LAKELAND, Fla. — When an active shooter situation unfolds, every second matters. That is why officers from across the country are in Lakeland, sharpening the skills they hope they will never have to use.
This week, the Florida Southern College Campus has become a training ground as officers practice responding to an active shooter situation. Every movement, every command and every decision is treated like the real thing.
WATCH: Active shooter training conference brings first responders to Lakeland to sharpen skills
More than 100 law enforcement officers and firefighters from Florida, New Jersey and Louisiana are participating in the inaugural Florida Active Shooter Training Conference.
"Communication is usually the first thing to break down. So that’s another thing that we work on really hard here, is communication. That way, when we are truly in the heat of the moment, that’s second nature and muscle memory,” said Jeremiah Kendrick.
Kendrick is a battalion chief for Marion County Fire Rescue and serves on the SWAT medic team. He said first responders rarely know what they are walking into, making realistic scenario-based training critical.
"We try to treat everything like a real scenario. Obviously, we go into it with very little information. They don’t give us any information, hardly at all, and let us make informed decisions on our own. Just like we would in real life,” Kendrick said.
The conference combines classroom instruction with live scenarios across campus, including lessons learned from past tragedies like the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando.
Organizers say the goal is to build confidence, improve communication, and speed up response times when lives are on the line.
“Just very basic things that build these officers up. Build their confidence in these incidents. As we all know, time matters, and in the time that you could stop this threat, all those skills kind of come together and make the officers the best that they can be,” said Sgt. Nicholas Rex, with Lakeland Police Dept. and Florida SWAT Association.
The conference also provided Florida Southern College and the Lakeland Police Department with a new tool that could make a difference during an emergency.
“Off the X, they’re an amazing company. They actually donated a hydraulic breaching tool. Not only can it open pretty much any door, it can open up like a jail level door, but also it can deny access,” Rex said.
First responders aim to gain new skills they can take back to protect their own communities.
“Unfortunately, it’s the day that we live in, and this is the thing that happens around the world nowadays. As much as we don’t want to believe in that or understand that that’s here in our community, unfortunately it is. And that’s why we’re here, is to try to help minimize that, God forbid it does happen,” said Kendrick.
Over the next two weeks, Lakeland police officers will continue active shooter training. These exercises are planned training events, and there is no threat to public safety.
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