O'Connor spoke at a Partnership Victoria meeting Tuesday after Rick McBrayer, Victoria Office of Emergency Management coordinator, gave a presentation on Victoria's first responder active shooter training that happened July 29 at Cade Middle School.
O'Connor said he recalled being part of the first such active shooter training in the country. That training occurred in 2002 at Howell Middle School, he said.
The 2002 training was organized by Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training of San Marcos, he said.
Law enforcement in Victoria was one of the first that ALERRT trained, said Diana Hendricks, ALERRT communications director. Before Victoria, the group did a pilot training in Hondo.
Since 2002, ALERRT has trained police officers to go into the active shooter scene as soon as they arrive to stop the shooter, Hendricks said. Before the Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colo., in 1999, police officers were trained to secure the perimeter and wait until a SWAT team or team of tactical officers arrived to go into the building, Hendricks said.
Back when the training first began locally, only the Victoria Police Department and the Victoria County Sheriff's Office tactical SWAT teams were trained on how to respond to an active shooter event, O'Connor said.
But now, all first responders are trained on how to respond.
"When they started this, it was strictly for SWAT teams," he said. "The mindset in those days was they're the ones that are going to go in. A uniformed officer was to secure it, not necessarily go in. We know time is of the essence, and that's why the mindset changed."
Now first responders are more in sync when they respond during training because the lessons learned from actual events, O'Connor said.
"Practice, practice, practice. Training, training, training," he said. "And that's where we've come so far because of what we've learned or what we've experienced first hand."
O'Connor communicates with sheriffs and police chiefs across the country who have had actual shootings in their communities, he said.
"We've had training about Columbine nationally," he said. "We communicate what did you do good and what would you do otherwise so you learn tremendously about that and bring it back to Victoria and the teams here in Victoria. It's an ongoing constant process."
O'Connor said that first responders can't anticipate every single scenario but train for as many as possible.
"I assure you, we are very well trained and prepared," he said. "I'm very proud and impressed on how this process has changed so much over a decade."
The active shooter training July 29 included about 150 first responders from the Victoria County Office of Emergency Management, the Victoria County Sheriff's Office, the Texas Department of Public Safety, Victoria Police Department and Victoria Fire Department, McBrayer said.
It took four months to prepare for the active shooter training, McBrayer said.
The training was made to be as realistic as possible with actors who had fake wounds, and an active shooter actor who shot blank rounds in the building. First responders treated the wounded and transported them to DeTar Hospital Navarro and Citizens Medical Center. Both hospitals tested their capacity in a mass casualty event.
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