Screaming civilians ran down the hall past pale-faced gunshot victims collapsed on the floor, while tactical response teams swept room-to-room in search of the shooter or shooters.
Taking advantage of spring break and the empty corridors of Mercer County Community College (MCCC), the West Windsor police department organized a multi-agency active shooter drill March 14. The blood-splattered victims were academy police recruits caked in makeup, and detectives from the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office played the perpetrators.
The training exercise was organized by sergeant Danny Mohr, a 17-year veteran of the township police department. In charge of the traffic division, Mohr also commands the township’s nine-member tactical response team. (The other two SWAT teams in the area, part of the Mercer County Sheriff’s Office and Hamilton township police department, also participated in the exercise.)
Mohr organized the exercise after the security staff at MCCC approached the township police on preparing for active shooter training.
“The goal is simply to form relationships working together with our partners,” Mohr said. “In a scenario such as an active shooter, you’re going to have responses from every agency in the area, including state and federal agencies. We want to build those relationships, see what works, what doesn’t, and improve for the future.”
Security representatives from Rider and Princeton universities were present at MCCC, as were various EMS units. After the exercise, a Drug Enforcement Agency member and experts from state agencies evaluated the law enforcement response to the simulated active shooter and bomb scenarios.
With the many schools, retail, and business offices in the area, the township’s police and EMS departments are preparing for the unimaginable. According to Mohr, the township’s tactical response team does a walk-through of the township’s public school buildings every year, and the department has conducted drills at the schools.
Last year the police department held a multi-agency drill at the Carnegie Center office complex, and Mohr recalls another training exercise 10 years ago at Quakerbridge Mall in Lawrence.
A new addition to this year’s exercise is the township’s active shooter rescue task force, a joint EMS-police initiative. Similar to firefighters rescuing occupants inside a still blazing building, the task force is trained to provide emergency care while a violent incident may still be ongoing. During one of the simulated drills, three patrol officers and two unarmed EMS personnel carried out two immobilized victims.
While a separate police contact team is responsible for neutralizing any perpetrators, the joint rescue task force arrives shortly thereafter to rescue casualties. The speedy response from an emergency personnel task force saved multiple lives in the recent San Bernardino shooting in California.
“With a lot of past events nationwide, fire and EMS stood outside until the building is cleared by police,” said lieutenant Brian Magnin of the EMS department. “Our focus is to stop bleeding and get people out, with police as our protection. You got the hot zone where the shooter would be and we’d operate in the warm zone, with the knowledge that it could turn into a hot zone.”
The EMS staff held a three-day training session the weekend before the MCCC exercise alongside the police department and Princeton’s EMS personnel. Tac-Med Education provided the training, known as “Tactical Combat Casualty Care.” The training included simulated drills to prepare the task force to work as a coordinated group.
The main purpose of the training is to learn techniques on staying safe, delivering care under fire, and performing self-rescue in the event a team member is shot.
“This class focuses on the self-rescue techniques, if one of the team members gets shot, and also how to extricate the victims rapidly,” Magnin said. “If a team member is shot in the arm, they can put on a tourniquet and keep moving on. A lot has been learned on the military front, and they’ve brought that research back and put it on the first responder level. Some of the tactics are being used to teach the officers how to save themselves and their partners.”
The 15-member EMS department has added three members since the township’s disbanding of the Twin W Rescue Squad one year ago, and 13 EMS members will receive combat casualty training and certification. They will also regularly train with police officers.
This is Magnin’s 19th year working in West Windsor and he was promoted to lieutenant last summer. The new active shooter task force is based on recently established models elsewhere in the state, and the hope is that additional departments in Mercer County will also form rescue task forces. A Neptune resident, Magnin works part-time as an EMT in his hometown. Neptune, alongside a dozen other shore communities, has already set up a cooperative active shooter rescue task force. Two other West Windsor EMS personnel work per diem for the Cherry Hill Fire Department, which also has a similar task force.
“Hopefully you never need us but if you do we’re prepared,” Mohr said.
