Police face more risks, but train for worst as mass shootings grow

Ventura

Bullet sounds broke the quiet at a Thousand Oaks campus as sheriff's officers trained for one of the riskiest assignments police ever get: stopping a mass shooting.

Wearing armored vests and protective helmets, they pursued an officer acting the role of the shooter and stalking empty classrooms at the exercise at Westlake High School.

Deputies with the Ventura County Sheriff's Office sized up the threat, climbed dozens of steps to reach him and shot modified but nonlethal bullets to take him down.

Welcome to a glimpse of police training for mass shootings, which recent data suggest have become increasingly risky for the officers who try to stop them.

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It's not usually a job for special teams of tactical and weapons specialists anymore because the experience at Columbine High School 20 years ago showed too many people would be dead by the time they could get there.

Police did not enter the Colorado school for more than 30 minutes while waiting for the SWAT team to arrive, the conventional approach at the time, according to a 2014 report from the Police Executive Research Forum.

Now, the duty falls to patrol officers and usually just a few who can get there quickly, academic and police sources say.

That's what transpired late last year when a sheriff's sergeant on patrol and a California Highway Patrol officer responded to the Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks, where gunman Ian David Long was firing into a crowd of more than 200 people.

Twelve people were killed, including the sergeant, 54-year-old Ron Helus. Long fired more than 50 rounds, killing 11 people and striking Helus multiple times before fatally shooting himself in the head, officials in the sheriff's office reported.

Helus was fatally struck by a round fired from the rifle of CHP Officer Todd Barrett as the two officers were responding to the shooting, officials said.

Sheriff's officials are still investigating the incident and have released few details about the response. But detectives handling the probe have said Helus and Barrett were the only two officers who engaged Long with gunfire before he killed himself.

A lot like combat

Nationally, police agencies started sending in teams of four or five officers after the 1999 shooting at Columbine.

But that was found to take too long and less than four is now common, said J. Pete Blair, executive director of a nationally recognized training center at Texas State University.

Blair, who studied 84 active shooting incidents from 2000 to 2010, says the chance that police officers will get shot during their response appears to have increased over the past seven years.

He said it's hard to say why, but that it may stem from the fact that they're getting to the scene quicker and confronting shooters who are fighting back.

The challenges in dealing with mass shooters are a lot like combat, said Senior Deputy Nick Odenath, a member of the sheriff's SWAT team who coordinated the training at Westlake High early this month.

"We're talking about opposing forces with firearms," he said.

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But training helps, said Joe Ramirez, a school resource officer who went through the exercise at Westlake High.

"Anytime this training happens, it helps you prepare for the worst," said the 46-year-old officer who works at Newbury Park High.

Ramirez says law enforcement work is scary — period.

"You never know if you're going to come home," he said.

During the exercises, the officers are taught to form teams and move to the last known location of the attacker as well as keep track of what's behind them. Sometimes distractions are added such as strobe lights, radio traffic, the sounds of cell phones and fire alarms, mimicking what could happen in reality.

The sheriff's office has developed at least 20 training scenarios but leaves room for the officers to make decisions, such as switching weapons when a firearm jams, officials said.

"We want them to think," said sheriff's Capt. Bill Schierman, who oversees the active-shooting training program for the largest law enforcement agency in the county.

Difference between life or death

Five years ago, a national report cited police policies that called for training in critical tasks, including how to assess the scene, enter a room, recognize explosive devices and provide emergency aid.

But problems remain, said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, the organization in Washington, D.C., that published the report.

Small police departments don't have the resources to provide the training and chiefs of major police departments "lie awake at night" wondering if their officers are prepared to deal with an incident like the shootings in El Paso or Dayton, he said.

"This is happening virtually everywhere, and it's hard to predict," Wexler said. "I think what we've learned is the importance of response. Thirty seconds, a minute can mean the difference between life and death."

Officials with the sheriff's office say they have been running a training program for mass shooter incidents since shortly after the attack at Columbine High School in 1999, but that they adapt it to keep up with changes they see around the nation.

“It’s to the point where you have to prepare for as much evil as you can," Schierman said.

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Officers also fine-tune training methods based on what they learn from the exercises. No tactics have been changed as a result of the response at Borderline, Schierman said.

He and other officials said they could not comment on the Borderline response and what it might mean for the active-shooter training because the shooting is still under investigation.

Officials had initially said the investigation might be completed by September, but it now may be delayed until November or later.

Sheriff Bill Ayub said he plans to increase the frequency of training sessions and has been adding complexity since the Borderline incident. The agency is also looking at acquiring upgraded body armor and making improvements to the standard rifles, shotguns and pistols officers carry, Ayub said.

An analysis of the police response at the Borderline is pending.

Training scenarios

The Texas training center's introductory class takes 16 hours on top of the training that recruits get in police academies, Blair said.

He said other modules are also offered along with education for the people who do the training. He did not know of any police agencies in Ventura County that have taken the training, saying California prefers to go its own way.

The sheriff's office started holding its own training sessions at campuses after Columbine but has branched out to more venues because the shooters have, Schierman said. Drills are now held at office buildings, restaurants, theaters and shopping malls.

Six training scenarios were planned Aug. 8 at Westlake High, but most were off limits to the media. A spokeswoman said that was done to ensure no tactics were disclosed.

One that was shown to the media was the basic drill for deputies, and the other an exercise where firefighters and deputies teamed up to find and rescue victims in the school's theater.

Deputies checked the safety of the area and the youths pretending to be survivors, followed by firefighters who could provide emergency medical care. These joint rescues are rooted in the idea that emergency medical personnel need to get into mass casualty areas as quickly as possible to save lives once the immediate danger is likely past.

It would be difficult to find a police department anywhere that does not offer training for mass shooting incidents, Blair said.

He said more hours of training is better, but that departments are limited by competing demands for other types of training and their job duties.

"The amount will vary," he said, noting that some have added medical training programs so officers can apply tourniquets or clear airways before it's safe to get emergency medical personnel inside.

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Patrol officers in police departments in Simi Valley, Oxnard, Santa Paula and Ventura receive about eight hours of training each year, according to an informal survey. If officers graduated from the sheriff's training academy in Camarillo, they got another four hours.

That number was upped this year to eight and now 16 hours for the class that will graduate in October, said Capt. Mark Franke, who oversees the program.

Ryan Weeks, the SWAT commander who oversees active-shooter training for the city of Ventura, said he would not call eight hours of training ideal. But there's not enough time or capacity to do more with demands for other types of training, he said.

Most of the hundreds of officers in the sheriff's office are offered the opportunity to take part in the trainings for active-shooter incidents, Schierman said. It was not clear how many hours of active-shooter training that sheriff's patrol officers receive each year on top of that.

He said deputies get a day of active shooter training when they leave their posts in county jails, the first stop after they graduate from the sheriff's training academy and before they're assigned to patrol. They also receive informal training from sergeants and the instruction that is provided on active-shooting incidents in the training academy.

Kathleen Wilson covers the Ventura County government, including the county health system, politics and social services. Reach her at kathleen.wilson@vcstar.com or 805-437-0271.