Responders prep for school attack

FORT CHAFFEE — Only about half a second passed after someone shouted “Shooter!” before the sound of a shotgun boomed throughout the small cinder-block village Wednesday afternoon, and high school students began screaming as they raced inside a mock schoolhouse.

The shooter, a lean man in a baseball cap, followed them at a leisurely pace into the building, where more shots and screaming could be heard. Outside, about 100 civilians sat in bleachers, waiting for the cavalry to arrive.

Within minutes, several military vehicles and a police van pulled in, carrying about a dozen Fort Smith police SWAT personnel wielding M-4 rifles and wearing body armor. After the bang of a simulation grenade, sailors participating in the exercise entered the school and began clearing the building, one room at a time, until the gunman was either killed or captured. Then the teens - theater and drama students from Northside High School in Fort Smith - were herded onto a nearby school bus.

The “active school shooter scenario” was the first demonstration event at Fort Chaffee’s new Combined Arms Collective Training Facility, which was unveiled to the public Wednesday. The facility is on the grounds of Fort Chaffee’s Joint Maneuver Training Center.

The $26 million facility has 18 separate buildings designed to resemble familiar structures, such as apartment complexes and schools. Instructors will be training service members from all branches of the military, as well as members of law enforcement, in scenarios including hostage rescue and the extraction of injured people in difficult situations.

Maj. Matt Snead, a spokesman for the Arkansas National Guard, said the new center is one of only 11 National Guard installations in the country designed to train units and certify their combat readiness at the platoon level.

There are 185 video cameras inside the buildings, as well as four exterior cameras, which record the training for later review. Visiting units are given a “take-home package” that includes the video recordings of the exercises, which can be used as an additional training tool.

The buildings also are equipped with pop-up targets that collapse when shot, and devices that can emit strong odors, such as that of burning flesh.

“It engages all their senses,” Snead said.

Construction of the facility began in 2011 and was completed in January. Lt. Col. Dwight Ikenberry, chief of operations at the Joint Maneuver Training Center, said several military and law enforcement units have already cycled through. Ikenberry said the length of training , which is scheduled through the U.S. military’s Range and Facility Management Scheduling System, can be tailored to suit the needs of individual organizations.

“An infantry unit may need it for several 24-hour periods over the course of a week,” Ikenberry said. “A local law enforcement agency, which is constrained by an eight-hour workday, may only need it for an afternoon. We can do that.”

Army Sgt. 1st Class Robert Linck of Sacramento, Calif., a member of the 39th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, said the cameras inside the training structures changed the dynamic of the experience.

Linck said that in previous urban training, instructors and other personnel would lean into the windows from outside, watching those going through the training, which Linck said was unrealistic and distracting.

“With the cameras, you can go and not disturb the natural training environment,” Linck said.