HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla — Middle and high school resource deputies (SRDs) will receive a four-day active shooter training by the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office SWAT Team starting Thursday morning, according to a news release.
The training will start at 10:30 a.m. at Giunta Middle School located at 4202 S. Falkenburg Road in Riverview.
The purpose of the training is to "provide them with a simulated environment in the event they do come into contact with an actual assailant," the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.
According to the news release, over the next four days, SRDs will have scenario-based training and will actively work to neutralize threats. SWAT team members will pose as assailants and SDRs "will also hone tactics learned to properly clear a room, efficiently use their radio and limit casualties as they would during an actual active shooter incident."
This training follows similar activities in Polk and Pinellas counties in the wake of a gunman who killed 19 students and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, in May.
Nearly 400 law enforcement officials rushed to a mass shooting at a Uvalde elementary school, but “egregiously poor decision-making” resulted in more than an hour of chaos before the gunman who took 21 lives was finally confronted and killed.
An 80-page report criticized both state and federal law enforcement, and not just local authorities in the South Texas town for the bewildering inaction by heavily armed officers as a gunman fired inside two fourth-grade classrooms at the elementary school.
“At Robb Elementary, law enforcement responders failed to adhere to their active shooter training, and they failed to prioritize saving innocent lives over their own safety," the report said.