Scranton police train to stop a killer amid noise and chaos
Jan. 19—SCRANTON — Strobe lights illuminated the stairwell city police Patrolman Zachary Langenhop ascended in Northeast Intermediate School.
Monster Magnet's rock 'n' roll single "Space Lord" blared from speakers and rang in the ears. The combined effect would not feel out of place in a haunted house on Halloween. They were meant to distract him.
On Thursday, the city police transformed a few floors of the Adams Avenue school into a house of horrors to test the focus and training of its officers.
"Help me, please!" came the panicked shouting of a woman who seemed as if she had been wounded.
Langenhop, firearm raised and calling out his presence, ran along the hallway to find the killer, following a trail of shotgun shell casings, the smell of gunpowder and the agonized screams of victims.
"We've recreated everything," Police Chief Thomas Carroll said.
The chief said 10 of the city's patrol officers ran through a training course Thursday night designed to test their tactics when responding to a gunman or some other type of threat. With their completion, each of the department's patrol officers have run through the training.
"I don't know how to explain it," Patrolman Matthew Conforti said after completing the course. "It was very fast-paced."
The Police Department and the school district last practiced active shooter drills in September at Scranton High School.
At that training, district staff learned from the Police Department about the civilian response to a dangerous loose gunman. Teachers shut the doors tight, hid under tables and grabbed whatever was available for self-defense.
Concerns about safety and security in Scranton schools grew following a mass shooting in May in Uvalde, Texas, in which 19 students and two teachers were killed, and after an 18-year-old was stabbed to death in June near Scranton High School shortly after school dismissed.
Thursday's training focused on the first stage of a three-step process for dealing with such an event: stop the killer, treat the wounded and then get them out, Carroll said.
College students and other members of the community agreed to act as victims during the training. They screamed for help and yelled they were hurt. Others ran for safety as the officers moved through the course.
"Help!" came the shouts, seemingly from everywhere.
"Just keep pressure on your wounds," Langenhop yelled back as he continued his search for the gunman. "Help is on the way."
As he descended a staircase, Langenhop found the killer.
Gunshots rang out and Langenhop stood over the prone figures of two people role-playing school shooters.
Thursday's training was the final test in a three-day-long course. The participants first sat through PowerPoint presentations and then practiced at the grounds of Clarks Summit State Hospital.
Carroll said the training's intensity is meant to help put officers in that moment, much like the newly installed Multiple Interactive Learning Objective, MILO for short, system at the former Serrenti Memorial Army Reserve Center.
The Police Department conducts other trainings with partners in the Fire Department and medical community to respond to such a threat, Carroll said.
"The first 30 minutes — if we can master that we're good," Carroll said.
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