Students may have heard alarming sounds coming from the 900 block of Woodland Avenue last Thursday. However, those noises were all part of an effort to potentially protect students. The UMD Police Department sponsored law enforcement training at two vacant, UMD-owned properties with an emphasis on emergency response — complete with simulated noises and sights.
“The training focused on active threat response; barricaded, armed suspect response; hostage rescues and extrication; and downed officer and downed victim rescue,” UMD Police Chief Scott Drewlo said. “It is important that we drill on how to mitigate these types of emerging threats in a dynamic, fluid and 3D training environment.”
Drewlo added that the vacant properties provide a perfect training area for officers.
“The venues for the training that were provided by UMD offers exactly that type of environment,” Drewlo said. “3D-rich training scenarios hone the emergency response teams' efficacy by offering real time, real world feedback on team movement and different use of force delivery systems that can be further refined and then employed during an actual incident response.”
Drewlo compared the training to the training done by an athletic or drama team.
“Such training, in such an environment, serves essentially the same purpose for law enforcement, fire and rescue and paramedics as a dress rehearsal does for the arts or full contact practice with pads does for athletics,” Drewlo said.
BY SAM STROM NEWS EDITOR