RICHMOND, Va. –
Active shooter events, which the FBI defines as one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area, are on the rise in the United States.
During a five-year span, between 2017 and 2021, the number of incidents increased significantly, jumping from 31 to 61. Those shootings in 2021 happened in 30 different states, killing 103 people, and wounding another 140. The locations of where these events happened were random: grocery stores, schools, and warehouses.
While there are no final numbers for active shooter events so far in 2022, one only needs to go back less than two months when an employee of a Wal-Mart in Chesapeake, Virginia killed five co-workers, five people were killed and 18 others injured in a shooting at an LGBTQ club in Colorado Springs, Colorado and a shooting at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia left three football players dead.
To better prepare the Defense Supply Center Richmond, Virginia workforce in the unfortunate event an active shooter incident should ever happen on center, Defense Logistics Agency’s Installation Management’s Security and Emergency Services conducted active shooter awareness and response training Dec. 6 and 14 in the Frank B. Lotts Conference Center on DSCR.
Don Bartlett, chief of DLA Installation Management Richmond’s Security Operations Branch and John O’Kleasky, DLA Installation Management Richmond’s antiterrorism officer, led the training sessions.
“Based on many tragic events, attendance and participation is more important than ever for this timely and relevant training. It’s incumbent upon all of us as a work community to keep each other and ourselves safe,” O’Kleasky said.
During the training sessions, Bartlett and O’Kleasky discussed active shooter case studies and lessons learned from them, incident response options, prevention through recognizing pre-violence behavioral indicators, surviving violent encounters and reporting suspicious activity.
“I am hopeful that the workforce will continue to be vigilant and keep the conversation related to this topic perpetually relevant as we perform our duties in the workplace and beyond,” said O’Kleasky.