University of Tennessee at Martin Practices Active-Shooter Training

MARTIN, Tenn. - Active shooter training isn’t the kind of training that Martin first responders would want to do, but due to recent events, University of Tennessee at Martin operations Lieutenant Charles Jahr, believes this training is what is needed to do.

“It’s not that we want to but it’s getting more common, it’s happening everywhere, and we have an open campus, most of these campuses are open so they’re available to the public to use, so there’s not necessarily a lot of things you can do as far as prevention, but you can work on being prepared.”

UT Martin public safety, the Weakley County emergency management agency, and West Tennessee Healthcare volunteer hospital are a few examples of the first responders that worked together to organize the active shooter training.

The exercise is designed to prepare for an active-shooter threat and place Martin emergency systems in a realistic emergency response scenario.

“Be prepared and be willing to make a decision, you never know what’s going to happen and so all we can do is make the best decision we can with the information we have and try to be prepared and just keep going forward.”

The training took several months to prepare for, and lieutenant Jahr believes it was a success.

He believes this active shooter training is another way to help keep UT Martin safe for students, professors, faculty, and visitors.