Rapid deployment police training taking place at Corbin East School

There’s no reason to be alarmed.

It’s just a drill.

If you see SWAT teams of police officers rushing into Corbin East School on Master Street for the remainder of the week, it’s not because there’s a hostage situation or school shooting.

For the next three days, the school is being used to help police officers from the tri-county area, and around the state, train for just those types of situations – the culmination of a weeklong training event being offered to police departments by the Department of Criminal Justice Training.

The "rapid deployment" class consists of two days of "classroom" study that was held at Corbin City Hall Monday and Tuesday. According to Corbin Police Major David Maiden, the classroom work contains some background necessary for officers to begin learning the rapid deployment tactics police now use to deal with situations like Columbine High School.
"In this, it’s teaching you to rush in and it’s showing you how to rush in at a fast pace in two-man or four-man teams," Maiden said. He completed the training last year.

"It’s pretty much a dead spring and you are going straight at the target. The way they are looking at it in this training, there’s a good chance one or two [officers] will be shot, but the hostage taker will not be able to engage the whole team."

As Maiden explains, newer tactics call for dealing with hostage takers or school shooters in a speedy fashion before they have time to cause more death and mayhem. No longer do officers wait for specialized SWAT teams or special response units.

"It teaches average traffic cops to go in and eliminate targets," he said. "In these situations, every second counts. Every minute you wait there’s no telling how many kids get killed."

Maiden said today that the roughly 25 officers taking part in the training would begin "dry runs" through the school. Thursday and Friday, teams of officers will use real guns shooting paintball type, small-casing "simunitions" and other equipment to recreate life-like situations. The training goes against every instinct officers often have, Maiden said. And getting shot, even with a small paint pellet, is not walk in the park.

"Police have always been taught to take cover in any situation, then eliminate the target … so it takes some getting used to," Maiden said. "When you first start the class, your first instincts, when one of the bad guys pops out, you are wanting to take cover. After the four-day training, you’ve got it instilled in you that you are engaging the target and not taking cover."

Maiden said getting shot with the "simunitions" stings, and even though is far from fatal it is something officers have to overcome. At the end of any mock hostage or school shooting situation, Maiden said invariably some officers are "wounded," even if the shots aren’t fatal.

Many of the officers taking the training have never been in Corbin East School before. That’s a good thing, Maiden said, because it helps officers acclimate themselves better to unknown situations so that they may more easily assist other agencies when they are in unfamiliar territory.

Corbin Police are concerned citizens may drive by the school and see the training going on, but worry there is a real situation.

"We just want to make people aware that this is going on and hopefully eliminate some major confusion."