Training for the Unthinkable Helps UC Police Be Prepared for the Worst

The thought of a gunman loose on campus is something no university ever wants to face.

But students, faculty and staff at the University of Cincinnati are at less risk from that kind of threat today, thanks to a successful large-scale drill held on campus Monday afternoon by UC Police and public safety officials.

The academic building known as Old Chemistry was the site of an "active shooter" response drill, in which UC Police on duty had to respond to reports of shots fired by a suspect within the building, organize into a response team, enter the building and locate and apprehend the shooter.

UC Police have been training to respond to situations like these since shortly after the Columbine High School tragedy, but Monday’s drill was the largest in scale of any practice effort to date.

Students and other volunteers were role-playing as victims within the building, with a member of the police force taking on the role of the shooting suspect. Special paintball-like munitions known as "simunitions" were used by the police and the suspect in the drill.

Outside of the building, the shift commander on duty had to set up a command post and, in addition to coordinating the response within the building, had to coordinate all of the secondary elements that would be in play in such an unpredictable situation, such as setting up perimeter security, coordinating with other responding agencies such as the Cincinnati Fire Department and Cincinnati Police Department, and engaging campus emergency notification procedures.

"From what we saw, the response went very well," said Capt. Jeff Corcoran, UC’s director of Emergency Services. "You are going to always have some problems you don’t expect in situations like these, and that’s the point of doing these drills."

"This was still a controlled situation (like smaller drills in the past)," said UC Police Chief Gene Ferrara, "but we expanded things a bit. We did this in a real building, one that is actually located on campus. We felt we needed to physically go through all the things we would actually have to do in this kind of situation."

Ferrara emphasized, though, that the goal is never to have to put into action the kind of response required by the drill.

UC Police employ a four-step process for dealing with these kinds of scenarios:

1. Prevention/mitigation
2. Preparation
3. Response
4. Recovery

Monday’s drill was a chance to check on preparedness. But since the Virginia Tech tragedy 15 months ago, an increased emphasis has been placed on prevention and mitigation.

UC is currently rolling out a three-tiered system for identifying and assisting those who might be showing signs of extreme stress or are otherwise giving off recognized warning signs for the potential for violence.

According to Ferrara, the first tier includes faculty members, residence hall personnel and others who interact frequently with students and who might be seeing signs of a problem. Those on the first tier can then share that information with two committees that make up the second tier – one for reaching out to troubled students and a second for reaching out to troubled employees or faculty. Counseling and other forms of assistance are made available by these committees, depending on what is seen as the most appropriate course of action.

The third tier is a threat assessment team made up of professionals from across the university. That team makes an evaluation when specific information, such as a stated threat or extreme behavior, becomes known about an individual on campus. It decides what course of action needs to be taken to protect both the individual and everyone else at the university.

The hope is that having such an integrated system in place will be the most effective tool in protecting the campus environment from the threat of an on-campus shooting. All of the mass school shootings in recent years in the United States have all involved perpetrators with an affiliation to the institution, so recognition may be the best defense available.

"The message we want to send to parents and incoming students is that we do work very hard to try and be ready for any situation," said Corcoran. "We work as hard as we can on prevention, but a drill like this also helps us to be ready for any occasion."