Active shooter training at WKU aims to prevent the worst

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (WBKO) - The Uvalde Elementary School Shooting has been marked as the third deadliest school shooting in U.S. history.

Law enforcement agencies and emergency personnel all gathered at WKU on Wednesday for active shooter training to help prevent anything like that from happening in Bowling Green.

One of the agencies participating is the Warren County Sheriff’s Office.

“The more we train as a joint response, then the better off will be,” says sheriff Brett Hightower.

This week at WKU, several law enforcement agencies alongside emergency personnel are participating in active shooter training at Douglas Keen Hall.

“We’ve done this for several years, and every year, it just gets better and so you kind of learn through trial and error on better ways to communicate with one another,” added Hightower.

“Our ultimate team goal is to unify all the agencies, Warren County Sheriff’s Department, Bowling Green Police, Bowling Green Fire Department and Medical Center EMS, along with Western’s Police Department is to build a relationship and a partnership that we can all work together in the event of a tragic, tragic event like an active shooter does occur,” says Deputy Director of Warren County Emergency Management, Travis Puckett.

Having all agencies participate helps everyone be on the same page.

“This isn’t something that we just do one time and forget about it. We have to regularly research look at into kind of transfigure the way that we respond to active shooting situations. As the different shifts come and go, everybody ends up getting collectively the same training and so that’s what makes us extremely valuable for everybody. And so that we know that in a situation that everybody has received the same exact training, knows and understands the communication aspect of it, how we work with a command structure, in the command communications through that event,” also says Hightower.

Training will continue into Thursday and Friday, from 8 a.m until 5:30 p.m.

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