HORRY COUNTY, S.C. (WBTW) — On Tuesday, Horry County Police Department hosted their annual active shooting training.
Officials say this training is important for officers to practice responding quickly and efficiently in the case of an emergency call for service relating to schools.
HCPD joins with local agencies such as Conway PD, Aynor PD, Loris PD, school members, and school security guards to prepare for future incidents that may occur.
Training takes place for 8 hours and is being held at the Horry County Academy for Technology and Academics in Conway this year.
The Horry County Special Operations Team designed a training program to facilitate movements, teach verbal and nonverbal communication, and overcome mindset challenges.
Supervisor of the HCPD Training Unit, Crystal Buckingham, explains what day looks like.
“In the morning, we come in, our special operations team has a safety briefing with the officers and explains scenarios. They break down the day on specific tactics such as hallway movements, room entries, even exterior entries, doorway breaching, and exactly how they should be communicating with each other.”
About 25 Special Operations team members were at the training facilitating the active shooter and critical incident response training.
Deputy chief, Kris Leonhardt, Executive of the Operations Support Bureau, says communication is key.
He says learning specific tactics before a potential incident is something that could make or break an outcome.
“As we improve, we continue to learn, and help other agencies, like we said, we partner with other agencies in the area, and it allows us to train together on the same topics.”
Leonhardt says scenarios like these requires all hands-on deck, so prior training and experience always helps with the success of a mission.
He talks about the new school resource officer program coming to Horry County Schools this upcoming schoolyear.
“This is the first full year our SRO Program is going into effect. It’s a great opportunity for us and Horry County Schools to continue to grow our relationship with more school coverage and to have that interaction with the other SROs training, knowing their facilities, helps us all the way around.”
Buckingham adds, other agencies will be coming to train next week and hopes to have all trainings done by August, before school starts.
“Obviously we have firearms training, defensive tactics, and we have annual in service that comes use of force issues.”
She explains how this training is also beneficial for when threats are called into schools.
“Everything that I’ve heard from within the agency and even from the general public, our officers responded very well to those. It’s a cross over, this training isn’t just active shooter specific, it’s for all types of events that can occur at schools and any other locations such as other public venues, and major events. I think it’s important and all the same things apply… tactics, communication, all of it.”
Lt. Buckingham says school resource officers will also go through two weeks of training at the academy to learn about juvenile specific procedures.