Jarrod Peters, Randolph County Sheriff
CHESTER -– Area law enforcement, firefighters, EMS and Telecommunicators recently spent a Saturday training for an active shooter incident.
This training is the result of a joint effort among police, fire and EMS agencies to coordinate and plan a strategic response to large-scale incidents like an active shooter.
The course “Active Shooter Rescue Task Force”, focuses the coordination required between law enforcement and Fire/EMS to address the injured in the most effective and efficient way possible. The class takes the basic training for a law enforcement response to an active shooter and focuses on the next phase once the shooter has been neutralized, which is to save lives.
Saturday’s class was held at the Chester Public Grade School, and included members of Sparta Fire, Steeleville Fire, Chester Fire, Ellis Grove Fire, Prairie Du Rocher Fire, Evansville Fire, Baldwin Fire, Tilden Fire, and MedStar Ambulance.
On the law enforcement side, in attendance were members of the Randolph County Sheriff’s Office, Chester Police, Steeleville Police, and Red Bud Police.
Telecommunicators with the Sheriff’s Office and Chester Police Department participated in the training as well.
Randolph County EMA Coordinators Lyn Thies and Charlie Bargman were also in attendance.
The afternoon portion of the training was scenario-based. In order for our scenarios to be successful we needed volunteers to serve as role players.
Thankfully, students from the Chester High School stepped up. We would like to thank them all for their time and attention. We would also like to thank Coach Billy Belton for encouraging and coordinating members of the Chester football team to help out, which significantly bolstered the total number of volunteers. These students did a fantastic job and we could not have done it without them.
This course was facilitated by the Southwestern Illinois Law Enforcement Commission – MTU14.
As the host agency we want to thank the training group for their time and dedication to training our local First Responders. We also want to thank Chester Police Sergeants Joe Crain and Joe Jany, along with Sparta Fire Chief Tim Rucks for their assistance in promoting the class and assisting with registration.