YORK COUNTY, Pa. — On Tuesday, the Northern York County Regional Police Department conducted Solo Officer Rapid Deployment training at Dover Area Middle School.
“When you look at alert training this is the only one that has live fire on the range and it’s also the only one where you shoot with simulation weapons,” said Kyle McClure, patrol sergeant.
Police used simulated rounds to simulate live gunfire.
The rounds were paintballs to imitate suspects and officers getting hit.
The training is meant to prepare officers to respond during an active shooter situation by themselves.
Something McClure says could happen at any moment.
“We are looking ahead to try to figure out what’s going to come down the pipeline and that’s the whole point of this solo officer response training.”
Officers played different roles during training, like victim and suspect.
They applied tourniquets and performed other duties likely to take place in the field.
Police used empty rooms in the school’s basement as set pieces to run different scenarios.
McClure and other officers would convene at the end of every run and review each participant's performance.
More than 100 officers from across the Commonwealth have taken the training since May.
“We have 5 SROs without our jurisdiction, those SROs, if there is an attack, are already on scene,” McClure said.
Another popular program to prepare both emergency responders and teachers is ALICE training, standing for alert, lockdown, inform, counter and evacuate.
The SORD program is expected to continue in July. The school district's ALICE training is also expected to continue in August.