Are We Ready? An Alabama Agency's Response to Terrorist School Sieoes

摘要

When terrorists attacked the school in Beslan, Russia in September of 2004, it was a shock to the world. How could anyone attack children? The final numbers were overwhelming: 1,300 hostages, over 300 people killed and upward of 700 wounded. Like most people, it made me sick! As commander of the Elmore County Sheriffs Department's Special Operations Unit, I wondered how our agency would handle a similar situation. Our SWAT team had been through a hostage rescue school taught by the US Marines Force Recon, and was about to attend a TEES hostage rescue school. As such, I felt we were doing what we could to be prepared for terrorism. The head of our county commission approached our sheriff and asked if we were prepared to handle something like Beslan. Truthfully, no agency is prepared for such a situation. In May of this year, I ordered a copy of John Giduck's book, Terror at Beslan. (www.terroratbeslan.com) The information it contained really opened my eyes to the changes we needed to make in our operating procedures. I met with the Elmore County Sheriff, and we discussed the book and its applications to our agency. Luckily, he was very interested and agreed that procedural modifications were indeed needed. In order to test our response system, I asked permission to conduct a large-scale exercise involving other agencies and mimicking Beslan. The sheriff granted me permission and I went to work.