Active shooter drill chaos on an Air Force base

[LittleLebowski]

https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/19/us/air-force-base-active-shooter-confusion/index.html?fbclid=IwAR0-onv66vfiHT3_ZkxHpjZpwR75jlYmNHHqDoFewmd-UBORpRfN91ymFjs


On an August morning at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the medical treatment facility was holding a mass casualty drill. Personnel acting as the injured streamed in.
Across the base, unbeknownst to the medical staff, a second active shooter drill was taking place, with a second set of people pretending to be injured.
Then a real injured person came on the scene: someone who worked at the medical facility hurt their ankle jogging on base, and called another employee screaming and crying.

[GuanoLoco]

Only .gov could engineer a goat fuck of such massive proportions.

[Hawker800]

This book shows that the USAF has learned very little.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20181220/ff48244fdc8c39ebd287c41cade790e7.jpg

[jetfire]

https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/19/us/air-force-base-active-shooter-confusion/index.html?fbclid=IwAR0-onv66vfiHT3_ZkxHpjZpwR75jlYmNHHqDoFewmd-UBORpRfN91ymFjs

Back when this first happened in August I guessed that what kicked the fuckup off in grand scale was someone who didn't know that an exercise was going on calling BDOC and reporting an active shooter.

Turns out I was right. The thing is that when that call comes in, even if base SF knows that there are exercises going on, they absolutely have to treat it like its real world, which automatically triggers a civilian LE response as well. Combine that with someone calling 911 from a cell phone and reporting an active shooter and you end up with a total clusterfuck.

[Trigger]

Yeah, this is mostly a communication problem. Let me guess, there are multiple wings at WPAFB, and the exercises people in one wing (which owns the Med Group) did not talk with the other wing which owns the SF and the BDOC and active shooter exercises.

Sounds like an excellent opportunity to fire the chief of exercises (the IG or the IGI when I did it) and start over again. For the encouragement of others.

[ranger]

Please tell me that this was a civilian or at least non-DOD - "someone who worked at the medical facility hurt their ankle jogging on base, and called another employee screaming and crying."

[Sensei]

Some of them had problems communicating with the incident commander -- Sherman said that would be the base fire chief on duty -- because the Air Force and local police systems didn't work together. Some never checked in with the incident commander, the Air Force said. Some who did had trouble identifying the chief on the radio.



Yep...

[Drang]

Some of them had problems communicating with the incident commander -- Sherman said that would be the base fire chief on duty -- because the Air Force and local police systems didn't work together. Some never checked in with the incident commander, the Air Force said. Some who did had trouble identifying the chief on the radio.Yep...

TBH, I would be concerned about an exercise where nothing like that happened, it would make me wonder if everything was so rehearsed it hd no value as a drill at all.

Mind you, it sure sounds like this may have been their first time at the rodeo.

[Lon]

There were lots of issues that day. Was quite a mess. Kept waiting for our team to get called, but we didn’t. Some poor AF SF kid ended up breaching a door by using his firearm. Think that was the only shot that day.

[txdpd]

Sometimes it's best lesson is learning from someone else's screw ups.

It sounds like things really didn't go off the rails until shots were fired. There's a case to be made for giving lowly patrol types breaching equipment. In a real event, teams that were looking for the shooter, could be diverted to the sound of gunfire and lead to good guys looking good guys.

[Yung]

Please tell me that this was a civilian or at least non-DOD - "someone who worked at the medical facility hurt their ankle jogging on base, and called another employee screaming and crying."

I'm glad someone else was thinking the same thing.
But if it was a servicemember, I hope it was an airman, lol

[jetfire]

I'm glad someone else was thinking the same thing.
But if it was a servicemember, I hope it was an airman, lol

Well, since it's an Air Force base and we're all Airmen, odds of it being an airman are pretty good.

[lwt16]

Been there.......done that.

https://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2017/06/redstone_arsenal_shooter_scare.html

https://whnt.com/2017/06/27/after-action-review-arsenal-locks-down-based-on-reports-of-active-shooter-questions-linger-for-investigators/

I was working this day.......and fiasco or "Charlie Foxtrot".......or any other term for a huge foul up, really doesn't do this justice in describing what occurred in my city when it happened here.

I was involved in both the arsenal response as well as the private daycare response. It seemed to snowball into chaos in the worst way I've ever seen. Imagine, if you will, a response by EVERY BADGE TOTER in the vicinity to a situation where nobody knew what was going on. Line level troops were pretty savvy about it all and most of us knew this was way too hosed up to be a real situation.

We all sort of considered it a "good training event" from the get go but still took it deadly serious. I remember telling another guy I was posted with "Well, when all this washes out to be BS, at least we got some training out of it."

The daycare though......I did feel bad about that one....because we all did. The daycare had no idea what was going on and 50 cops showing up with long guns probably wasn't a pleasant thing for the little ones to see. The call came in that they were being gunned down by a lone shooter well after the initial arsenal lock down. Some of our officers went back the next day and gave out stickers, candy, and other swag to the kids to attempt to calm them down.

Good times. I will say that while I stood my post at one of the gates, I saw cops from all walks come towards chaos. Plain cars, cars from neighboring agencies, county, state, game and fish, DA's office.........you name it.

Hunters. All with the same mindset of going into the fray no matter the cost.

I smiled a lot that day on my post.

Regards.

[BehindBlueI's]

Only .gov could engineer a goat fuck of such massive proportions.

Your exposure to the private sector seems lacking.

[GuanoLoco]

Your exposure to the private sector seems lacking.

Only 30 years of professional experience, nothing really. Closest I can come is having to play Mr. Wolff after a series of unrelated events CF’ing the diagnostic medical imaging systems for a regional chain of hospitals. Bush league in comparison.

[RJ]

Your exposure to the private sector seems lacking.

Indeed.

I taught a ‘Systems Engineering 101’ course once...Private Sector foul ups were easy to come by.

Here’s one of my favorite examples. $135M in repairs...because they forgot to do up 24 bolts:

https://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0410/04noaanreport/


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[BehindBlueI's]

Indeed.

I taught a ‘Systems Engineering 101’ course once...Private Sector foul ups were easy to come by.

Here’s one of my favorite examples. $135M in repairs...because they forgot to do up 24 bolts:

https://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0410/04noaanreport/


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It's popular narrative to pretend the .gov is incompetent and can't do anything right (unless there's a conspiracy to keep quiet, then they are masterminds) and the private sector is the answer to all woes.

[RJ]

It's popular narrative to pretend the .gov is incompetent and can't do anything right (unless there's a conspiracy to keep quiet, then they are masterminds) and the private sector is the answer to all woes.

$370M.

https://hownot2code.com/2016/09/02/a-space-error-370-million-for-an-integer-overflow/

I can do this all day. :)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[blues]

$370M.

https://hownot2code.com/2016/09/02/a-space-error-370-million-for-an-integer-overflow/

I can do this all day. :)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


...and then there's "too big to fail"...there's plenty of blame to go around.

[SeriousStudent]

Been there.......done that.

https://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2017/06/redstone_arsenal_shooter_scare.html

https://whnt.com/2017/06/27/after-action-review-arsenal-locks-down-based-on-reports-of-active-shooter-questions-linger-for-investigators/

I was working this day.......and fiasco or "Charlie Foxtrot".......or any other term for a huge foul up, really doesn't do this justice in describing what occurred in my city when it happened here.

I was involved in both the arsenal response as well as the private daycare response. It seemed to snowball into chaos in the worst way I've ever seen. Imagine, if you will, a response by EVERY BADGE TOTER in the vicinity to a situation where nobody knew what was going on. Line level troops were pretty savvy about it all and most of us knew this was way too hosed up to be a real situation.

We all sort of considered it a "good training event" from the get go but still took it deadly serious. I remember telling another guy I was posted with "Well, when all this washes out to be BS, at least we got some training out of it."

The daycare though......I did feel bad about that one....because we all did. The daycare had no idea what was going on and 50 cops showing up with long guns probably wasn't a pleasant thing for the little ones to see. The call came in that they were being gunned down by a lone shooter well after the initial arsenal lock down. Some of our officers went back the next day and gave out stickers, candy, and other swag to the kids to attempt to calm them down.

Good times. I will say that while I stood my post at one of the gates, I saw cops from all walks come towards chaos. Plain cars, cars from neighboring agencies, county, state, game and fish, DA's office.........you name it.

Hunters. All with the same mindset of going into the fray no matter the cost.

I smiled a lot that day on my post.

Regards.

That is very, very heartening. I am delighted to read that.

[RJ]

Ok one more!

And this is my personal favorite:

$3.2B (Yes, Billion).

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/16/us/politics/16helicopter.html

Ash Carter came in to wrap this one up under Obama, in 2009. But the time it got cut, we —excuse me, Lockheed Martin — had several planes flying at Pax, and a lot in the pipe.

[mmc45414]

Some poor AF SF kid ended up breaching a door by using his firearm. Think that was the only shot that day.

It sounds like things really didn't go off the rails until shots were fired.And the local news goes crazy. WPAFB is a huge employer (over 30k personnel, might be the largest single employer in the whole state) so when a mouse farts it is major local news. When there is/might be an "active shooter" with "shots fired" it goes offa the hook.