The drill was a distraught male threatening to cut his own throat with a knife, who then stabbed a mall security guy and few mall patrons, drew a pistol and took two patrons hostage into a mall store back room. I was a hostage. The perp had a blank gun and responding LEOs UTM marking firearms. The perp wore a heavy jacket, gloves and helmet and hostages face shields and jackets.
From a Comms perspective, responding officers and mall security were not optimally coordinated. The initial patrol officers were accompanied by mall security with radio contact to the mall videocams but the secondary SWAT were only in contact with dispatch.
SWAT initially engaged prematurely while the perp was backing us into the room. They rushed us and pulled me down and away into a forward roll while the perp kept pulling the other hostage and shooting blanks. Their debrief will be interesting - while avoiding a hostage barricade might have been the intent, the perp could have shot us both. A learning experience.
They reset the drill with us already barricaded in the storeroom, did some hostage negotiation until the perp said he was going to kill us and started firing at the door. SWAT forced entry and took him out. They had a 40mm 6-shot grenade launcher with 9mm UTM propelled dummy rounds handy but didn’t use it - thank God.
Some of the role-players were kids - twentysomethings dressed like kids dress. It turns our they were plainclothes mall security rovers that change up hair styles/dye, clothing styles, piercings, tats, groups, etc., to blend into the roving crowds of youngsters. Even a middle-aged woman in a business suit. I never knew that. But then again, I haven’t been in a mall in many, many years, if you don’t count dashing into Sears before they went away.
Anybody hear any scanner chatter?
