Stepped-up training for active-shooter situations

Upstate facility, featuring simulated city, offers free courses to local police depts.

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In May, President Obama signed an executive order to demilitarize the police, banning the Pentagon from issuing surplus military hardware — including rifles, grenade launchers and armored vehicles — to police departments nationwide. His decision was a response to the shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., by a police officer the previous August.

Fast-forward seven months, to the aftermath of the Paris terrorist attacks and last week’s mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., and the Nassau County Police Department was announcing a different agenda.

“Approximately one-third of all active shooters in this country over the last several years used long weapons” —which use faster, heavier projectiles with greater accuracy over longer distances — said Acting Police Commissioner Thomas Krumpter. “It was quite clear that we had to increase the capabilities of the members of this department.”

In a press conference last week, Krumpter and County Executive Ed Mangano announced the purchase of 150 M400 squat rifles, heavy armor and helmets, and the extension of a program that will ultimately train 200 officers in active-shooter situations. Krumpter said that such a program had already been in use for five years, and this was an addition to those efforts. “We cannot wait for tactical response team to get to the scene,” he said. “The longer we wait, the more people are going to die.”

Like the NCPD, the Malverne Police Department, and many other village departments across Long Island, have made active-shooter scenarios a part of their training. The Malverne department uses the Department of Homeland Security’s State Preparedness Training Center, which offers local, state and federal agencies free training on a 723-acre complex in Oriskany, N.Y., about 100 miles northwest of Albany.

“The SPTC is an amazing facility, and the only one of its kind in New York,” said Kristin Devoe, its public information officer. “The jewel of this facility is Cityscape, where active-shooter training is done.”

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