First Responders Undergo Active Shooter Training At Cleveland Middle School

Cleveland Police and surrounding agencies are better prepared after coming together for active shooter training at the Cleveland Public Schools campus.

The training provides realistic scenarios with actors and simulated ammunition.

Officers say training like this can be unsettling but it's critical to prepare as if it was really happening.

Dozens of first responders are training for a moment they hope to never experience.

Actors portraying victims of an active shooter let out sheer cries for help painting a picture of what first responders could face in a real-life situation.

"If the first time you go in to try to do some of your tactical movements or go in to rescue somebody and that's the first time you heard somebody screaming at you because they're dying or there's bullets flying at you, if that's the first time, you're not going to perform well,” Chief Clinton Stout of the Cleveland Police Department said.

The scenario simulates the different response times it would take for each agency to arrive.

Cleveland Police arrived at the school first and immediately moved toward the threat.

"Other agencies will roll in based on the time and distance they are from the campus to here, so it's not like all of us are going to come at one time. That wouldn't be realistic,” Stout said.

Osage County Sheriff's Office says that's why it's important to practice arriving on scene.

“Naturally, it can take a long time in the largest county in Oklahoma. Osage county is almost 2400 square miles and it takes sometimes over an hour to get from one end of the county to the other,” Osage County Sheriff's Office Undersheriff Gary Upton said.

In the halls, medical teams also put their skills to the test setting up casualty collection points and evacuating the wounded as quickly as possible.

“The hardest thing in that situation is the fact that everybody wants to know what's going on inside and we're trying to get the chaos under control,” Mercy Regional EMS training officer Kenneth Freeman said.

Officers say this training also helps them respond to other calls and not just inside of schools.