Photo By Boyd Loving
Multi-Agency School Response and Active Shooter Training
April 6th 2013
the Ridgewood Police
Ridgewood NJ, During school breaks in February and March of 2013, 80 officers from Ridgewood, Midland Park, Ho-Ho-Kus, Waldwick, Washington Twp., Bergen County Police and Upper Saddle River participated in multi-agency, multi-discipline active shooter training.
This cooperative shared services training program, involved training in Bomb/IED Awareness and Reality Based Simunitions scenarios in a school environment. Officers from the participating agencies trained together on room entries, threat identification, active threat response, and shoot/no shoot decision making as well as IED/Bomb threat identification and awareness.
These training sessions were conducted over 8 days in locations in Ridgewood & Midland Park. The training is a result of an ongoing coordinated effort by the area Police chiefs and departments to provide effective training for their personnel for critical incidents, in the face of new economic realities, to address emerging threats/challenges.
Additionally each department realizes that critical incidents such as potential active shooter situations will require multi-jurisdictional response/assistance. Therefore training opportunities such as these are critical for coordinated and effective responses to major incidents.
Last year Ridgewood coordinated its active shooter/Simunitions training with Glen Rock Police and members of Midland Park Police, conducting training in locations in both Ridgewood and Glen Rock.
This year we were able to expand our training efforts to include additional surrounding police departments. We look forward to integrating additional personnel into future training sessions.
I would like to thank the following chiefs and departments for their continued support and cooperation to ensure that each of our community’s police forces are better prepared to respond to and handle potential critical incidents within our various communities;
Chief Michael Marra & the Midland Park Police Department
Chief Brian Higgins & the Bergen County Police Department Bomb Squad
Chief Mark F. Messner & the Waldwick Police Department
Chief John Wannamaker & the Ho Ho Kus Police Department
Chief Randy Ciocco & Washington Twp. Police Department
Chief Frederick P. Stahman & the Glen Rock Police Department
Chief Patrick A. Rotella & the Upper Saddle River Police Department
The members of the Ridgewood Police Department
Respectfully
Chief John M. Ward
