Active shooter drill preps South Fayette, Bridgeville police
Seargent John Leininger (left) and patrolman Chris Manolakos, instructors in the Dec. 20 training session, demonstrate how to approach a room with a potential threat.
Slicing the pie: the instructors show fellow officers how to detect threats and keep everyone involved safe during a room approach.
Realistic fake weapons are part of the drill. The mock glock handguns and M4 rifles share the weight and look of their lethal, real-life counterparts.
Officer Chris Manolakos holds one of the gel-paint rounds used in the training. “This will hurt more than a paintball. That’s why I’m wearing a sweatshirt.”
Sargent John Leininger has a four-leaf clover tattoo, but he, along with a dozen other officers from South Fayette and Bridgeville police departments, aren’t dealing with potential active shooter situations with sheer luck.
South Fayette Police Sgt. Leininger and Bridgeville Police patrolman Chris Manolakos took fellow officers through the halls of South Fayette Intermediate School Dec. 20 to keep their “ALERT” skills honed.
“That’s Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid-Response Training. It’s training through the Department of Homeland Security for the average patrolman to assess a situation and react quickly to things like an active shooter. For a situation like that, you’re relying on local police; us getting here in five to seven minutes, because a SWAT team is going to take 20-30 minutes,” Manolakos said.
“But it’s important to know – and know how to evaluate – if an active shooter situation escalates to a hostage situation. Because then we need to call SWAT and reassess our strategy to make sure we’re helping them keep everyone involved safe,” Leininger said.
Keeping fellow officers safe is part of the drill. Unlike SWAT tactics of “stacking” outside a doorway, local police work in pairs and “slice the pie” when approaching an open doorway. The tactic has a person sidestepping toward a door while keeping as much of himself hidden as possible while trying to identify potential threats.
“You have to start ‘slicing’ six feet back from the door so you can start using mirrors, TVs, anything that can offer a reflection and a potential look at threats and those who are inside,” Leininger said.
The drills held inside schools, hospitals and other public spaces aren’t merely for show, either.
“This is to get a handle on these environments. That’s so we know generally the layout and our response times to these locations,” Manolakos said.
Training would normally be done with 11 other departments, part of the West Hills COG, or Chamber of Government unit, that pools training and emergency resources.
“This training was in-house. In order to use COG equipment, we have to have the other departments present or at least invited. But we want to finish up our localized training with all of the schools. We’ve now ‘toured’ each school building in our area, and in the spring, we’ll train in the new UPMC (Children’s South) building,” said South Fayette Police Chief John Phoennik, “and we try to do this ALERT training at least four times a year.”
South Fayette relied on the West Hills COG for boats and other equipment during floods in 2004 and 2013, according to Phoennik.