By Melanie Petrucci, Senior Community Reporter
Photo/submitted
Northborough – Sadly, active shooter situations have become more common. Not only happening in schools but in churches, shopping centers and in the workplace – most recently on the campus of Molson Coors Beverage Company in Milwaukee, Wis.
Northborough Police Chief William Lyver recently sent his department to a two-day course Feb. 20-21 at Algonquin Regional High School. The school was useful, providing a real-world setting and was available because students were out of the building for February vacation.
Lyver noted that half of his department went to training on the first day and the other half on the second day so the town was not without police coverage during the span of the training.
“The training was more tactics and movement and working as a team to methodically clear hallways and classrooms in an active shooting situation,” Lyver said.
The training was presented by the Central Massachusetts Law Enforcement council SWAT team. It was offered free of charge through a program from Texas State University, one of the leading research universities in public safety and active shooter and responsiveness.
“They have this evidence-based program on what is the quickest way for law enforcement to terminate an active threat, and it doesn’t have to be a shooter,” he explained.
In addition to Northborough, police officers from Hopkinton and Marlborough also participated.
“The morning component was a classroom portion put on by Sgt. Charlton from the Auburn PD. The purpose of that was to give some historical perspective as to what brought us here and to go over tactically what we were going to be doing,” shared Lt. Joseph Galvin. “We broke off into groups to do exercises as far as how to move individually and as a group and how to properly make entry and clear a room.”
They also learned about the evaluation of a situation to determine what resources they might need given the type of situation they encounter and what to do in an after-shooter situation dealing with the suspect(s) and innocent bystanders.
When asked if they had experienced anything in Northborough remotely resembling an active shooter situation, they both replied that there have been some domestic situations.
Lyver said that the primary takeaway from this training was learning the tactics.
“It’s also giving clear and accurate assertive commands,” he said. “It’s basically treating everybody respectfully while at the same time being assertive and giving clear and concise commands to those in the room.”
