Chesterfield, VA. (WTVR) – Chesterfield hosted an “active-threat” training program on Wednesday.
The workshop was hosted by the Chesterfield Emergency Planning Committee, in cooperation with the Chesterfield County Police Department and Chesterfield County Emergency Management.
An active threat is when someone is trying to do bodily harm to or kill people in a confined and populated area. Such incidents are unpredictable and are often over within 10 to 15 minutes, sometimes before law-enforcement professionals are able to get to the scene.
The training focused on mental and physical preparation and provided participants with an overview of how situations evolve and ways people can protect themselves and those around them.
Dozens where in the audience, from Neighborhood Watch coordinators to Citizen Corp members.
Corporal Mike Catron with the Chesterfield Police Department showed the audience a video that Homeland Security put out last year, shortly after the Aurora Theater shooting, called “RUN.HIDE.FIGHT: Surviving an Active Shooter Event.”
The video shows civilians how to properly respond in an active threat situation.
“As the video stated, if running is an option, if you can run out of there, that`s fine. If hiding is an option you might want to do that," Catron said.
He says fighting is a last resort.
“If you find yourself that you have to fight an individual that is armed, that means you have exhausted all other resources. There’s nothing else you can do, there’s nowhere else you can go, so you do what you’re capable of doing given what you have,” said Catron.
About 90 people attended the training session at the Eanes-Pittman Public Safety Training Center.
