Nearly 60 law enforcement officers complete active shooter management training in Decatur

DECATUR, Ala. (WAFF) - Around 60 first responders continued extensive training for emergency situations.

When Lt. Mike Leonard with Decatur Fire and Rescue took an active shooter management course in 2019, he knew more first responders in the area should get the training.

“This course focuses more on the command and control aspect of it, which is something we struggle with because we do not deal with it a lot,” said Leonard.

Kevin Burd, Director of Training for C3 Pathways, says this training can help prepare law enforcement for almost any scenario.

“It’s hands-on, tactics based. This looks a the overall incident management process. We get law enforcement, fire, EMS, emergency managers, dispatchers, and PIOs all involved. During the course of three days, we provide 11 scenarios that they have to manage,” said Burd.

The training scenario WAFF walked in on was a courthouse shooting and hostage incident.

“An active shooter incident is going to be very chaotic. This class does a good job of helping give a blueprint and foundation so through that process we have something to strive for and receive an efficient outcome,” said Leonard.

Around 15 agencies with a total of 60 law enforcement officers joined in on the training. It costs 500 dollars a seat per person each day, but the training you see here was free.

“Homeland Security does a great job of funding this training. I put in an application with C3 Pathways. It has been about a 2.5-year process and got a phone call in April, and they had a date that worked for us,” said Leonard.

Thankfully, active shooter scenes don’t happen every day, but officers can still apply this day to day.

“It applies even to large care wrecks, even when you have large car wrecks. When you have media coming in, families wanting to check on people,” said Leonard.

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