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Active Shooter Development Workshop Exercise Held in Clayton County for Public Safety Personnel and Community Leaders
(Jonesboro)The Emergency Management Office and Office of Resilience and Sustainability recently hosted a metro-wide Active Shooter Development Workshop to train individuals who are responsible for ensuring the safety of their community. The workshop was held at the Clayton County S. Truett Cathy Professional Learning Center located at 1087 Battle Creek Road in Jonesboro with various agency representatives from throughout the metro Atlanta area. A team from the Emergency Services Training Institute at Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service (TEEX) served as the workshop trainers and provided participants with real-world situations to work through during breakout sessions and one collective body.
David Vazquez, Director of the Office of Emergency Management has participated in the training exercises throughout his career as a public safety official and understands the importance of the Active Shooter workshop. “Unfortunately, we have experienced an unprecedented rise in active shooter situations within the last decade. Therefore, training such as this one allows local government and school public safety officials along with representatives from houses of worship to retail and healthcare agencies to collectively come together and work through real-world active shooter scenarios as a team.”
Clayton County’s Chairman, Jeffrey Turner stopped by to welcome the various agencies that participated in the training. He also emphasized the importance of everyone training and working together if an emergency situation such as this one should arise. The TEEX instructors commended Clayton for having the various sectors of the community present at the training exercise because it will take the unification of a community to move through this type of disaster.
Some of those agencies that attended the tabletop exercise included Clayton County Fire and Emergency Services, Forest Park Fire and Emergency, Clayton County Police Department, Clayton County Public School Safety Officers, Clayton County Parks and Recreation, GEMA, Southern Regional Medical Center, Piedmont Henry, Georgia State University and Southlake Mall.
According to the Gun Violence Archives, there were more mass shootings in 2023 than there were days in the year. Therefore, public safety officials and community stakeholders need to be prepared on how to coordinate and communicate effectively during an active shooter incident. Whether it occurs at the local mall, a place of worship, or a school, community leaders along with public safety officials have received the proper training to coordinate, communicate, and assist during an active shooter incident after attending this workshop.