Local authorities stage active shooter drill Friday

Ten area law enforcement agencies finished an active shooter drill Friday in Fountain.

The exercise, which started earlier this week at School District 8’s Welte Education Center, ended around 1 p.m.

Officers and deputies from the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office, Cripple Creek police, Caon City police, Florence police, Custer County Sheriff’s Office, Pikes Peak Community College, Monument police, Fort Carson Department of Emergency Services and the Fountain fire and police departments were involved in the drill.

Except for some training provided by El Paso County deputies who responded to the November 2015 shooting at Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs, the participating agencies are smaller departments with no experience dealing with active shooter situations resulting in multiple casualties.

“It’s not a question of if it’ll happen, but when,” said Fountain Police Chief Chris Heberer. “We just want to be ready for it.”

In the final drill Friday, officers stormed a classroom with volunteers posing as a gunman, a victim and student hostages.

Heberer said part of the training includes diffusing situations before they become violent and threaten lives.

“If we learn that, we can maybe avoid an active shooter incident,” he said. “We also don’t have the same tensions with the community that police in other places may have.”

Heberer said the officers will later review their performance during the exercise and fine-tune in the areas where improvement is needed.

Officers said they have received similar training on a smaller scale, but not on the larger scale of this week’s event, and they’d like more of it.

Before Friday’s conclusion, officers observed a moment of silence to remember the officers killed and wounded in the Dallas, Texas, shooting Thursday night.

Heberer said around 350 officers, including Fort Carson soldiers, attended the exercise.