"You always want to prepare:" Mass shooting in Oregon has UWM police cracking down on campus safety
MILWAUKEE -- The Oregon school shooting has college campuses across the nation looking at the way they train for and respond to active shooter scenarios.
Active shooters are becoming more prevalent and with each incident lessons are learned. The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Police Department says it trains every year implementing new tactics with the hope to never have to use them.
It's the harsh reality that many college campuses have been faced with a mass shooter which means students, faculty, and campus safety has to be prepared.
"You always want to prepare to never have anything happen," said the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Police Chief, Joseph LeMire.
UWM Police Chief LeMire says Thursday's shooting at Oregon's Umpqua Community College has them reviewing their own active shooter preparedness plan.
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Police Chief Joseph LeMire
"The whole idea is you want to prevent them so every time we have something like this you want to take the information and somehow turn it into a way of stop it from happening," Chief LeMire.
Currently, the department uses the alert model of the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response -- a training model adopted by the FBI.
"It's really kind of an idea of tactics and methods that law enforcement can use as they interact together as departments," said Chief LeMire.
They've also enhanced their policies by working closely with behavioral intervention teams.
"We're doing a better job of tracking people down that may be a threat and getting them help to make sure they're okay, but also making sure the community is safe," said Chief LeMire.
"I think a lot of work needs to be done and not just here," said Senior Broadcast Journalism Lecturer, Mark Zoromski.
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Senior Broadcast Journalism Lecturer, Mark Zoromski, and his students investigated the college's active shooter procedures. Their work won an Edward R Murrow Award and lead to the university forming a working group that looked into the issues raised in the investigations.
UWM police
Zoromski thinks the university has taken positive steps but says his students will continue to investigate campus safety.
"We're gonna start holding people accountable because that's what good journalism does," said Zoromski.
The UWM Police Department is working on 12 training sessions for students to participate in over the course of the school year.
They also have a program in place that allows individual classes, campus groups and work areas to invite the department in to hold training classes for that group.