By BECKY KISER
Hays Post
“It’s only an exercise,” stressed Fort Hays State University Director of Police and Security Ed Howell.
Local emergency responders will conduct an “active shooter” exercise Tuesday, Sept. 22, from about 11:30 a.m. until 3 p.m. at Forsyth Library on the FHSU campus.
The scenario, which will include 30 FHSU students and faculty wearing special badges and acting as “players”, will be staged as if an individual has been observed entering Forsyth Library with a weapon. Gunfire is heard and there are reports of casualties.
The exercise is designed to “test the capabilities of law enforcement and emergency management teams in case of an emergency situation,” said Howell.
“Not only do you have the law enforcement’s response at Forsyth Library, you also have the Incident Management Team that will manage the event to support the Incident Commander at the site of the active shooter exercise. The intent is to make sure not only are we property trained–this is not a training scenario, it’s an actual exercises to test what our processes are,” Howell explained.
“The intent is to identify what we did well, what we need to do better and our lessons learned.”
Forsyth Library will be closed during the exercise; other campus activities will not be disrupted. Classes will meet as scheduled. Scheduled events including the Encore performance will proceed as planned.
Local units participating in the exercise include the University Police Department, Hays Police Department, the Hays Emergency Communication Center, the Kansas Highway Patrol, the Ellis County Sheriff’s Department, Ellis County Emergency Management and the Kansas Division of Emergency Management.
Concurrently, Hays Medical Center, Ellis County Emergency Medical Service and the Hays Fire Department will conduct a tabletop exercise at the hospital to test their mass casualty and triage responses.
As part of the exercise, subscribers to the campus notification system will receive a test alert message.
In an article Howell wrote for the International Association of Chiefs of Police, in the final concluding paragraph he stated “it can happen anywhere at any time.”
“It is incumbent upon us to make sure that we are properly trained, have the equipment to respond and then test our process.”
Howell said he always encourages people to think about what they would do if they were to find themselves in an active shooter event.
There are resources on the FHSU Police Department’s website to become more prepared.
“We have a video produced by Homeland Security called ‘Run. Hide. Fight.'”, Howell said. “It’s pretty dramatic but it gives you a pretty good understanding of the dynamics of what’s going to happen when you have an active shooter event.”