Photo By Petty Officer 1st Class William Phillips | NSAB security personnel engage a suspect during an active shooter drill Feb. 2 at the...... read more read more
Guns shots ring out through speakers set up in the shoe department of the Navy Exchange Bethesda Feb. 2.
The artificial gun shots are a part of the active shooter portion of Solid Curtain/Citadel Shield 2017.
“It’s an annual Navy-wide assessment of an installation’s force protection posture,” said Master-at-Arms 2nd Class Brian Barton, the Anti-Terrorism Training Team assistant coordinator. “It gives the Navy an ability to see how all of the bases are responding at regional level.”
The exercise is designed to train security personnel in dealing with an active shooter on base and learn where the security department can work on.
“The event helps security personnel in realizing what areas we could work on in training and what we are doing well in,” said Master-at-Arms 2nd Class Joshua Reynolds, exercise coordinator. “We can focus in on our weaknesses, so in case something was to happen in real life, we will be able to accomplish the mission because we have already trained for a similar situation.”
Solid Curtain also gives personnel other than security a view of what security does for the base.
“This helps personnel on base to get an understanding of what security personnel go through in an actual event,” said Reynolds. “Things that they aren’t used to like gate closures or road closures, may seem like an inconvenience now but if a real event were to happen then they can have the peace of mind to know that we have trained for the situation.”
The Navy Exchange at Bethesda hosted the active shooter drill this year because of the tough environment law enforcement would face in an actual incident.
“The Exchange is one of our most populated areas on base as far as foot traffic goes,” said Reynolds. “It could be a likely target because people are in there shopping and they aren’t expecting anything like that to happen. There have been instances where an active shooter has gone into a mall or shopping center and started shooting. We just want to be as ready for any situation as we can be.”
While there is still room to improve, Reynolds said that all the objectives have been met and he is satisfied with his department’s performance.
To make sure NSAB is ready for different incidents they train for multiple scenarios that train more than just security forces.
“We also have a number of different exercises that we put our naval security forces and our civilian security force through so they work together to accomplish the mission,” said Reynolds. “We might do an exercise that has someone running the gate with an IED. We just had the active shooter that involved bringing in fire and EMS for treatment. We will also have false credential drills, where someone will try to get on base with a fake id. The reason for this is to check our sentry’s ability to pick up on it and detect it and deal with it accordingly.”
NSAB participates in drills like these to make the base more secure.
“There is always a chance that someone could attempt to attack the base,” said Barton. “By making the base a harder target for them, we are making the probability lower because we have already trained for a response. If someone happens to be observing the base and sees that we are able to respond to these types of events it does help minimize the likelihood of someone going through with the attack.”
| Date Taken: | 02.06.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 02.06.2017 12:34 |
| Story ID: | 222623 |
| Location: | BETHESDA, MARYLAND, US |
| Web Views: | 80 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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