Active shooter drill hosted at Volkswagen of Chattanooga

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) — Volkswagen of Chattanooga made history as they hosted the biggest active shooter exercise in Tennessee on Sunday.

Twenty-seven local, state, and federal agencies were involved in an active shooter drill.

Spokesperson for Volkswagen, Chris Guin said, “Volkswagen safety is our top priority. Whether it’s the safety of our employees or of the community at large. This was an excellent opportunity for us to practice inter-agency and inter-departmental collaboration.”

Active shooter drill hosted at Volkswagen of Chattanooga on Nov. 12, 2023. Photo provided by the Chattanooga Fire Department.

The corporation practiced safe procedures during the drill to help ensure safety among the organization and prepare for unforeseen circumstances.

CPD has collaborated with various facilities in order to ensure safety in the community.

During this demonstration, they partnered with over twenty local agencies to respond to a mock shooting.

Major Danny Jones with the Chattanooga Police Department said, “We were able to do the critical care portion of this that sometimes we don’t necessarily get to do as much as what we would like. But the good thing is that we had all those other agencies to be involved in to be able to get those folks to critical care as fast as we possibly could. The statistics tell us that we’ve got that golden hour. If we can get someone to care within that golden hour, they have a better chance of making it. That’s literally what we’re trying to do is save lives.”

Role-player participants in the demo consisted of different ages and occupations who were informed about the circumstances of the event.

Some of the volunteers were Volkswagen employees.

Role-players and first responders participate in active shooter drill hosted at Volkswagen of Chattanooga on Nov. 12, 2023. Photo provided by the Chattanooga Fire Department.

Jones explained the drill process and what standards were met with this particular drill.

“Training is the thing, and that’s exactly the reason why we did what we did today. So that way everybody knows and understands exactly what we as a region are really wanting to do in order to make sure that we keep everybody in this region as safe as we possibly can.”

Due to the size of the building, first responders were able to partake in this drill on a larger scale.

One of the primary factors that presents a challenge in extreme situations is communication.

Sgt. Victor Miller with CPD offered insight as the Public Information Officer: “We were training on how we communicate best with our community, because in a real life situation like this, our community wants to know what is going on. So we also talked about that. How do we communicate best with our community? How do we provide that information that they need to know? Where to go? What roads are closed? Where is this incident at? And what information can we provide? So that is a part of the training as well. How do we relay that information to our community?”

Sunday’s drill lasted for about two and a half hours.

Not only did this event take proper communication, but the planning process lasted close to nine months.

PIO for Hamilton County Office of Emergency Management Amy Maxwell said, “You know exercises are for a reason. To find those loopholes and to correct them. And to see what other agencies/how we work together as a whole.”

First responders participate in active shooter drill hosted at Volkswagen of Chattanooga on Nov. 12, 2023. Photo provided by the Chattanooga Fire Department.

There were roughly 300 first responders on site and 100 role players involved in the drill.

The 27 agencies involved in the drill included municipalities in Hamilton County and surrounding counties.

“Chaos happens. We forget that we need to talk to this agency or that agency. So some of that happens. The good thing is that we were able to actually see it and go, ‘We need to remind ourselves of these things,'” Jones added.

The Major also encouraged citizens to practice the tactic of, “Run. Fight. Hide.” in active shooter scenarios.

“We got to make sure that everything is in a way that is set up so that way we can not only control the scenario, because it is training, but we also can allow the scenario to breathe so that way we can see the deficiencies that we can be able to utilize to actually make ourselves that much better,” Jones explained.

Officers participate in active shooter drill hosted at Volkswagen of Chattanooga on Nov. 12, 2023. Photo provided by the Chattanooga Police Department.

When asked how Volkswagen participants responded to the mock shooting, Jones offered the following statement:

“They really had an eye-opening experience. I know of a couple Volkswagen employees who were very impressed by the actual response of our first responders… of the police, of fire, of our EMS. They were just really taken aback at how willing we were to put ourselves in harms way to be able to keep people alive.”