ALERRT Instructor Thomas Moore led the week-long active shooter training that involved representatives from all law enforcement and emergency services agencies in the county. Photo by Adelia Ladson
> Classroom training
Moore led the training, which started with classroom instruction dealing with the principles of rapid response to an active shooter scenario. He used as examples active shooter incidents that had occurred in the past to illustrate the lessons that were learned from them.
Also, during the classroom instruction, Colquitt County 911 Department Head Theresa Warburg spoke to give the participants an idea of what the dispatchers did and how calls were answered when they came into 911.
“ This is just from the dispatch side. We’ re just trying to prepare ourself on how to act and respond and what it’ s gonna be like whenever you have an active shooter,” Warburg said before the training began.“ Just kind of get an overall feel of what it’ s like on their side, so we can see what we don’ t get to see inside a closed building. This way, we can see what’ s going on, on the outside.”
Emergency Management Agency Deputy Director Dustin Hart, who is also president of the Volunteer Firefighters Association, gave instruction on what EMS and firefighters protocols were during an active shooter situation.
“ Training together for mass casualty events is critical for fire, EMS, and law enforcement agencies to ensure a coordinated, efficient, and life-saving response during high-risk, high-stress incidents. Joint training fosters clear communication, role clarity, and unified command, which are essential to minimizing chaos and confusion at the scene,” Hart answered when I asked him about the importance of the training that week.“ Understanding each agency’ s capabilities, limitations, and responsibilities allows responders to work seamlessly under the Incident Command System( ICS), saving valuable time and lives.”
Moore told the class of emergency personnel and officers at the very beginning that they weren’ t just preparing for an active shooter in a school.
“ It’ s any kind of active attack that turns into a mass casualty incident. That’ s what we’ re trying to prepare for. That’ s what we’ re trying to figure out as a team,” he said.“ Fashion some realistic goals for everybody in this room. Law enforcement, Dispatch, Fire and EMS.”
Then he presented and outlined the“ realistic goals for public safety” during a mass casualty incident as:
• Stop the attack as quickly and efficiently as possible.
• Rescue as many of the victims as possible through proper evaluation, triage, medical intervention and rapid transport.
• Provide the community a professional, coordinated response that maintains and increases community trust.
Moore said he was sure every agency that was participating in the training had their own form of active shooter or mass casualty training.
“ Everybody’ s got their own protocols. Everybody’ s got their own procedures and policies,” he added.
Then, he asked the class what happened when those techniques conflicted with other agencies’ policies. He answered the question, himself, with“ unnecessary chaos.”
“ What we’ re trying to do today is to test our training as individual disciplines in a coordinated way with other disciplines,” he said.“ It requires everybody to do their job. It requires everybody to have a basic understanding of the goals of the other public safety disciplines.”
> Law enforcement
Moore added they needed to have a basic understanding of what each agency was trying to accomplish and how they were trying to accomplish it. He said they couldn’ t work together well without that.
AUGUST 2025 MoultrieScene 39