Crime & Safety
Training for Unthinkable Scenarios
Sammamish police took part in intensive training recently to better prepare for unthinkable crimes, such as school shootings and other threats.
A school shooting is every town and every parent’s worst nightmare. The combination of kids, guns and chaos is not something that any parent ever wants to have to confront. Nor does any police department. Police do prepare for it, though.
“You can’t not be prepared,” said King County Sheriff's Deputy Larry Zydek, who is assigned to the Sammamish police force.
For that reason, Zydek and several other deputies who patrol Sammamish streets took part in specialized “Active Shooter and Patrol” training about two weeks ago at Highline High School in Burien.
The training, in which the deputies fired their weapons and were fired upon, is another reminder of daily life a decade after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
During the 40-hour course, the deputies took part in mock drills and performance evaluations intended to improve their teamwork, effectiveness and preparedness. The course is taught by Master Police Officer Nick Minzghor and his Active Shooter Training instructors.
On this day, each drill begins with the sound of screaming kids, all of them volunteers, and then a stampede as they run from their classroom, spill into the hallway and charge down the stairs.
In one particular exercise, the deputies work their way through the throng of frightened kids, rush up the stairs and breach the classroom where they know there is at least one shooter and people inside.
There’s gunfire, yelling and panic as the deputies burst into the room.
“In the room it’s like shock and awe,” Zydek said. “Get in, neutralize the bad guy as soon as you can.”
The deputies bring the shooter, another volunteer, down quickly. But not every deputy comes through unscathed. The shooter returns fire. Fortunately, everyone is firing paint projectiles, and they will all have a chance to walk out of the room and try again, humbled but better trained.
“This is intense,” Zydek said. “You’re dealing with live force-on-force gunfire, you’re getting hit, they’re getting hit...there’s people running and screaming, there’s chairs in the way. It’s very active.”
With the shooter down, the deputies try to make sense of the chaos, make sure they’ve gotten all of the bad guys, secure the room and get the kids to safety. The exercise is over quickly, but they will do it over and over again throughout the day and the week.
After each attempt, the team of deputies meets with an instructor and breaks down the drill. What worked, what didn’t, what they need to think about doing next time, all in the name of getting better, more prepared.
Zydek believes that this sort of visceral training is important, and the more real it seems – the shooting, the chaos – the better.
“Stress inoculation,” he said. “You have to go through it.”
Zydek believes that the specter of getting shot at and of having to return fire is a crucial part of the experience, that it hones the deputies in ways other things just can’t.
“You’ve got a fraction of a second and things are happening and people are screaming,” he said. “It really helps, just for daily stuff, to be able to make that snap decision really, really fast.”
Not too long ago the average police officer wasn’t expected to train this way, wasn’t expected to respond to school shootings in this manner. That was the purpose of SWAT. Why the change in doctrine?
“Because of Columbine,” Zydek said, referring to the fatal attack in 1999 by two teenagers at the high school in Colorado. “It used to be we would stand off, secure the perimeter, wait for SWAT.”
Unfortunately police learned that waiting can lead to more tragedy.
“They did what they were supposed to do at Columbine. They stood off for 45 minutes and people were just getting shot,” Zydek said. “Now they want us to just go right in.”
And because there are so many schools in the area – three high schools, two middle schools and a junior high school, and even more elementary schools, the is putting an emphasis on training on these types of scenarios.
“It’s a priority with our department,” Sammamish Police Chief Nate Elledge said.
Of the 22 deputies who work for the Sammamish police force, 18 have gone through the training. The remainder will have completed it by the end of the year.
“It can be a violent world out there and you’ve got to do what you can to prepare for this,” Zydek said.
