Officers conduct a sweep of the building during an active shooter training at Maple Grove Elementary School Tuesday. Jayden Kennett | Daily Journal
Every year, Johnson County public safety agencies host a county-wide active killer scenario.
Center Grove Schools and Clark-Pleasant schools partnered with local public safety agencies, including Johnson County Sheriff’s Office, Bargersville Police and Fire Departments and Greenwood Police and Fire Departments, to host the training. The training looked and sounded like a real scenario and public safety officials treated it as if it were.
It began with what sounded like gunshots inside Maple Grove Elementary School on Tuesday morning. An automated voice over the intercom could be heard throughout the hallways and outside of the school announcing a lockdown.
Within minutes, first responders from across Johnson County descended on the school and swept the school to find the suspect.
Inside the building, school officials and staff role-played injured victims. Once officers arrived, they made entry in teams and set up a communication post in the parking lot.
Trainers in bright yellow vests followed the officers throughout the school as they cleared rooms and hallways. About 150 people participated in the training exercise, said Ray Jackson, Center Grove schools police chief. The trainers watched the response and sometimes guided officers as they searched for the suspect.
“You guys are dealing with a ton of open and closed angles all around,” one trainer said to officers.
Radio chatter, distant commands from officers and the beeping of Center Grove’s Centigex Alert System could be heard throughout the hallways. The Centigex alert system flashes different color strobe lights for different scenarios. Every building in the corporation has the system that includes wearable badges with an emergency button. Once the button is pressed, audio and visual notifications are sent using colored strobe lights, desktop alerts and building intercoms.
Yellow indicates to shelter in place, while red strobe lights indicate a lockdown and to shelter in a locked room.
A rescue task force that consisted of paramedics and officers was deployed to assist mock-injured participants. Officers covered the paramedics while they triaged the victims.
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.
Training is based on other real-life scenarios, Jackson said. In the aftermath of the Greenwood Park Mall shooting, agencies held a similar training and implemented recommendations from a 40-page after-action report that broke down public safety agencies’ response to the mass shooting.
For example, staging locations for emergency personnel, victims, family members and the media was one part of the response that needed to be improved. If a mass shooting were to happen at a high school, for instance, there would be hundreds of people that would need to be directed to certain locations, along with transportation.
Some of the recommendations from the report could be seen at the training Tuesday, including the practice reunification area in the gym.
The training is part of a collaborative effort between Johnson County agencies to ensure a cohesive response during active threats. Having agencies train together in the scenario is important when teamwork and speed are vital, Jackson said.
“We’re really blessed to have a group of leaders that want to work together,” Jackson said. “We all check our egos at the door. This is all about just providing training that’s going to benefit everybody.”
The training is especially important for Johnson County agencies, who would typically all respond in an active shooter situation. It’s sort of like a big brother program, Jackson said.
“We’re doing the training, but this could easily happen at Clark-Pleasant, Edinburgh, Franklin, anywhere. So at least we know that we’re all on the same page. We all know the same terminology and we know where to go so that we can rectify the situation,” Jackson said.
Training also gives those in charge a chance to see how officers may respond when working under stressful situations.
“We don’t want our guys freezing up; we want them to be relaxed,” Jackson said. “Obviously, you’re going to have a little bit of stress, but the more that we’ve put them in a situation like this, the better off they’re going to be when the bullets are really flying.”
School staff and administrators from across Johnson County watched the training session behind caution tape. It’s important for the staff and admins to know how police will respond in a situation and vice versa, Jackson said.
Agencies from outside of Johnson County were invited to watch the scenario as well.
Lieutenant of Washington Township Police Department Floyd Peterson attended the training because he thought it would be beneficial to see and possibly implement in his own township. Peterson said he would love to see partners in Washington Township, which includes the Broad Ripple area of Indianapolis, come together and do the same thing.
“You think you know a lot, then you get here and you see other tactics and strategies and you can refine what you have and you can learn from each other,” Peterson said.
