How training helped Aurora, Naperville police coordinate shooting response
Before an Aurora man went on a shooting rampage that killed five people in his workplace, police officers in Aurora and Naperville trained for more than a year for exactly that kind of situation.
Using a $1.3 million federal grant for terrorism and active shooter preparation, the departments protecting the second- and fourth-largest cities in the state have conducted multiple training exercises to discuss equipment and response tactics for large-scale emergencies, Naperville Chief Robert Marshall said.
"It's to help both cities address a complex coordinated terrorist attack or an active shooter-type situation like what we saw in Aurora last Friday," he said. "Our teams have trained together, and it definitely helps us prepare."
Funding for the training comes from the Federal Emergency Management Agency under a three-year grant that started in 2017.
The grant allows Aurora and Naperville to build regional capability to respond in the case of something like a mass shooting or terrorist attack. Training exercises focus on topics such as reviewing critical infrastructure, developing operations plans for responding agencies and adopting common response tactics.
"The teamwork is so critically important that the officers from both jurisdictions have trained together, so when an event like this happens, they understand the techniques to be used," Marshall said. "They've worked together in training, so they know each other's equipment."
Aurora and Naperville also have the benefit of the same radio system, which both cities have used since 2010.
"That was critical in this incident because of the communication," Marshall said. "All we had to do was turn our Naperville radios to the Aurora band."
When the initial call came in at 1:24 p.m. Friday about the shooting at Henry Pratt Co. on Aurora's near west side, Marshall said Naperville police activated the department's special response team. Naperville sent about 20 people, including officers, sergeants and a commander, from a separate training they were conducting.
The Naperville responders joined the eight "contact teams" who searched the 29,000-square-foot warehouse for more than an hour, until one of the teams found the suspect and killed him in an exchange of gunfire.
Marshall said the officers involved are unavailable for interviews because of an ongoing investigation into the police-involved element of shooting, which is required by state law. The Kane County Major Crimes Task Force is conducting the probe.
Naperville's special response team was prepared to help locate the gunman because members practice search techniques in an abandoned public works facility near the downtown Metra station.
"We'll go room to room, just like what happened in Aurora, to search for victims as well as the offender," Marshall said.
Practice helps responses like these come naturally, especially when the adrenaline of a shooting kicks in. But Marshall said calming down in the aftermath of such a situation is important, too.
This week, Marshall said his department is bringing in the Northern Illinois Crisis Intervention Team to conduct a mandatory "critical stress debriefing" for all personnel sent to the Henry Pratt scene. The debriefing will follow a protocol to explain to officers what feelings and symptoms are normal to experience after responding to a shooter and the violence he caused.
"Some of our officers saw the victims. It's very important that we take care of them as they go through this stressful situation, where an individual ended up shooting at police officers as well," Marshall said. "The highest-stress situation a police officer will ever encounter is being shot at."