Prospectus

Issue date: 4/8/09 Section: News

Media Credit: Jonathan Bouvet and Jesse Woodrum With students away on spring break, several police agencies met at Parkland to train for the distasteful, but ever present, threat of an "active shooter" on campus. Police used paint pellets on the "threat."

Alarms blared and gunshots rang out through the halls of the college center's second floor over spring break as a handful of regional law enforcement agencies took part in an active shooter response training exercise.

The Police Training Institute (PTI) trained officers from Parkland Public Safety, Illinois State Police, Mahomet Police Department and others on Friday, March 27 in what has become somewhat of an annual event. Last year the exercise was held at Mahomet High School and Mahomet patrol officer Rebecca Goodwin said she thought Parkland College would provide a unique layout for training officers to find an armed threat in a public building.

The 53 year-old PTI does Police Academy training at UIUC and trains current officers through several training programs.

The officers practiced approaching and breaching exterior doors and searching corridors. They also learned the hand signals that indicate who is to enter a room first and which direction they will maneuver once inside.

Goodwin, who volunteered at last year's exercise, took part again this year. This time, however, she was the target. Over the course of several exercises she took several air-fired pellets including one in the middle of her forehead-a direct hit.

Trainers said the compressed half-day of training was to teach how to care for injured people, how to handle an active threat, and how to deal with improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to members of small agencies without the resources for a full-time SWAT team.

Goodwin says they would like to train more often and more extensively if they had the money for it.

The media was not allowed to watch some exercises and some trainers wore unmarked clothing and weren't identified by name. However, they did tell reporters that officers were from Champaign, Vermillion and Piatt counties. They also said there were officers from Parkland Public Safety, and officers from adjacent agencies may well be working together in a real life scenario.

School violence hit close to home last February when a gunman opened fire from a stage at Northern Illinois University in Dekalb, killing five and wounding many others. The residual fear is palpable with Parkland's new emergency alert system, IRIS, which can send a text message, email, or telephone call in an emergency to any student who signs up for the service. Trainers say this exercise makes officers more prepared to deal with a situation they hope to never have to encounter.

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