MUPD hosts Citizens’ Response to Active Threats training for faculty, staff, students

The University of Missouri Police Department hosted Citizens’ Response to Active Threats (C.R.A.T.) training for all University of Missouri faculty, staff and students on Tuesday.

The course is based on the Department of Homeland Security’s Run, Hide, Fight program. It taught members of the MU community how to react and respond in the case of an active shooter/violent intruder incident.

“While we hope we never have to respond to a catastrophic event on campus, we must be prepared for the unthinkable,” MUPD Chief Doug Schwandt said. “The best we can all do is to be vigilant and prepared.”

Officers at Tuesday’s training said Columbine changed police response. Prior to the tragedy, officers were taught to secure the perimeter and wait for SWAT to respond. Now, the goal of police is to stop the threat as quickly as possible.

“We do everything we can to examine every incident that occurs and try to step our game up,” MUPD officer Jacob Clifford told ABC 17 News. “After the Virginia Tech incident, we saw that the assailant chained the door shut, so we now carry door-breaching equipment in all of the police cars.”

ABC 17 News spoke to one MU student, who just completed his freshman year. He said he “definitely” felt more prepared after the training and also called it eye-opening.

“We were always taught to just hide in place and apparently being all condensed there, you’re just an easy target for the shooter,” Dylan Hummel said.

About seven months ago, Mizzou issued an alert for an active threat on campus after reports of a suicidal woman with a gun. There was some confusion after the alert went out, so police said Tuesday that they’ve updated their system. They will now send text updates instead of directing people to the website.

“[When} more information is available we’ll text that information out, as opposed to someone having to go to the website to get additional information, it will be pushed to them,” Schwandt said.

There’s also a lot of prevention work that goes on behind-the-scenes. In fact, MU has an at-risk committee that students, faculty or staff can contact if they are worried about another student or colleague.

“We try to have as many people on our team as possible to stay in touch with those students and get them in touch with resources that could help them,” Clifford said.

MUPD also offers self-defense courses. You can sign up for those here, and you can learn more about the university’s active threat training here.