Officers train for active shooter scenario in Warner Robins

WARNER ROBINS, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – The Warner Robins Police Department is teaming up with the FBI on how to deal with an active shooter. 

The agencies are hosting a two-day training session, designed to keep as many people safe as possible. Officers say the lessons they’re learning are ones they’ll keep in mind on a daily basis. 

It’s intense, it’s aggressive, but agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation say this is the new reality. 

“Any place where there’s a mall, a school, a work environment where there’s multiple people is, in all fairness, a target,” Special Agent Mark Sewell with the FBI said. 

While students in Houston County are on spring break, officers from all around middle Georgia are using one of the schools as a training ground. 

The Department of Justice ordered the FBI to teach a course designed on preparing and dealing with an active shooter in a public place. 

“Also once we’ve determined that it is an active shooter situation, how to end that as quick as possible to save lives,” Sewell said. 

“We put a lot of effort into making sure that we’re ready to handle a situation, if it ever were to happen,” Sgt. Matthew Smith with the Warner Robins Police Department said. 

While the weapons they’re using may be props, the situations the 26 officers who are in the class are preparing for aren’t an act. 

“With terrorism being as prominent as it is now, it could be way beyond two. It could be multiple offenders,” Sewell said. 

From shooting at proper angles, even taking necessary steps — known as “slicing the pie” — the officers are aiming to be overly prepared. 

“Anything that we can pick up. Any sort of tool that we can put into our toolbox, so to speak, as far as how to save lives. I mean, that’s what it’s all about, saving as many lives as possible,” Smith said. 

It’s training they hope they never have to use, but they’re ready and willing. 

The FBI hosts these training sessions all over the country. It provides the equipment, and it’s up for a law enforcement agency to attend. Officers at the session in Warner Robins will be back training again on Wednesday, going full speed dealing with an active shooter scenario.