Jenks Police hold Active Shooter Training at Tulsa Premium Outlets

The Jenks Police and Fire departments and EMSA combined forces Sunday morning for active shooter training at the Tulsa Premium Outlet Mall in Jenks.

Officer Josh Semke with Jenks PD explains how it's designed to prepare officers for the unimaginable.

Q: Why is Jenks Police doing active shooter training?

"This is a great training exercise that we can use for a future incident that could happen. We hope that it never comes to pass to happen but we always want to hop on the training beforehand," said Semke.

Q: What past active shooter training has Jenks Police done?

"This is our first time at the mall, being less than 6 months old, so this is going to be a great opportunity for us," he said. "Past experiences or training we've done with active shooter drills, we've done them at the schools and campuses."

Q: Why is training at the Tulsa Premium Outlet Mall?

“The outlet mall offers a lot of open breezeways and hidden passages and us as first responders, we want to make sure that we clear all the areas that we can," said Semke. "How do we respond to an open threat with an open breezeway, open area where a threat can be anywhere?” 

Q: What are the benefits of training by replicating a mass shooting scenario?

"We can’t predict when a threat can happen so it could be rain or shine, cold or wet. This is a great opportunity, even though its cold, to come out here, and our officers can respond to the call, they can address the weather concerns, find the threat, locate the threat, stop the threat and then proceed to our medical triage and see who is wounded and who needs help.”

Q: Are there any plans to hold more trainings in the future?

"The training really helps to jump on top of safety awareness. We're always on top of training. We're gonna see what we did right on this and how to make it better and what we did wrong and how we can fix that,” said Semke.