NFPA Journal - September/October 2013 - (Page 52)
FEATURE
FIRE SERVICE + SHOOTERS
Strength
in Numbers
How the fire service can play a key role
in an integrated approach to responding
to mass-casualty shootings
BY RUSS SANDERS AND BEN KLAENE
ILLUSTRATION BY SEAN McCABE
O
n December 14, 2012, local firefighters were among the first to
arrive at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Newtown, Connecticut, in response to a shooter in the school. As police entered the
building to hunt down the gunman, firefighters helped set up a triage unit at the site to treat the injured. But no injured came. “A few
times during the incident I actually [was] hoping that this area [would be] filled
with injured people,” one firefighter told CNN. “But fairly early on we realized
that wasn’t going to be the case.” People either got out uninjured, or they died in
the school. When it was over, 20 children and six adults at the school were dead.
Ten days later, in upstate New York, a 911 dispatcher received a call from an
unidentified man who claimed he was under fire. “We are being shot at,” he told
the dispatcher, according to NBC News. “Multiple firemen down. Multiple firemen are shot. I am shot. I think he is using an assault rifle.”
The caller was a member of the volunteer fire department in West Webster,
New York, near Rochester. Firefighters were responding to a pre-dawn residential
blaze in the nearby town of Webster when they were met with gunfire—a man
had purposely set his vehicle and home on fire to lure firefighters and other emergency responders to the scene, where he ambushed them. Two firefighters were
killed and two more were wounded in the shooting spree. News outlets quickly
made the connection that the Webster gunman used the same model of militarystyle, semi-automatic rifle that the Newtown shooter had used.
52
NFPA JOURNAL SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2013
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NFPA Journal - September/October 2013
NFPA Journal - September/October 2013
Contents
First Word
In a Flash
Perspectives
Firewatch
Heads Up
Research
Structural Ops
In Compliance
Buzzwords
Outreach
Electrical Safety
Wildfire Watch
Cover Story: Furniture Flamability
Special Report
NFPA Reports
NFPA Reports
Fire Analysis + Research
Section Spotlight
What’s Hot
Looking Back
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