The University of Louisiana at Lafayette Police Department (ULPD) conducted the first of two mass casualty training sessions today.
The second, also in collaboration with Acadian Ambulance, will take place on Thursday.
"We're obviously seeing more and more of these threats take place, especially in our country. So we want to be absolutely prepared for the threat. Traditionally we train on other things like bus wrecks and other mass casualties. Because of the increased threat of active shooters, we leaning towards more of these active shooter type of things," said Mike Burley, Quality Improvement Coordinator.
Today's session was held in Broussard Hall; Thursday's session will be held there, too. Broussard Hall will be closed during the training and portions of Hebrard Boulevard will be closed to traffic for ULPD and emergency medical system vehicles.
As part of the exercise, University Police officers will conduct active shooter incident drills in Broussard Hall. The training will involve simunition rounds, which are small paintball-like projectiles. They are fired from blue handguns and sound like real gunfire. No simunition rounds will be fired outside Broussard Hall.
Acadian Ambulance personnel will arrive in ambulances with lights and sirens. They will exit the vehicles with urgency as if there were a mass casualty incident in Broussard Hall.
