Southern Nevada officials pleased with active-shooter training exercise

By Ricardo Torres-Cortez

Saturday, Aug. 6, 2016 | 2 a.m.

The glass panels at Las Vegas City Hall rattle with thundering booms as a heavily armed couple donned with tactical gear enter the building shooting.

It’s an active-shooter training session and the attackers are using blank cartridges. But it sounded like the real thing.

Here’s how the scenario played out:

A screaming group of people, with their hands in the air, is escorted by officers to safety. The man and woman shoot and kill several in the lobby and overpower security to gain access to the upper floors where they continue exchanging gunfire with officers.

The fictitious incident ended with 10 simulated deaths and another 10 seriously wounded.

“We’re not looking to stir up or say anything about what our potential for international terrorism is,” said Carolyn Levering, Las Vegas’ emergency manager. “This is just really, ‘Look at the world we’re in today. Look at the people who have access to the guns and what they may decide to do someday.’”

The drill was a culmination of months of training by Southern Nevada law enforcement agencies, including Metro, Henderson and North Las Vegas police departments, city and court marshals, and the area’s three fire departments. Marshals hadn't been incorporated into such training until Friday. The exercise was also the first time officers and firefighters were able to test several of their shared radio channels, Levering said.

They trained for a mass-casualty event but weren’t informed on the specifics of the scenario until gunfire broke out. For realism purposes, the shooters and officers fired blank rounds, which were visible through the building’s windows and loudly echoed on Clark Street.

Actors inside City Hall wore prosthetics and were made up with fake blood. A team of firefighters practiced evacuating the building of severely injured victims, a couple of whom were carried out on blankets.

Responders encountered challenges with the “artificialities” of the exercise, but it’s something they would run into if a real incident occurred, Levering said, deeming the drill a success.

“We overcame those challenges and pulled off a real good exercise today,” she said.

Before the drill, U.S. Rep. Dina Titus praised the Southern Nevada Counter Terrorism Center but said the Las Vegas Valley requires further federal funding.

“We just need to be ready, and that’s why these kind of drills are just so important,” said Titus, who attended the event. “It’s always good to be prepared.”