NEW BERN, N.C. — It’s been almost three weeks since the mass shooting in Raleigh in the Hedingham neighborhood.
What You Need To Know
It's been three weeks since the mass shooting in Raleigh
Active shooter training is an important part of law enforcement training
In Craven County they can practice different situations using a virtual training simulator
The suspect killed five people and injured two more before he was taken into custody. Those victims' funerals were held in the weeks following the shooting.
Law enforcement training is always an important topic, but especially now in light of this tragedy. Statistics show active threats, including active shooters, are on the rise.
A year and a half ago, Craven Community College installed a virtual simulator for active threat training. The New Bern Police Department is just one of the state and local law enforcement agencies that train there. Sgt. Billy Zerby helps train the New Bern police officers.
Active shooter training can be intense, but it's important that they know what to do if they're ever faced with a similar situation.
“We have officers come through, and I mean ... their heart rate is up. They'll start sweating,” Zerby said. “I mean, it gets very intense for some of them. Some obviously will take it more serious than others, because some look at it as a cartoon or a video game. We'll run it back through until we get the response we're looking for, because we need every officer to take it serious.”
Zerby has been working in New Bern for over 20 years. While he hasn't experienced something quite as intense as this school shooter training, he says he's definitely used the skills he's learned.
The virtual simulator lets the man behind the screen choose various outcomes based on how the officer is responding to the situation.
Mickey Tillman is the law enforcement training coordinator at Craven Community College. He says there are multiple outcomes for hundreds of different scenarios in this system.
“Each one of them can, as elementary as it is, it can be escalated. It can become 100% compliant. Or if it starts off elevated, we can be escalated into compliance,” Tillman said.
You can feel the intensity of the situation. Zerby says it's hard work trying to help his officers be the most prepared they can be. Although, the simulator isn't meant to scare or traumatize anyone who goes through these scenarios, it is meant to prepare them in case of an emergency.
“It's taxing, time consuming. It does have some stressful points, because there's a lot of coordination behind the scenes that a lot of people don't see,” Zerby said. “So it's a heavy burden on all of us to try to make sure that we're preparing our officers. So not only they stop the threat, but they survive the fight as well.”
Zerby says there's only a handful of law enforcement compared to the number of residents in the areas they serve. He encourages residents to use the 411 tip line to report incidents that his team can follow up on.