More than 150 law officials—from police and deputies to state park rangers and the Highway Patrol—were joined by 80 firefighters and paramedics over a five-day span in an annual training for active shooter scenarios.
Put on by the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office at Soquel High School, the event featured various staged scenarios where someone with a gun opens fire on a crowded campus.
Each scene started with a 911 dispatcher’s call for emergency response for police and medical rescue crews who surged into the campus—which is closed for the summer—to track down the “shooter” and deal with the wounded.
“When you look at what’s happened across the country, we use situations like this to replicate those scenarios and give exposure to responding officers—if they have to respond to it in real life,” said Lt. Dee Baldwin of the Sheriff’s Office. “Prioritizing life is the key thing to work on here; that all comes with speed and so the faster we can get in to help people, the higher the chances are we can save all of them.”
The Sheriff’s Office was joined by Santa Cruz, Capitola, Watsonville, Soledad and Scotts Valley Police departments along with the California Highway Patrol, State Parks, and Fish and Wildlife.
“Teams are working together in the field and that’s going to be the most accurate and effective way for them to respond to something,” Baldwin said. “They’re working with peers and intermixing with other agencies, which is how you go through these things.”
