Top News

• Jul 17, 2007 5:11 pm US/Eastern
• Digg | Facebook | E-mail

  Close WindowE-mail This Page

  College Police Departments Train For The Worst

  Required fields are marked with an asterisk(*)

  ---

  • Recipient E-mail:* 
  • • Your Name:* 
    • Your E-mail:* 
  • Add a Message:
  •   Send me a copy of this e-mail.

  • Type the characters in this picture:* Click here to refresh with new letters

  ---

  The information you provide will be used only to send the requested e-mail and will not be used to send any other e-mail communications. Read more in our Privacy Policy

  Send E-mail

  | Print

College Police Departments Train For The Worst

WORCESTER (WBZ) ― Although it's summer, there is some important learning going on at colleges in Worcester.

Campus police departments are getting SWAT training to protect thousands of students from tragedies like the one at Virginia Tech three months ago.

Mainly, they're learning what their instructors call the 4 Cs: how to control and contain an active shooter and how to communicate and coordinate with each other.

Becker College police officers are preparing to be first responders for something they hope they never see: a campus shooting like the one at Virginia Tech that took the lives of 32 people and wounded 25 before the gunman, a student who had written a disturbing manifesto, shot himself.

Becker police Chief David Bousquet said his officers need to be on the same page, tactically, as Worcester and State Police.

"When you get in a stressful situation or a bad incident of some sort, your training kicks in," Bousquet said.

The Becker officers are being trained by Worcester police SWAT officers who are learning about the campus layout and getting building blueprints.

"The training's valuable in that when our officers respond with the Becker Police Department or any other college, they've all been through the same exact training," Capt. Paul Saucier of the Worcester police SWAT team said.

"The tone (of the training is) pretty loud," Lt. Rick Bates of the Worcester Police Training Division said. "That's command presence. That's to let them know we mean business.

"The commands are so that there's absolutely no question of what we expect from that person In that room."

Clark University Police have received similar training. Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Assumption College officers will be training over the next couple of weeks.

There are more than 11,000 students at those four schools. And there are eight other colleges in the Worcester area.

(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)