the first day Greenwood schools was out for winter break, and officials were able to work with the district to use the high school for the exercise, Ison said.
“We have role players that are high school students that are playing injured people, that are playing witnesses,” Ison said. “Teachers and faculty came in today so that they could participate and be role players, but it also gives them a sense of what to expect in a situation like this.”
Better preparation
Conducting exercises like this is always important for police, but its even more important in light of the mall shooting, Ison said.
“A lot went right in that response, but we also learned that we had some vulnerabilities,” he said. “Many of the vulnerabilities that we found were vulnerabilities that almost every law enforcement response, fire response has found … (in) active shooter incidents in the past.”
A 40-page after-action report that broke down the response into eight sections was publicly released on Wednesday evening. Sixty-seven recommendations were made in the report.
“This report should serve as a learning tool to improve public safety responses to future active shooter incidents,” the report’s closing section says.
For example, parking was an issue for self-reporting law enforcement in the aftermath of the mall shooting, Ison said. Self-reporting law enforcement refers to officers who arrive on scene but were not originally assigned the call, like off-duty officers.
There were 15 different police agencies that responded to the shooting, which made it difficult to get equipment deployed, he said.
“Their main focus is to obviously run in and stop the shooting,” Ison said. “Where they leave their car isn’t always thought about ahead of time.”
Staging locations for emergency personnel, victims, family members and the media was another part of the response that needed to be improved. If a mass shooting were to happen at the high school, for instance, there would be hundreds of people that would need to be directed to certain locations, along with transportation, Ison said.
“We’re trying to do everything just as we would in a real situation to better prepare ourselves — and hopefully it never does — should this thing happen in Johnson County again,” he said.
When various agencies come together, there can sometimes be some hiccups. But that hasn’t been the case for Johnson County.
“We are working hard every day to keep our citizens safe. (When) we come together we work really, really well together,” Ison said.
