Police, Fire depts. hold joint active shooter training
By Mike Berger
The Canton Police and Fire departments conducted a joint active shooter training exercise on Thursday, April 18, at B’nai Tikvah on Washington Street. Fire Lt. Tom Norton said 18 Canton firefighters along with half of the Canton police force participated in a drill to simulate an active shooter event with victims. Police officers and firefighter-paramedics drilled on several scenarios together. Police officers practiced making entry and locating and eliminating an active shooter, while firefighters and paramedics focused on rescuing wounded victims and providing life-saving care such as tourniquet use and quick clotting bandages.
Volunteers from the Canton Emergency Response Team (CERT) assisted first responders by posing as victims. Deputy Police Chief Helena Rafferty said weapons were taped and secure in the exercise and the event was announced in advance on the CPD Twitter page. The remaining staff from each department will take part in the training at the same location, tentatively planned for May 1.
Police Chief Ken Berkowitz said state Rep. Bill Galvin and state Senator Walter Timilty Jr. secured money for both departments to conduct the exercise. Regarding the choice of venue, Berkowitz said, “Since we have trained extensively at schools and businesses, we thought the temple would be a good idea. As we saw with the New Zealand mosque attack and [Easter] Sunday in Sri Lanka, houses of worship are an emerging threat. B’nai Tikvah welcomed the idea from the start and, like all our churches and temples, they are great partners of ours. We have another day coming in May and that will have trained just about the entire police and fire departments.”
Short URL: https://www.thecantoncitizen.com/?p=54861
Posted by Mike Berger
on Apr 26 2019. Filed under News, Police & Fire.
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