Oak Creek shooting
Law enforcement students at local college taught how to handle crises
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Nick Montes reports Video by 620wtmj.com
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PEWAUKEE- Police often train for disasters like the temple massacre.
Students involved in law enforcement courses at the Waukesha County Technical College (WCTC) have been looking at this mass shooting in Oak Creek -- and they can see how quickly things can change.
Those police recruits are about to become officers at the end of the month.
One day they could be in a tense situation like the one at the Sikh temple.
"As instructors we look at these situations to see how we can improve training down the road so that no officers are injured or hurt," said Brian Dorow, associate dean of WCTC's criminal justice-law enforcement program.
The recruits must train about 520 hours to prepare for any situation.
"First responder type training - first level awareness - situational training awareness and just the basics to do their job," said Dorow, describing the training process.
It's not just recruits who are learning about tense situations involving an active shooter. A simulation lab is used as a refresher course for police officers in active shooting.
"You come into a room. It appears to be OK and you come into another room and now you have a threat," explained Dorow.
The most important thing students must remember if they ever find themselves in a mass shooting: "The very first thing that you need to know or you need to do is mitigate the threat," said Dorow.
Which is what officers did on that horrible Sunday morning during the temple shooting.
"You cannot render aid, you cannot secure the scene when you have a suspect shooting," said Dorow.
TODAY'S TMJ4 has been told that a majority of the graduates of the law enforcement training center actually work in the state.
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