Photo By Sgt. Amber Bohlman | Seaman Zachary Reasinger clears the lower level of the weapons department while Petty...... read more read more
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GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba – A 911 call was placed at the Weapons Department building signaling the start of an active-shooter exercise, Nov. 13 at NAVSTA.
It was one of a multitude of scenarios preparing for possible threats here during an exercise called Valiant Sentinel.
“It is an annual requirement for every installation to exercise its anti-terrorism posture, and test our skills as far as how we respond and communicate with other entities aboard our installation,” said Chief Petty Officer Kenton Thomas, leading chief petty officer of the training department for security here.
The purpose of this scenario was to apprehend two active shooters, in a timely manner, and give a realistic scenario for first responders; such as the contact and rescue teams.
Fifteen role players doused each other with fake blood and placed themselves strategically around the basement as the shooters positioned themselves on the third floor. The scenario gave medical and fire personnel as close to a real life experience as possible.
When everyone was ready, the call was placed and a four-person contact team arrived in a matter of minutes.
“Our strength overall was getting here. I know the base isn’t big, but making sure that what is happening stays contained is is really important,” said Seaman Jacob McCormick, patrol supervisor on scene.
It took the contact team roughly 15 minutes to get into the room the two shooters barricaded themselves in and apprehend them. That gave medical personnel adequate time from the initial attack to save as many lives as possible.
“We wanted to see it all in action to make sure all facets of NAVSTA can work together to neutralize the threat and take care of everyone who needs to be taken care of,” McCormick said. “Once we established our incident command posts, communication between all parts; fire, medical, our emergency operations center and us became very fluid.”
This training is done every year to ensure that our installation is adequately prepared for this type of real-life situation.
| Date Taken: | 11.13.2014 |
| Date Posted: | 11.20.2014 14:09 |
| Story ID: | 148384 |
| Location: | GUANTANAMO BAY, CU |
| Web Views: | 46 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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