MILITARY & VETERANS AFFAIRS
NEWS RELEASE

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION CONTACT:

Maj. Yvonne Mays at 609-530-6939

      In 2007, a group of six radical Islamist men conspired to attack United States military personnel stationed at Fort Dix, New Jersey.

 

      The aim of the group was to "kill as many soldiers as possible.” Fortunately their plot was disrupted before they got a chance to execute it.

 

      On November 5, 2009, a mass shooting took place on, at Fort Hood, Texas — the most heavily populated American military base in the world.

 

      A single gunman killed 13 people and wounded 30 others.

 

 

Contact Team members, left to right, Master Sgt. David Hightower, Tech. Sgt. Mary M. Connelly and Mr. Silvio P. Ayars move out during the base-wide Active Shooter exercise at the 177th Fighter Wing, New Jersey Air National Guard on May 5, 2010.

 

      “Military personnel take it for granted that we are targets when we deploy – it comes with the duty,” said 177th Fighter Wing Commander Col. Robert C. Bolton. “Sometimes we forget that the battlefield is here at home also.”

 

      To combat the growing threat, the 177th Fighter Wing held a base-wide active shooter exercise on May 5 involving 177th Security Forces and elements of the New Jersey State Police and Egg Harbor Township Police, along with observers from various state and federal agencies including the Transportation Security Administration, New York City Intelligence Division, New Jersey Office of Homeland Security, Atlantic County Office of Emergency Management and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

 

 

Master Sgt. David Hightower, center, along with Contact Team members Tech. Sgt. Mary M. Connelly, left and Mr. Charles O. Kerley, right, clear a building during the base-wide Active Shooter exercise at the 177th Fighter Wing, New Jersey Air National Guard on May 5, 2010.

 

 

      The exercise involved a single gunman who after successfully gaining access to the base was cornered by a 177th Contact Team – the Wing's first responders in such an event – and neutralized.

 

      “We can guard against this; but the key is to have a plan in place and be prepared,” said Bolton. “The goal is to protect and save lives through immediate, swift and purposeful action.”

 

      The exercise served to test and validate the Wing's ability to alert Airmen to take cover, notify first-responders, to neutralize the threat and finally, to assess the unit's ability to deal with the consequences of such an event, as well as to interact with multiple law enforcement agencies.

 

      “After the Fort Hood shooting, Headquarters Air Force directed that Air Force and Guard Units develop active shooter response plans,” said Maj. Jan. J. Burgess, 177th Security Forces Commander. “That directive came down January 2010.”

 

      By then the 177th was already well ahead of the game.

 

      Wing Security Forces received their first round of training in April 2008 at the Cape May Police Academy. That was later followed up by instruction from the New Jersey State Police.

 

      Unlike an attack by enemy soldiers, active shooter is essentially a criminal act and, because there is usually no criminal objective involved, other than pure violence, these scenarios are dangerous and require specialized training on the part of all members of the base population.

 

      “In most cases active shooters have only one goal; to kill as many people as possible,” said Master Sgt. Joseph A. Iacovone Jr., 177th Security Forces and member of the Exercise Evaluation Team. Iacovone created the Security Forces Active Shooter Training program and under Burgess's direction worked with Dever to develop the Security Forces portion of the Wing Response Plan.

 

      That is why the initial training came from police departments. Coupled with the fact that a large number of the 177th‘s Security Forces Airmen serve with either state or local police forces, the Wing was able to further get a jump on the necessary training.

 

      Essentially the trainees were already subject matter experts.

 

 

 

Contact Team Member Tech. Sgt. Mary M. Connelly provides cover during the base-wide Active Shooter exercise at the 177th Fighter Wing, New Jersey Air National Guard on May 5, 2010.

 

      “That is when the effort began getting under way in earnest,” said Chief Master Sgt. Jack Dever, 177th Fighter Wing Anti-terrorism Officer.

 

      That is also when the scope of the operation first started to become visible.

 

      It opened up a lot of questions ranging from the 177th being a "tenant" on a civilian airport, to how both on and off site law enforcement entities would be integrated into its response procedures along with the jurisdictional issues.

 

      “Cooperation between us and the various local, state and federal agencies is key to how successfully we can deal with an incident should it ever occur here,” said Iacovone.

 

 

Master Sgt. David Hightower, center, along with Contact Team members Mr. Charles O. Kerley, left and Mr. Silvio P. Ayars, right, clear a building during the base-wide Active Shooter exercise at the 177th Fighter Wing, New Jersey Air National Guard on May 5, 2010.

  

      “Even bigger questions arose: ‘how do we get our folks trained and how do we integrate that training with other law enforcement entities?'” said Burgess. “How do we alert the base population that there is a problem? How do we deal with the aftermath of such an event?”

 

      To be effective, a plan was needed that included multiple response agencies including the New Jersey State Police, Egg Harbor Township Police, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Homeland Security – the list ends up looking like a stereotypical government alphabet soup of acronyms.

 

      That final plan enables the 177th to be able to respond to a situation in which one or more individuals participate in a shooting spree on the installation.

 

 

 

Master Sgt. David Hightower, right, leads a group of Egg Harbor Township Policemen during the base-wide Active Shooter exercise at the 177th Fighter Wing, New Jersey Air National Guard on May 5, 2010.

 

      Also, because the Wing had been working on the plan for about two years, they were well ahead of the curve and were able to finish the response plan and the complete the exercise fairly quickly, while other active duty and reserve units are scrambling to play catch-up.

 

      “The plan held up well under the test of the actual exercise,” said Dever. “It will require some minor modifications prior to publication, but that is expected within a week.”

 

      “I am already getting inquiries and requests for guidance on this program from other units,” said Burgess.

 

      “The Air Force is very concerned about preparedness and dealing with these situations,” said Bolton. “This exercise served to validate our planning and training.”

 

      “In the end this training could mean the difference between life and death,” said Iacovone.

 

 

 

Contact Team Members Tech. Sgt. Mary M. Connelly, right, and Mr. Charles O. Kerley, second from right, along with New Jersey State Police Troopers and Egg Harbor Township Police listen to Lt. John Peacock, second from left, New Jersey State Police, during the base-wide Active Shooter exercise at the 177th Fighter Wing, New Jersey Air National Guard on May 5, 2010.