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Officer trainees play hostage during mass drill

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Jonathan Ortiz-Torres
  • Air University Public Affairs
MAXWELL AIR FORCE BASE, Ala. (AETCNS) --  A year ago, 331 people at a school in Beslan, Russia, were killed -- more than half of them were children.

The three-day hostage-taking ended in explosions and gunfire - a scene that according to a local police sergeant here is a possibility in the United States.

That event led to Alabama's largest anti-terrorism drill Aug. 27, where more than 25 federal, state, and local law enforcement and emergency response agencies including the Department of Homeland Security, took over Holtville Elementary, Middle and High schools in Elmore County.

Still, the drill may not have been as realistic without the more than 100 volunteer hostages from Officer Training School here.

"We couldn't have done this drill without the help of the people from Maxwell," said police Sgt. Chris Zeigler, commander of the Elmore County Special Weapons and Tactics team.

"The purpose of the exercise was to evaluate emergency procedures and look for ways to improve them," Sergeant Zeigler said. "This was the first time we've done an anti-terrorism drill of this scale in Alabama. We had between 250-300 participants."

Sergeant Zeigler, who organized the drill, said he based the scenarios on the Beslan incident.

"After reading a case study about the terror in that Russian elementary school and the possibility of it happening here, I knew we weren't prepared for that," he said.

Three busloads of officer trainees arrived at the rural school shortly after sunrise and were led by exercise evaluators into classrooms, auditoriums and cafeterias to play hostages. Others simulated being dead and some played human shields for the "terrorists."

The first hour was relatively quiet; that is until exercise officials began to plant simulated improvised explosion devices or IEDs on the trainees.

At the high school, five trainees were duct-taped and seated around a propane tank wired with simulated explosives. Dozens more had fake grenades taped to their hands.

"The majority of the casualties in Beslan were the result of improvised bombs," Sergeant Zeigler said. "We had bomb disposal teams place simulated IEDs all over the three schools including booby traps."

Firefighters from several counties played the masked terrorists toting rifles and handguns; however, they weren't "alive" for too long.

When the exercise began, what was beginning to look like a lazy afternoon turned into an all-out, dramatic hostage rescue scene out of a movie.

Several SWAT teams stormed the schools and "took out" most of the terrorists while fire trucks and ambulances from neighboring counties pulled into the schools' parking lot. Even a SWAT armored tank was thundering toward the school until a simulated rocket-propelled grenade stopped it. Circling the school was a county helicopter keeping watch as well.

In reality, the drill was far from perfect. Bombs were set off, hostages killed and some communication was lost, but that is what officials expected.

"Nothing surprised me," Sergeant Zeigler said. "We don't face this type of scenario every day, and hopefully we never will, but the truth is if a terrorist were to do this here, there's a whole new set of rules of engagement.

"It's almost like we have to play a deployed military role," said the police sergeant, who served in the Marine Corps. "This is hard for American law enforcement to make the switch from dealing with domestic criminals to fighting terrorism."

For the future Air Force leaders attending the 12-week basic officer training, their role as hostages goes farther than simply helping the community.

"They get to see and appreciate what the local law enforcement is doing to keep people at home safe," said Lt. Col. Bruce Danskine, 24th Training Squadron commander at OTS. "This will become more apparent when they deploy to support the war on terrorism while people back home are preparing and fighting for the same cause."

For officer trainee Christopher James, upper classman in charge of the trainees, "It was kind of neat, at least from our perspective. It was like watching it in third person. The first-hand experience to see how (law enforcement and emergency agencies) handled themselves is a learning experience that you can't get from reading a book."