By night she’s a K-9 deputy working with her partner Ripley to track suspects. But on July 20th, Deputy Amanda Eddinger played a different but just as important part: role-playing as the shooter at the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office’s (PCSO) Active Shooter Mass Casualty Exercise. Held at High Point Elementary, the multi-jurisdictional exercise involved several law enforcement agencies as well as the Pinellas County School Board, local fire departments, Sunstar, 911, and Emergency Management, as well as dozens of observers and evaluators.

Sheriff Gualtieri, who is Chair of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Safety Commission, said that this exercise has been in the works for a long time, but Covid delayed implementation. Intense planning began in October for the myriad of components involved in this comprehensive test of training, policies, and practices.

PCSO responders included School Resource Officers, Community Policing Deputies, and patrol deputies, not primarily SWAT and tactical teams. This is a realistic representation of the kinds of deputies who would be the actual first responders in a school shooting. The first deputy on scene doesn’t have to wait for backup – they are trained to take solo action to save lives. Depending on the situation, contact teams may be established where small groups of law enforcement officers search for or engage the suspect. But there would never be a situation like Uvalde where no action was taken as children died.

Victims, families, and other roles were played by law enforcement actors, as well as teens and adults from the Sheriff’s Police Athletic League. Special effects simulated gunshot wounds and open fractures with exposed bone. Actors were given identities, backstories, and prompts to use in the exercise, to assist with – or, for training purposes, to complicate – things like reunification or the detectives’ investigations after the fact. The sheriff emphasized that the scenario was staged but not scripted – the entire situation was fluid throughout the whole exercise and everything depended on how the rescuers responded.

In the exercise, the shooter confronted her husband – one of the teachers – and shot him before sprinting through the school on a rampage. Responding law enforcement officers then had to search the school until they found the shooter, who had barricaded herself in a portable classroom after failing to gain entry to occupied classrooms. One of the hardest things for a responder is to pass by wounded people who are calling for help. Stopping the shooter must be the top priority to prevent further loss of life.

Deputy Eddinger said that they chose a female shooter to remind responders to keep an open mind about who the bad “guy” might be. “There is no one type of bad guy or active shooter. They come in all ages, races, and sexes. It’s a good reminder not to have stereotypes.”

When the scene was safe enough, rescue task forces – combined teams of fire/EMS and law enforcement officers – moved the wounded to the Casualty Collection Point where they could be evacuated from the school to a triage center. Other evacuated people were moved by bus to a reunification center. Protocol calls for careful screening to make sure children are reunited with their parents and no one slips through the cracks.

Additional challenges were interspersed throughout the exercise – reports of a deputy crashing enroute to the scene, a janitor with a handgun, angry parents, snooping media, and a suspicious backpack. Another challenge was coordinating radio traffic among several agencies that usually use different channels. Even the language had to be modified. Agencies that use ten-codes and signals had to switch to plain talk to make sure everything they said was understood.

It will be weeks before all the participants are fully debriefed and there is a complete analysis of where all elements of the exercise succeeded, and where there is need for improvement. At a press conference the morning of the exercise, Sheriff Gualtieri said that he told his people to go in 110 percent. “Don’t be afraid to fall down,” he told them. Mistakes were bound to happen, but this is useful because it shows where there is a need for improvement. “We needed to put stress on the components, the system, and the people too.”

This is not a one-off exercise. The sheriff hopes to have another one in early 2023 – not at a school – and then next summer stage another active shooter exercise in a school so they can put into place the lessons learned this time.

“We can never be 100 percent prepared for a devastating event like an active shooter,” Deputy Eddinger said. “But the closer we can be to 100 percent by practicing and training, the better we can handle the situation and respond. My takeaway from this exercise is train, evaluate, make adjustments, and train some more.”

New deputies prepare from their first weeks on the job for the possibility of active shooters, but they also train for more mundane encounters. A deputy never knows when a routine day will turn to the most dangerous hour of their lives. PCSO trainers do their best to prepare recruits for everything the job throws at them.

Recently, the newest class of deputy recruits went through their two-day active shooter training. The scenarios emphasized the need for the first deputy on scene to be able to respond quickly and effectively. In one, a deputy gets a call that there’s a shooter in the school and a school resource officer (SRO) has been shot. The recruit must jump into action, decide whether to take their rifle and medical kit from the trunk, and run alone into a building where they can hear gunfire and people screaming for help. Challenges include not shooting panicked civilians who rush at them and gathering information on the whereabouts of the shooter. Once the deputy neutralizes the active assailant they must apply a life-saving tourniquet to the injured SRO’s leg. The sounds are realistic – screaming, crying, and gunshots. Recruits shoot guns with blanks, while the trainers, acting as active shooters, fire simunition at the recruits, leaving a stinging impact and a spot of paint to show where the new deputies left themselves exposed. Later, the new recruits – along with all PCSO deputies – will participate in a second even more comprehensive active shooter training that builds on their skills.

“This is part of life, it’s not going away,” Sheriff Gualtieri said. And so PCSO will continue to train hard to make sure that when things are at their worst, our members are at their best.

But it is relatively rare for a deputy to draw their firearm, taser, or expandable baton. Much more often when a deputy needs to control a subject, or when they are attacked, the first, best option is to go hands-on. The methods used to safely control a subject are known as defensive tactics. As with everything a Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO) deputy does, the goal of defensive tactics is the preservation of life. The techniques take into account not only the deputy’s safety, but that of the subject as well.

During their weeks of high liability training, new PCSO recruits engage in four full days of defensive tactics. Some of them have no experience with defensive tactics beyond what they learned in the academy. Others have experience from the agencies they worked with previously, or from the military. Several train Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, a grappling martial art that uses leverage and joint manipulation to control a subject on the ground or to escape from a disadvantageous position. “It feels natural to go hands-on,” said Deputy Recruit Kaleb Goodpaster. “I’d rather go hands-on than use the tools on my duty belt.” No matter how extensive their experience, all of them learned new techniques or new ways to apply familiar concepts.

Handcuffing and searching may feel like mundane parts of law enforcement work but can be among the most dangerous situations. Many encounters with subjects focus on maintaining distance to increase safety, but there’s no alternative to close contact when it comes to handcuffing and searching. If a subject is going to fight, it will probably be when they realize they are about to be taken into custody. Defensive tactics training teaches recruits the best positioning to keep themselves safe. Recruits must first control the subject before they place them in handcuffs. In most circumstances, searching is only done after the subject is restrained.

Recruits learned how to use leverage and other techniques to get a prone subject to stop hiding their hands underneath them. They were cautioned that neither that nor any of the techniques they teach will be 100 percent effective. “This doesn’t work all the time. Nothing works all the time.” Corporal Cuttitta and the other trainers introduce the recruits to as many techniques as possible so they have options. In all scenarios they teach the recruits to at least maintain control over the subject – keep them pinned or at a disadvantage – until backup arrives.

Most subjects are compliant, but the recruits train for the worst possible scenarios: being tackled, caught in a bearhug or headlock, being pinned against a wall, or having someone grab for their firearm. They drill for hours from the most disadvantageous positions, with a subject on top of them trying to punch them, or on their back trying to choke them. Recruits learned techniques to flip their attacker over, escape holds, and ultimately turn the tables so that they are in control. “Being stuck on your back with a subject with every advantage on top of you is a horrible feeling,” said Deputy Recruit Max June. “So the basics of the escapes are very effective.”

There might be significant physical differences between the training partners, but it is important for them to try the techniques against a range of body types. Deputy Recruit Matthew Bonferraro says that “technique, skill, confidence, and the way people carry themselves” are more important to a deputy than physical size. Deputy Recruit Richard Bynum, who trains Brazilian Jiu Jitsu extensively in his personal time, says that “training is the main equalizer.” If they train, “a smaller deputy has a substantially better chance of controlling a stronger subject.” As they get deeper into defensive tactics training, this class of recruits has grown increasingly comfortable controlling subjects of every size.

Recruits trained with gloves on and were encouraged to throw light punches. “You can’t go through this career without getting in a fight,” Corporal Cuttitta said. “You’re going to get punched in the face.” He asked the recruits, who has never been punched? Several hands went up. “The first time it happens, you’re going to be so shocked that you won’t know how to react. Train on your own, learn what it feels like. After it happens the first time you’ll learn it’s not fun, but you’re okay, you can keep fighting.”

Corporal Cuttitta (himself a black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu) knows he can’t give these recruits everything they need in just four days of defensive tactics, so he encourages them to train as much as possible on their own. “Some people don’t train and think that when things get serious they’ll rise to the occasion. You don’t rise to the occasion – you’re going to fall back to the level of your training. Challenge yourself to get better, stronger, healthier, safer.”