Twenty years in law enforcement between two agencies. Work ranging from that of rural deputy sheriff, to multi-jurisdictional narcotics task force detective, to police sergeant in a metro area of 800,000 people.
Practically speaking, I thought I had seen it all. I lost a friend and former trainee when he was ambushed and shot to death in his cruiser; I suffered through my partner's criminal trial after he stood accused of excessive force (he was acquitted); survivor of my own officer-involved shooting; rape, robbery, killings, child abuse, drug-addled homeless, vehicle pursuits, the "Revolving Door of Justice", draconian policy from police administrators, a disconnect between cops and the public and everything in between. Indeed, I was confident I had taken in just about everything one could reasonably expect to be exposed to as a law enforcement officer.
I was wrong.
On December 5, 2007, at 1342 hours, the entirety of my training and experience culminated in a single radio call that would forever change the lives of those involved.
Active shooter: the apex predator. A calm, deliberate and seemingly remorseless gunman with a Romanian-made AK-47 fitted with folding stock, smuggled into Omaha's Von Maur Department Store under a hooded sweatshirt. Multiple magazines at his disposal, jungle-clipped together for rapid reloading, each brimming with ammunition capable of passing through an officer's concealable soft body armor. Unlimited places for the murderer to hide and a target rich environment full of civilians in a "gun free zone," a massive shopping mall of about 135 stores at Christmas time.
Perception of time and distance skewed, it seemed like hours before the full magnitude of horror was revealed to us: a dozen citizens shot, eight dead, two battling for their lives in area trauma wards. A withdrawn, socially misfit 19-year-old suspect was down, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound from the same rifle he brought to bear on innocent people.
Believed to be the worst mall shooting in the nation's history, the "safe" midwestern city of Omaha, Nebraska now shares a dubious honor with other good communities stained by acts of mass evil, an exceedingly dark moment in our history, and the shedding of whatever innocence our growing town had remaining. A most depressing scenario.
The Emotional Stain
We in the policing profession do an admirable job of refusing to acknowledge emotion, hiding our feelings about the sights and experiences we endure. We remain stoic in times of distress, unruffled in the face of carnage and social decay. Showing emotion isn't an option, ever. Or is it?
Thankfully, in recent times, machismo has given way to a realization that Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is real, and it's a killer. Indeed, more officers died by their own hand last year than they did as victims of felonious assault. So it's a great blessing that officers involved in critical incidents are talking (and healing) rather than resorting to stuffing it away, engaging in binge drinking and the destructive behavior of other social ills as coping mechanisms.
As one of the first three police officers in the doors of the Westroads Mall on that fateful day in December, I experienced a wide array of emotions. Two of the more prominent feelings I'll broach here aren't terribly comfortable topics of conversation, but I believe the more honesty we bring to the conversation, the better prepared officers who follow in our footsteps in future incidents of this nature will be prepared to deal with them.
Fear
I'm going to be frank. Responding to and taking an active role in this incident proved jarringly scary.
Being the supervisor dispatched with district cars when the call was first broadcast, fear crept in we would not get there in time, this despite a 100-plus MPH response on a congested freeway leading to the scene. My mind was racing as fast as my black-and-white. "Is he still killing people? Will we make it in time? Will we be able to get to him before he hurts anyone else? What if he takes hostages? What if there are secondary shooters or explosive devices as there were at Columbine? What if a police officer goes down?"
We are not soldiers per se, fighting a guerrilla enemy we cannot see, but this day was different. I arrived and entered the store, scanning across the top of a 12 gauge shotgun loaded with rifled slugs. I fought the instinct to announce my presence as it has been ingrained in us to do. I couldn't afford to reveal my position to the gunman. In a breathtaking moment, two citizens burst from hiding and raced to me, then past and out the doors behind, tears streaming down their ashen faces.
Everywhere I looked, I saw and smelled evidence of a monster on the loose. Store employees frozen under display cases. The first gunshot victim, mortally wounded, surrounded by 7.62mm shell casings. The smell of gunfire hanging in the air, reminiscent of the firecrackers I enjoyed as a kid. Christmas music played, eerily juxtaposed with the blaring fire alarm someone pulled to call for help. I became conscious of my increased respiration. Moderately asthmatic, I was puffing a bit as I relayed information on my portable radio to incoming responders.
Coffee cups, empty strollers and shopping bags littered the floors, abandoned at the spot people began their terrified exodus. We formed up contact teams and incrementally cleared the mall, evacuating hundreds of shoppers and employees who had hidden themselves in some unusual places. We eventually grasped the notion the shooting was confined to one store and had been committed by one suspect who was already dead. By the time the day ended some 13 hours after my shift began, I was completely spent, both emotionally and physically. So too, were dozens of other involved officers.
Know ahead of time, responding to an active shooter is unfathomably stressful. Anxiousness can build with serious momentum during your response to the scene. The physical taxation your body is put under is exacerbated by this psychological reality. Your dedication, training, superior tactics, determination, and sworn oath as a law enforcement officer will propel you through the barrier of the human condition to run from, not toward, the sound of gunfire.
Thus, fear does not have to be the enemy of the police professional. Fear keeps you "on the yellow" and prepared to react with extreme prejudice when the Moment of Truth arrives.
Resentment
In short, the Von Maur shooter cheated me. I resented the missed opportunity to kill him before he maimed or murdered a dozen innocent people, grandparents, fathers and mothers, spouses and siblings, fianc es and friends.
In all, an estimated 200 Omaha police officers made it to the scene, and untold more responded from outlying jurisdictions. Irrespective of agency, every true-blue cop I've spoken with in the wake of this ordeal relates the same thing, a feeling of profound resentment the shooter took his own life, unwilling to get it on with people equipped and prepared to meet him on the slaughter fields.
Admitting to outright anger over circumstances which did not allow us to deal a death blow to the suspect might seem macabre to some, but that's the world warriors live in. Make no mistake, we do not yearn for a call of this nature to erupt, but when it comes, we want to be there, to test our mettle against that of a ruthless killer, to save the lives of innocent people who pay our salaries, or to die trying.
It's not about martyrdom, it's about reality. The reality is, we live in an increasingly secular world full of violent imagery in video games, movies and the media; a society suffering from a pronounced breakdown of the family; and the embrace of cultural relativism and permissiveness. The law officer is cognizant of these realities, and while praying it doesn't happen in our hometown, we're sober minded enough to accept the fact, given sufficient time, it probably will.
After the incident
At some point, you must shed that resentment, get beyond it, lest it mire you down and impact the manner in which you do your job in the future. Personally, I found healing in department-provided CISD debriefing, in counsel with my priest and spiritual director, and in prayer. If you're into strength training or running, stay on your workout schedule. If you're not, start. My time in the gym was critical to the "decompression" process. Surround yourself with loved ones, your support network, and be willing to fellowship with your brothers and sisters in arms. You may never know the positive effects of giving a hug or slapping someone on the back and telling them you're proud of the job they did. We all need a little bit of affirmation at times.
Remember, dealing with an active shooter and multiple causalities is more than the tactical X's and O's of search teams, room clearing, and victim evacuation. Emotion, the elephant in the corner for we cops, is something you will invariably deal with, both in real time during the incident and moving forward after the dust settles. And believe me, if you don't deal with it, it will deal with you.
So be prepared when the wolf comes. Accept the anxiety, confusion and regret that can come in those dark moments. Knowing beforehand to brace yourself against images and impulses you may never have experienced–at least at this level–may be the difference between successfully managing the incident and your own mental well being in the aftermath.
Preparation–What to Do Before It Happens
What you do before a mass casualty incident such as the one I've described is probably at least as important as what you do during your response. You see, the two are inexorably intertwined. Plod through your career thinking, "Not here, not in my hometown," and you'll be lucky not to wind up dead when it does. I'm not suggesting we all be graduates of the Special Forces Q-Course, but it's incumbent of law enforcement professionals to do more than the minimum; your department's commitment to training may be (and probably is) woefully inadequate.
Consider that much of your pre-game costs nothing. The aforementioned series of questions I polled myself with during a hurried response to the mall are questions I had ruminated over several times before December 5, 2007: "Is he still killing people? Will we make it in time? Will we be able to get to him before he hurts anyone else? What if he takes hostages? What if there are secondary shooters or explosive devices as there were at Columbine? What if a police officer goes down?"
A big component of mental preparedness for an active shooter is just this sort of prophylactic self-interrogation. Doing it costs nothing. Failing to do it could cost you everything. Talk among your peers. Brainstorm the worst case scenario, then try to flesh out how you might respond and what changes you might make in your direction of available resources to address it.
What else is free? How about empty weapon drawing, off-hand drawing, magazine changes, and one-handed magazine changes done for ten minutes once a week on a day off? Do you think those sorts of freebie drills might pay dividends someday? There are police officers I know of in Florida and California who are alive and back at work today rather than memorialized in granite at the National Memorial in D.C. who can directly attribute their survival to their practice in handling a weapon with their off-hand.
Of course, range time can't be ignored altogether. Again, I'll not argue we devote every waking moment to punching paper and dinging steel, but I submit that something more than what most agencies offer by way of range time is a worthwhile investment in your future. I might also say, it's prudent to pick a couple weapon systems you're comfortable with and get good with them. I've seen guys spend a wheelbarrow full of cash on a gadgets-laden patrol rifle, then never handle and shoot it outside the mandatory department re-qualifications.
I'm most comfortable with a short 12 gauge, loaded with buck (and slugs at the ready in a SpeedFeed stock). It's what I carry at work and I have one I play with at home as well. My duty sidearm, a Glock 21C, is well used too. In fact, there isn't another combat handgun I'd feel more comfortable staking my life on.
At the end of the day, I'd rather fight the average street dreg armed with a Tech-9 and multiple magazines than I would a well practiced LEO shooting a .22 revolver. The point to be made is, tactics and practice might be more important than the particular armament chosen. Ponder that.
Summary
December 5, 2007 caught me under-prepared. That's different than being unprepared, but still, I could have done more. Today, I endeavor to spend more time seeking practical training from experts such as Strike Tactical, and further knowledge and guidance on the psychology of combat from authorities such as Dave Grossman. The more arrows you can stow in your personal quiver, the better equipped you will be to deal with inevitable mass casualty incidents. Hackneyed as the phrase might be, remember: it's not a matter of if, but when.