Police stage 'active shooter drill' inside Portland movie theater
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PORTLAND, Ore. – Police stormed a Northeast Portland movie theater with guns drawn Tuesday morning.
No one was in danger, however. It was an “active shooter drill” to help police prepare for situations like the deadly shooting at a Colorado movie theater last summer.
The drill started with a simulated phone call reporting shots fired inside the Regal Lloyd Center movie theater. More than 20 officers responded to the scene.
SWAT team members wearing yellow vests lead the drill. Patrol officers in training wore blue vests.
I got to witness the drill firsthand as a movie-goer. I tied a yellow band around my leg to show I was taking part in the drill. A few minutes later, I was told to tie red tape on my leg, meaning I’d been shot.
I waited on the floor of the cinema hallway with the other injured people, hoping help would arrive.
My heart raced a little as I saw and heard them come down the hallway. Their priority was to find the shooter and make sure no one else got hurt.
“Can you walk? Can you walk?” An officer asked us.
An officer grabbed one woman, put her over his shoulder and carried her out. I limped along, trying to get to safety. We were told to take off a belt if we had one and use it as a tourniquet for someone if they have a wound.
When it was all over, police said the suspect killed himself. They arrested another man, who they said wasn’t cooperating.
Tuesday’s drill was the first time Portland police trained inside a movie theater. In the past, they’ve staged active shooter training in schools, office parks and hospitals.
Watch video of the drill shot by Portland Police Sgt. Pete Simpson
I don't think it's the police that should be training for this. Wasn't the theater shooter casually standing by his car when the cops finally showed up?
If they did that while I was trying to watch a movie, I would've asked for my money back.
I lol'd at this.Â
 @TreeWizard  Seriously; they're practicing for a hostage situation with a military assault.Â
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The biggest danger here is that these guys will deploy...all fired up...with assault weapons and it will take them 20 minutes to organize into the command that they practiced; otherwise, they'll all rush in hot and shoot everybody and each other.
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The next obvious evolution of Celebrity SWATting is public place SWATting. The Police should be forewarned to find a way to verify a real threat before they cowboy into a public place HOT!
Hope this is not a self-fulfilling prophecy!
 @jpk See my post farther down. First the drill, then the real event. The same thing happened in Clackamas, etc.
 @jpk Isn't it nice they let us know which theatre to avoid. I feel so much safer now.
I've been in paintball scenarios that were more realistic than that.
They really need to study these situations, they rarely happen the same twice.. What a total waste of money..
 @dougrpdx This is what prevented the shooting at clackamas mall from being 10x worse! They had practiced the drill months before it really happened and sure enough we all saw on the news, within 10 minutes there were 100 officers and medical aids there.
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Your naive if you think things like this don't happen more often then once. Or do you really believe there has only been 1 school shooting ever?
 @Brandon Hoehna You need to get your facts right.. The shooter in the mall was dead when the police arrived... And this drill is not at a school, it's a movie theater..
Read and try to understand what the writer is saying before you make a fool of yourself !
 @dougrpdx It's just another way for police departments to get huge grants from DHS to buy more military gear and further the militarization of police that has been happening around the country.
This proves once again that police will arrive after every one has been shot. In order to get that many officers together at once would take 15 minutes.
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Just another reason to arm yourself.
C'mon, practice makes perfect! Unless you eliminate a threat before it happens, which can't be done, wouldn't it be wise to practice for when the dire event actually happens? And I'm sure it will happen again, given all the copy cats out there!
 @jpkÂ
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Eliminate the threat before it happens: that's a good idea they could take the TSA approach of treating everyone like a terrorist and just shoot everybody or round up the general public up an put them in a corporate prison.
 @jpkÂ
The chances of it happening again are extremely slim. These types of events just don't happen often.
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Plus to get good at it all officers would have to practice it often so that all have experience in it. Portland doesn't have that kind of money to do that much training.
 @Rob C 503Â
Still the chances of it happening in Portland is very low. And the chances of police stopping it approaches infinity.
@RalphCramden......Ralph, the copy cat mentality is rampant. It seems to come from the reinforcement mentality......if they can do it, so can I
 @RalphCramden  @jpk I think you nailed it with this, "In order to get that many officers together at once would take 15 minutes." Your best bet is A. pray someone is armed or B. Do like an Air Marshal thing, under cover marshal that has an AR-15 or assault rifle stashed in the theater somewhere. Only option A seems practical too me.
 @RalphCramden
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While that is a fact Ralph; just think of all the police overtime on the tax payer dime that would be lost. Those police have to make their boat payments and stuff.
The police and military are training around the country for their next target: the american public. They are choosing urban locations because the believe this will the be next environment for war:
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBMNOqA9OYM
 @portlandborn83 Pretty sure the Military is training for Urban Warfare because we are still involved in a war, that's main focus is UW. Some cops just want to be like Soldiers, and others think this is going to help.
 @portlandborn83 Its also operant conditioning. They are training us like Pavlov's dogs.Â
 @PeterAWolf  @portlandborn83 Yep. As soon as the populous submit to this, they'll crank it up a notch until the population happily accepts random house raids.
 @axpman  @portlandborn83 That's why I have almost no material posessions- there is nothing to take.
 @portlandborn83 You couldn't be more right. Just look up FEMA camps or Rex 84. That's the cause for the "gun ban" to sieze as many weapons as possible before bringing the hammer down.
Funny though... These events are preceded by pratice drills. They drilled in Clackamas before the shooting and the air traffic controlers on 9/11 were shouting "Is this a drill?"
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(sorry about the spelling, I'm up at 03:30 for work and I'm a little tired this time of day)
@PeterAWolf It's called social engineering, this is now the new normal!
 @portlandborn83  @PeterAWolf That's why I spend more and more time in pure meditation....
And may they never, ever have to use this training !
@Rob C 503 ? Doubtful....some short fat guy driving a big truck is my prediction of our first.....also, big "o" sticker on aforementioned truck.
Check out the photo where they're all staging to go in. The cops in the back appear to be grinning and not taking the situation too seriously. Looks like a lot of fun.
@Playanekes Grinning IS a way to relieve tension! I really do believe they WERE taking it very seriously!
Interesting to watch on the videos... one of those events that I sure hope I never witness in person... a feeling shared, I'm sure, by all the LEOs and a great majority of the movie-going public..! Â Â
what's with all the bald cops lately? LOL
 @jpk I have a buzz cut too... it keeps life simple.
It may keep life simple, but I preferred a slick top vehicle instead! LOL
Besides my baldness came about naturally, or maybe not. I used to say that each hair left my head as a result of those wonderful folks I used to have to deal with!  Â
As long as you don't forget your ballistic vest in the interests of comfort and expediency!Â
 @jpk I just run some bar soap over my head, rinse and I'm done.
TMI for the potential bad guys out there watching!
 @jpkÂ
It's kinda the point.
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I can tell you this is the third one in the last three weeks. Have you heard about the other two? Where did they happen? What agencies were involved?
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You need to tell d-bags that you are onto them. Bad guys need to know there is training, and you give them enough information to make them think about doing it before they do it. Then leave a bunch out or give out incorrect information.
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 @Repoman  @jpk I am glad the police take these threats seriously, and I really do appreciate their hard work, and the fact that they risk their lives to protect me. But this is only a stop-gap measure. It might help temporarily, but it is not the answer.
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Generally, the guys who do this are not hardened evil killers who will look at this training and shy away from the crime because there is too much risk. You are assuming that these crimes are committed by people who think rationally.   Bank robberies are committed by people who think rationally.  But the guy who shot up the Colorado theater was a nut.  He wouldn't be dissuaded. He would just do it another way.  Â
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This type of preparedness would at least help to reduce the deaths in a case where somebody was shooting for 10 or 20 minutes (or more), or shot and then holed up somewhere and kept killing every once in a while. But as a general strategy , this is not the answer.
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The Government, and law enforcement, are being distracted by the whole "gun" thing from the real problem: the problem is murdering, amoral, dangerous people, who are often not rational.  We have to focus on the agents of the crime, and not the method. We have to focus on the coarsening of our society, on the cavalier attitude we as a people have toward violence, or we will fail to make anyone safer.
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Thank you, a BIG thank you, to the police for trying to be ready for these crimes.Â
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But the police need our Government and our people to fundamentally change the way we live in order to stop this. You don't fix a hole in a bucket by catching the water as it drips out and preventing as much of it as you can from hitting the floor. You plug the hole.
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Well thought out post. Unfortunately, nowadays it is easier to focus on immediate problems as opposed to concentrating on eliminating the long term issues which cause the problems in the first place.
I gotta look at it slightly different. We had certain training sessions which were highly intense and practical, but we didn't have the media poking around. Would you consider that this media event was held to help divert all the bad publicity the PPB has had lately?
 @jpk - The good work that is done far outshadows the mis-steps, Sadly,  it seems that people only want to read about the negative (and comment profusely as evidenced many times on K2 boards) so that is what is reported.  One would think PPB would want to get positive situations out there as well as the negative so welcomed the reporting. So it appears I am agreeing with you!Â