“Even though violence is at an all-time low, these events are on the rise,” Madison police officer Matthew Magolan told members of Westwood Christian Church on a recent evening, as a special meeting was held at the church to learn how to respond to an active shooter.
Churches as well as schools and businesses have been the scene of these shootings, which have become more and more common since the Columbine school shooting on April 20, 1999. Learning how to respond to such an event is prudent, and the Madison Police Department offers the training free as a public service to the community.
The training is being offered to businesses, organizations, schools and churches. “I think the presentations are pretty well split between all of the spheres in which we teach,” Magolan said.
“Training is important,” Magolan said. “It helps you recognize that you are the first responders (when such an event happens) and that you have a shared responsibility to keep the community safe.”
An active shooter event is not a time for negotiation, Magolan said. That time is past. Instead it’s a time for defensive action, which he called: “Avoid, Deny, Defend.”
Magolan described in detail a number of shooter events from the past two decades and the ways that those who are caught in such events should first try to get away from the shooting (Avoid), somehow make their location inaccessible to the shooter (Deny), or at last resort, actively defend themselves when there’s no other alternative.
The two-hour session included four “what-if” scenarios and some healthy dialogue about this disturbing aspect of twentyfirst century life in America. The Madison Police Department has been offering this training since 2015. The Dane County Sheriff’s Department also offers active shooter training.