Law enforcement trains for active shooter situations

HANCOCK — Local law enforcement is taking a proactive approach to active shooter situations.

Area law enforcement officials are taking part in active shooter training at Hancock and Dollar Bay High Schools this week. The purpose is to be ready in the event that an active shooter enters a school.

Teachers and school staff also take part in their own training and schools hold lock down drills for the same purpose. The Houghton and Keweenaw County Emergency Coordinator, Jack Dueweke says techniques that school staff is taught are used in law enforcement training.

Dueweke said, “So we’re all working on the same page. We each have a job. Law enforcement comes in and gets the bad guy. The teachers secure their students as best as they can, and that gets better and better all the time, and keep them safe until we can neutralize the bad guy.”

These training sessions are held annually and they have been well attended by area law enforcement. The training consists of group discussions, practicing techniques, and running through scenarios using air-soft guns.

Dueweke said, “I am really taken with the dedication, and what have you, that these folks, the law enforcement agencies throughout Houghton and Keweenaw Counties, in fact throughout the whole Upper Peninsula, have to the task. I’m very impressed.”

Fifty sworn officers from Keweenaw and Houghton Counties were trained in this week’s sessions.