Two weeks after a shooting in Midtown Atlanta resulted in one woman dead, four women injured and a man charged with murder and aggravated assault, Atlanta’s public safety agencies were training for the next mass incident.
Atlanta police officers and firefighters conducted the latest in a series of active shooter trainings at Oakland Cemetery Thursday. The first responders train together quarterly throughout the city.
“This training prepares us for the unknown, meaning an active shooter event has so many active pieces,” Atlanta Fire Chief Roderick Smith said. “It places our members in an uncomfortable space so they can adapt to anything that may come.”
Smith said command teams decide together where training needs to take place, taking into account different active shooter incidents throughout the country. Smith said the goal is to put personnel in different situations that they are not prepared for to allow them to adapt and work together to save lives.
Credit: Miguel Martinez
Credit: Miguel Martinez
“We are training in the park because it’s one of the jewels of Atlanta,” said Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum. “It’s important that the firefighters, paramedics, police officers, should we be called upon to perform and save lives in this space, that we do it right and we do it in a manner that meets the expectations of our community.”
He added a note of support for the city’s planned training center, which protesters have loudly, and occasionally violently, opposed.
“The city of Atlanta needs a training center where they can train every day in a manner that is proper,” Schierbaum said. " It’s important for us to be able to do that.”
Credit: Miguel Martinez
Credit: Miguel Martinez
A debrief after Midtown shooting helped inform the training at the cemetery, where responders drilled on rescuing victims and approaching suspects.
Paul Merritt, an instructor with APD’s Critical Incident Training Unit, noted that an officer responding to the Midtown shooting saved the life of one of the women shot by applying a tourniquet before she was transported to Grady Memorial Hospital.
“We can’t hope that it will never happen,” Merritt said of whatever disaster responders will have to rush to next. “As we see across the country, there is no telling where (active shooter events) will happen. We’ve had these incidents happen in open air settings.”
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