Mission: Secure Oklahoma Schools Underway, State Troopers Begin Training

A statewide push to make our schools safer has officially begun. Soon every law enforcement officer in the state of Oklahoma will be trained for an active shooter event in the same way. 

This is the first step to complying with the Governor’s executive order to make schools safer. State troopers will take what they learned here back home and train other officers. 

“We want to put them under as much realistic stress in the scenario-based training to have them as fully prepared as much as we can,” said Tim Tipton, the Commissioner Of Public Safety. 

On Monday, troopers from across the state of Oklahoma gathered at a training center in Oklahoma City to start their active shooter emergency response training. 

“How do we move in, stop the killing as quickly as possible, render aid to those who are possibly injured, and resolve the situation as quickly as possible? So, we want to make sure we are prepared,” said Tipton. 

Under the executive order, Mission: Secure Oklahoma Schools, law enforcement officers have to complete the training by January 1, 2023. 

“The executive order that the governor took really is a holistic approach. How does law enforcement, local school districts and local communities partner together? How do we use our latest technology for identifying threats? Doing behavioral threat assessments things like that,” said the Commissioner of Public Safety. 

While all state troopers have gotten some form of active shooter training, the latest effort will provide up to date tactics for law enforcement. 

“Some of the early active shooter training just like many law enforcement training around the country did really didn’t address door breaching or have the initial officers trained for that so that is included in this training,” he said. 

The training gives all 9,000 officers in the state of Oklahoma the same skills to respond regardless of the time or place. 

“They are getting a toolbox of techniques and tactics that they can implement to eliminate and stop the threat,” said Tipton. 

With this new executive order every new police officer is mandated to take this training.