Shootings ‘not going away,’ boosting demand for active shooter training in Charlotte
Shamly Dhiman says she gets nervous when her three children go to school, especially after the shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that killed 21 people, including 19 children.
So, Dhiman, a surgeon from Rock Hill, brought her 12-year-old twins and a 15-year-old to an active shooter survival training course recently offered by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police.
“Well, I’ve taken this class before and like the officer said, it’s not going away and so we do have to prepare ourselves,” Dhiman told The Charlotte Observer. “And so I think, preparing ourselves in the workplace setting, in a school setting and practicing how to run, how to evacuate, how to fight back, and how to barricade a door and hide if we need to is important.”
Dhiman said the problem doesn’t just exist in schools.
“It’s churches, it’s medical facilities, it’s, you know, angry people that are not trained people,” she said. “They’re killers, and it’s terrible.”
There have been at least 320 mass shootings in the U.S. this year, including one in west Charlotte that injured a child and four others on June 27, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
Since 2018, there have been 119 shootings on school property — including 27 this year — according to Education Week.
Officer Jonathan Frisk, one of the instructors, said the recent shootings in Uvalde and Buffalo, New York, have increased demand for CMPD’s training session than he has seen in the past six years. CMPD is booked through August, he said.
About 45 people attended the training at Hickory Grove Baptist Church in east Charlotte on June 29.
Many in the group appeared to be over 60, and some had mobility issues. Parents brought teens and younger children.
The instructors started the class by explaining that an active shooting can happen anywhere, using the 911 call from the 2019 shooting at UNC Charlotte as an example.
As the audio played, those in attendance listened with rapt attention, many looked horrified, others nervously murmured to those on their left and right.
Then, officers discussed other mass shootings, including those in Virginia Beach; Columbine, Colorado; and Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. They tried to explain what happened in each situation and how some survived and others didn’t.
The most important thing the officers impressed on the group was that you have to do something in active shooter situations. Freezing, playing dead or hiding will more likely not help you survive a mass shooting, the training officers said.
Those who ran at Virginia Beach and the Pulse Nightclub shootings survived more often than those who did not, the officers said.
The training included descriptions of how to fight back, and how to barricade doors and rooms if hiding is the only option. Officers told the group not to call 911 until you were safe. The first 2 seconds of a shooting are the most crucial, officers said, and one shouldn’t stop to make the call in that time.
In 2022, people are still shocked when a shooting happens, Frisk said. The No. 1 thing he hopes people take away from the training is how to go from shocked, to prepared.
“We need to go above being scared,” Frisk said. “We need to say ‘we’re not scared, we’re going to be prepared.’”
CMPD said it may hold another public training in August, but nothing is scheduled yet. Businesses, organizations and churches can reach out to CMPD to request a free two-hour training.
This story was originally published July 6, 2022 at 9:58 AM.
