Active Shooter Training in LEA Environments

*This article was edited with the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) tools. Final review and editing were conducted by authorized DoW personnel to ensure accuracy, clarity, and compliance with DoW policies and guidance.

*The contents of this article do not represent the official views of, nor are they endorsed by, the U.S. Army, the Department of War, or the U.S. government.

Published 1/2/2026
By First Lieutenant Spencer Tindall

The Intro

Emerging threats and technology necessitate boots on the ground to adapt training and resources to meet mission requirements while adapting to resource and manpower constraints. As the United States Northern Command operational environment evolves, a multidisciplinary approach to law enforcement is required to maintain unit readiness and operational tempo. The complexity and disposition of the Fort Gordon, Georgia (FGGA) law enforcement (LE) community necessitate interoperability. With limited resources and personnel, our community law enforcement must be trained and evaluated holistically and more frequently.

The Team

FGGA is home to the United States Army Cyber Center of Excellence (CCoE). The installation has numerous law enforcement agencies on post, including a law enforcement activity (LEA), the Law Enforcement Center (LEC) (home to the Department of the Army civilian police
[DACP]), Department of the Army Criminal Investigation Division Fort Gordon resident agency, Defense Health Agency security, Department of the Army Security Guards (DASG), and National Security Agency (NSA) police. While each organization has a director, chief, or commander, none of those command hierarchies are synergized. In the spring of 2025, all parties came to the table to understand the mission of each adjacent unit. Simultaneously, they ensured integrated, layered, and redundant security while acknowledging each other’s challenges. This effort enabled collaboration on training objectives, allowing a perceived weakness to be a pillar of strength.

The Problem

The one-size-fits-most LEA Table of Distributions and Allowances for Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) installations has resulted in potential conflict should a significant Active Shooter/Hostile Event Response (ASHER) event arise. The blueprint outlined for the LEAs reduced the number of basic patrol Soldiers/DACPs authorized by both LEA and Garrison TDAs. This leaves most TRADOC LEAs with little choice but to operate on 12-hour shifts to meet mission requirements, contrasting with the TRADOC base order. This constrains the ability of the LEA Commander and DACP Chief of Police to conduct well-resourced, realistic, and rigorous training toward collective tasks. Although creative plans have been implemented to accomplish the basic Annual Law Enforcement Compliance Program (ALECP) training, constraints have created an environment that simply “checks the box,” rather than preparing all law enforcement on the installation for the risks they may face.

Asher Events Explained

Direct action units conduct significant training cycles to conduct cordon and search missions. They spend countless hours over the course of a training cycle rehearsing with their organic fire team/squad. This mitigates the high-risk nature of close-quarters battle (CQB). ASHER is arguably higher risk than generic CQB. Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training (ALERRT) active shooter response level 1 (the nationally recognized standard for ASHER) teaches techniques for as few as two officers to clear a structure to find and neutralize an active threat. These first two officers may be a criminal investigation division (CID) agent and a local sheriff’s office school resource officer who have never met or worked together. There is no trust or shared understanding of task accomplishment. Unlike a Special Reaction Team (SRT), which trains together (like a direct action unit), our patrols need far more than one classroom exposure a year to do this task. Bridging the gap with different local agencies in universally recognized training is vital to containing and shortening the duration of the incident.

Historically, at an ASHER event, all local, state, and federal law enforcement officers (LEOs) respond to support the host LE department/agency. During the Washington Naval Yard shooting, 117 officers from five agencies entered the building to search for the gunman.¹ During the Robb Elementary School shooting, over 375 local, state, and federal LEOs arrived to support the LE response.² Department of the Army law enforcement assets must be interoperable to support such an event. This includes being able to shoot, move, and communicate among intergovernmental agency LEO partners.

Our Solution

At FGGA, the CCoE LEA is driving an integrated Fort Gordon initiative to integrate all federal, state, and local LEO partners. CCoE LEA, in coordination with the local CID field office, plans and coordinates active shooter training between NSA Police, CID, Military police, DACP, and Richmond County Sheriff’s Office (RCSO). This training, facilitated by subject matter experts from RCSO, CID, and the military police, fosters critical communication over response TTPs for ASHER events. Training is held off-post at Richmond County’s premier active shooter training site, which is a decommissioned county school. This training site facilitates fundamental CQB and ALERRT training with sim-munitions, IED simulators, foreign area debris common to schools and public spaces, reduced sight lines, low-light areas, fire alarms, and smoke. This initiative ensures that when an ASHER event happens and seconds matter, our local LE partners are trained to meet it as a unified force.

This joint-training initiative has led to personnel from each individual organization developing TTPs for actions on the objective during an ASHER event. In March 2025, the LEA and CID hosted a weeklong training on the fundamentals of CQB training. The instruction began the walk phase of the initiative. In August 2025, RCSO hosted a weeklong ASHER force-on-force training at their active shooter training site. This training was built on the fundamentals of CQB by introducing new stimuli and enabling cooperation among NSA police, CID, RSCO, DACP, and military police. In 2026, the LEA plans on hosting additional joint training to refine TTPs and reinforce ASHER response under stress.

Force-Wide Application

FGGA LEO recommends a similar approach to ASHER event training at each Department of War (DoW) installation, which is likely to have an interagency LE response to an ASHER event to overcome the limitations of force structure, mitigate risk from uncoordinated joint-ASHER TTPs, and increase response efficiency. We recommend that United States Military Police School seriously consider the options of making ALERRT instructor training a military police additional skill identifier or creating a condensed “Master CQB Instructor Course” with an associated additional skill identifier. In addition, these additional skill identifiers should be added to the TDA authorizations for each LEA. Through adaptation to emergent threats, DOW installation integrated law enforcement teams will be ready and capable of handling an ASHER event.

Endnotes:

¹Cathy L. Lanier. 2014. MPD Navy Yard After Action Report. Washington, DC: Metropolitan Police District of Columbia. July 11. https://mpdc.dc.gov/publication/mpd-navy-yard-after-action-report.
² Dustin Burrows, Jon Moody, and Eva Guzman. 2022. Investigative Committee on the Robb Elementary Shooting. Austin, TX: Texas House of Representatives.
https://www.house.texas.gov/pdfs/committees/reports/interim/87interim/Robb-Elementary-Investigative-Committee-Report-update.pdf; Zach Despart. 2022. "’Widespread Failures’ in Uvalde Shooting Went Far Beyond Local Police, Texas House Report Details." The Texas Tribune, July 17. https://www.texastribune.org/2022/07/17/law-enforcement-failure-uvalde-shooting-investigation/.

First Lieutenant Tindall currently serves as the Executive Officer at Cyber Center of Excellence
Law Enforcement Activity, Fort Gordon, Georgia. He holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology
from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.