TULSA, Okla. — Officers with the Tulsa Police Department are undergoing 40 hours of mandatory in-service training. Almost 20 of it focuses on active shooter training.
Thursday, about thirty officers began their two-day Law Enforcement Active Shooter Emergency Response training. Captain Mike Eckert has 30-years with the Tulsa Police Department. 27 of those, with TPD’s Special Operations Team.
Captain Eckert and the Special Operations Team teach tactical instruction to the police department. This includes active shooter training. The LASER training was mandated for all law enforcement agencies by Governor Kevin Stitt after the Uvalde, Texas school shooting and St. Francis shooting last spring.
“We want to focus our greatest attention on the most immediate need and the need is to get to the person doing the violence as quickly as we can,” says Captain Eckert.
The training includes how to clear out rooms, handling armed suspects, and hostage situations. They train in formations of twos and threes, and what to do if they are the first on the scene and they’re hearing gun shots. Captain Eckert says officers are also learn what to do before even getting to the scene.
“While you’re driving to the scene and you’re hearing information on the radio, mentally preparing yourself for the equipment you’re going to need, where it’s at, how you are going to get it out.”
The laser training will happen every Thursday and Friday through September. Every single Tulsa police officer, about 800 of them, will go through it.
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