Posted by Hey Instructors! on 11/6/2009, 9:34 pm
I hate to interrupt the usual useless banter on here with something of actual importance to police officers, but I thought this excerpt from a news article would make a good debate topic:
From Wire:
Lessons learned from the horrific Virginia Tech shootings in 2007 are credited with averting an even bigger massacre at Fort Hood, Texas, Thursday afternoon when police officer Kimberly Munley confronted the gunman without waiting for backup and took him down with four shots.
Reviews in the aftermath of the shootings at Virginia Tech, where 32 died, found that first responders' decision to be careful and wait for backup probably cost lives as that gunman moved unchecked from classroom to classroom as law enforcement massed outside.
Those findings had found their way to Fort Hood's Special Reaction Team, which had practiced an entirely new protocol for at least a year before Thursday afternoon's rampage here, in which 13 were killed and at least 28 wounded.
"The lesson from Virginia Tech was, don't wait for backup but move to the target and eliminate the shooter," says Chuck Medley, chief of Fort Hood's emergency services. "It requires courage and it requires skill."
The task on Thursday fell to the petite Ms. Munley, a civilian police officer employed by the Army at Fort Hood. Munley had taken part in intensive active-shooter training during the past year.
I have always thought this way, as have most of my fellow officers. I just don't see myself hanging around outside with my thumb up my ass, deciding what letter of the alphabet we should form into while waiting for god knows how long for other officers to arrive, while people are suffering inside, and lives are being lost. ...What do you guys think?
Responses: