Local law enforcement participate in LASER training

LAWTON, Okla. (KSWO) - Multiple agencies were at the former Washington Elementary building in Lawton Wednesday to take part in Law Enforcement Active Shooter Emergency Response (LASER) training.

The purpose of the nation-wide training is to help different agencies act as a single unit when responding to an active shooter situation.

“If one of these incidents occur that everybody regardless of what agency you’re from you can respond and react the same way,” said Danny Waite, one of the instructors from Louisiana State University.

When it comes active shooter incidents, multiple agencies working side-by-side is common.

One of the police officers participating in the training, Walker Powell said, “I’m the only one here from my agency, so everyone that I work with is from a different agency and that’s a real common occurrence to how it would be in a real life scenario. It would be several different people from different agencies working together.”

During Wednesday’s portion of the multi-day training, officers learned effective ways to breach doors and how to manage situations after the threat is addressed.

“These scenarios are based on real-world situations that have happened in the past, and we go out and present these classes we choose from different scenarios to basically test the learning curve and information we put out,” said Waite.

With constant changes in attacks, coordinators say it’s important law enforcement learn to adapt.

“I’ve only been a police officer for three years. Several things have changed just in that short amount of time, in the climate, and then how we are needed to respond,” said Powell.

“Training all the time improves your confidence in what you’re doing and what you’re learning. Being able to come in here and know what to do in a situation because it’s chaos, it’s absolute chaos, and knowing how to act in that situation makes a big difference,” said Ed Bayones, the local training coordinator.