Law enforcement, medical personnel prepare for worst case in order to minimize impacts if that day comes

Local law enforcement and emergency services in partnership with Valley Health and Warren Memorial Hospital staff engaged in three days of what was officially termed an “Active Violence/Mass Casualty Incident Exercise” or as described unofficially in dispatching this reporter to cover the event, an “active shooter” training exercise at the new, nearly completed Warren Memorial Hospital site, April 20 thru 22. The multi-day exercise allowed new teams each day to practice multi-jurisdictional and agency, potentially lethal first responder coordination.

Exercise Command Post with new Warren Memorial Hospital looming in background. Royal Examiner Photos by Roger Bianchini

Following completion of the exercise, all participants, along with “Exercise Control” personnel gathered near the entrance to the hospital Emergency Room used as a remote treatment location for the exercise. There, an “After Action Review” was utilized to critique the day’s exercise with the goal of establishing maximum team efficiency in any future real-life scenarios.

Invited as a media observer, I was outfitted with a reflective, day-glow green vest indicating a non-participant observer upon arrival. As the final day’s exercise was beginning around 8:30 a.m., I was led into the hospital, past vested construction workers aiming for the hospital’s targeted June opening date. After proceeding up a stairwell to the hospital’s third-floor, Warren County Emergency Services Coordinator Rick Farrall handed me off to Front Royal Police Captain and Public Information Officer Crystal Cline. Things seemed fairly normal as we encountered several other vested people, including Warren County Board of Supervisors Chair Cheryl Cullers.

Normal, that is until several LOUD gunshots rang out, and I mean get-your-attention-and-hit-the-deck LOUD. I then saw, separately, two non-vested, non-uniformed individuals, first a woman, then a man, both with what appeared to be long barrel shotguns. Glancing down the hallway to where I had roamed slightly away from my escort and other vested non-participants, each gaze sent a momentary chill down my spine – a what if I didn’t have this vest on and what if this wasn’t an exercise – CHILL?!?

Things seem pretty quiet up here as media observer, NOT participant, arrives with police observer escort among other non-participant observers on the hospital’s 3rd floor. – Oh SHOOT, that was LOUD as suspect peeking around hallway wall seeks escape from approaching law enforcement units.

But the vest did its job. Armed with blanks, as were all participants, the shooters made their way down hallways and out of sight. Before long, uniformed law enforcement without vests entered the third-floor hallway, weapons drawn, in search of the now-vanished targets of the exercise. As I followed at some distance, I saw spent shells on the floor, as it appeared that one of the targets may have been cornered in a nearby room.

Above, participant law enforcement carefully enters hallway in search of armed shooting suspects in Thursday’s Active Violence Incident training exercise. On floor in lower-center foreground lies an ejected shell casing from suspect’s firearm – close-up below. Further below, first responders, including one on ground who may have reported himself wounded, close in on male suspect.

Shouted commands, more shots, more commands – “Put the weapon down” and shortly the male suspect was in custody, but not until according to earlier radio transmissions two officers had designated themselves as wounded and seeking extraction from the scene.

Above, as first responders track suspects, a hospital staff participant seeks refuge under desk from shots fired as vested observer, standing, tracks action. Below sequence: apparently wounded male suspect, with what appears to be a pump shotgun, is apprehended. Officer on floor then checks the well-being of the staffer hiding under desk, as Air-Care observer follows the situation.

As I was escorted by FRPD Captain Cline off the third floor for a tour of outside exercise sites, including a Command Post and Staging Area, the law enforcement search on the third floor was proceeding, with the female suspect still being sought – wait, as we hit the stairway there was an internal radio transmission that she was “down”. However, with no count of the number of involved suspects yet established the exercise was not over.

A quick stop in the first-floor Emergency Room found staff readying for casualties. In an actual incident, the wounded would likely be taken to another medical location than one at which an unresolved situation with armed suspects was occurring. Some momentary confusion over this reporter’s role as observer versus participant media led to a stern admonishment from a nursing supervisor participant to put his interview recorder away and leave the ER as the incident was progressing. That led to a quick “Yes, ma’am” and some laughter upon the explanation that I wasn’t really there – I was just a ghostly non-participant observer who, had he been participating would have been as far away from the incident site as hospital and law enforcement personnel wanted him to be – especially after those earlier glances from the armed suspects on the 3rd floor.

A quick stop in the Emergency Room – no media in here, at least not participant media. Below, ambulance pulls up to ER during Active Violence Exercise.

A trip uphill from the Emergency Room parking lot to the Command Post found personnel from all involved agencies, FRPD, WCSO, County Fire & Rescue, Valley Health mapping out the target area with the latest information from participants inside the building, who were, in turn, receiving information on the target area layout from Command staff. We were able to talk with FRPD Chief Kahle Magalis about the dynamics and value of the “Active Violence Incident Exercise”, in this case involving multiple armed shooters. See that interview in the related Royal Examiner story that will be coming on Saturday.

Command Post in direct communication with response teams inside the building.