An ‘active shooter’ is the term used to describe the role of Stephen Kazmierczak, the gunman in the NIU attacks. Police officers routinely train to learn how to handle an active shooter and NEIU officers help lead the training, which was last held over winter break. It is mandatory for all officers to attend active shooter training.
The drills help provide “scenarios talking about inoperable communications, how people will know if the active shooter is out there, and what kind of tactical operations are we going to do. How are we going to track this guy down, how is the department going to react to bystanders that are around. It gives us live practical training on how we are going to do this,” said Chief Jim Lyon, Director of Public Safety.
Public safety has two active shooter instructors in the department. They are tactical officers that teach the active shooter training. Those officers are Lieutenant Kevin Connolly, and Officer Gorviev.
“Over the Christmas break we took over the classroom building for two days and did nothing but active shooting training,” said Lyon.
At NIU Public Safetu, Chief of Police Donald Grady has spoken about how they did ‘drills’ to prepare for such an incident.
According to Lyon, the drills are expensive to run because they include overtime pay for officers.
In an effort to assure students the campus is safe, Lyon has begun speaking in a public forum about safety. He started by speaking with a justice studies class on March 26.