'Active shooter' interrupts pre-deployment brief

  • Published
  • By Chrissy Cuttita
  • Team Eglin Public Affairs
EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  Everything seemed normal at the pre-deployment briefing at the Eglin Readiness Center July 8.

Approximately 20 personnel listened to a speaker tell them what to expect during their future deployment. After that they knew they would walk down the line of support agencies and check off their "to do" list.

Instead they were rushed out of the briefing room after an audience member stood up, shot off his gun and screamed irately. Light blaring emergency vehicles and menacing guard dogs showed up in the parking lot within moments to apprehend the madman.

Luckily he was just pretending to be an active shooter and his empty paintball gun wasn't deadly.

Security forces personnel exercise this type of scenario frequently at the flight level and several times yearly at the wing level.

"It is now routine training as we adapt to the ever evolving threats we encounter," said Staff Sgt. Hunter Harper, 96th Security Forces Squadron standards and evaluation section. "'Active Shooter' is an important scenario to train on to ensure the tactics that are being taught are absorbed by the Airman who will actually encounter such a scenario."

Incidents like the tragedy at Fort Hood, Texas, recently gave Eglin's police force a reason to constantly be prepared for anything. Additionally, base personnel are made aware of appropriate emergency response actions by unexpectedly being pulled into the exercise.

"This was actually a real deployment line to maintain the realism of the scenario," said Sergeant Harper. All the individuals who were attending the 'real world' deployment briefing were essentially the victims because they were unaware of the exercise."

Esteban Ruiz wore the military's Desert Combat Uniform and sat in the audience as if he was one of the deploying Airmen before he performed his role of active shooter. His act landed him in a familiar position of being face down on the floor and handcuffed by his co-workers.

"I'm kind of used to it since it is part of our training element," said Mr. Ruiz, 96th SFS instructor. "We teach security forces personnel to search thoroughly as officer safety can be jeopardized by even the smallest weapon."

He said the responding security forces got him pretty good, neutralizing the threat he exercised.

"The important thing for the base populous to understand and take away from these exercises is to be mindful of the possibilities and take appropriate actions in the event this situation ever does occur," said Sergeant Hunter. "Any personnel who could potentially be involved in this type of scenario should take cover in offices, secure all doors and don't try to be a hero. Security Forces are trained to respond in a certain way and to alleviate any confusion on who the 'subjects' are; we need to be able to identify those individuals. If someone tries to be the hero, the responding patrols may not be able to determine 'friends from foe.'"

Security forces personnel said the exercise helped them improve their response procedures and be prepared for anything that can happen.

Similarly, the base population should be advised they can inadvertently end up playing in a security forces exercise because Mr. Ruiz said he loves portraying characters in public scenerios.

"I believe it definitely helps members get prepared for different situations on our end," he said. "Our goal is to keep members as focused and involved as possible for what they may encounter here stateside or overseas. When they see us instructors go out of our way to make at recreate what they may encounter, you get the response we got during the exercise," he said.