Sutherlin: We can’t say ‘it won’t happen here’

Chief Tom Sutherlin

A morning of celebrating the accomplishments of Main Street Greencastle took on a somber tone for a few minutes Tuesday with the subject of active shooters on the agenda.

As co-keynote speaker, Greencastle Police Chief Tom Sutherlin gave a brief talk regarding active shooter situations, such as the killing of 17 people at a Florida high school last week.

“I don’t think we can ever say it won’t happen here,” Sutherlin told the 30 or so Main Street members gathered.

“It’s sad that we have to come together as a community and talk about active shooters,” Sutherlin said.

He said that he couldn’t get too deep into the subject in the few minutes allotted, but that private citizens need to understand a little bit about the priorities of police when they respond to an active shooter situation.

Even the term “active shooter” didn’t really come into the national conversation until the Columbine High School shooting in Colorado in 1999.

Sutherlin said at that time, the prevailing wisdom was for a group of officers to gather and deliberately go about taking care of the situation.

That tactic has changed in the 19 years and hundreds of mass shootings since.

Now the first officer to arrive on the scene is going into the building, after the shooter.

“We have to eliminate the shooter,” Sutherlin said. “That’s the number one job.”

He noted that on duty or off, GPD officers are equipped to respond to such incidents quickly and with the proper equipment.

“If I’m the first officer on scene, I’m putting on my equipment and I’m going in,” Sutherlin said. “The second officer to arrive will assume command.”

Sutherlin said that he, GPD Assistant Chief Brian Hopkins and Jerrod Baugh of the Indiana Excise Police conduct active shooter training for businesses.

Sutherlin has a Power Point presentation that he uses to come in and train the staffs of businesses and organizations.

Additionally, there are videos and resources available online to teach Civilian Response to Active Shooter Events (or CRASE), which is based on the Avoid/Deny/Defend response to active shooters.

“I’m more than willing to talk about this,” Sutherlin said. “I hope that we can go for many years and not have to deal with this as a community.”

Asked what a community should do to learn about such events and possibly prevent them, the chief said the priorities should include the training of officers, the training of civilians and looking at the facts behind the individual shooters.

“It’s not necessarily about the gun, it’s about the person who’s holding the gun,” Sutherlin said.

It should be noted that in the Florida case, people saw warning signs from the shooter before he acted, but nothing was done to stop him.

“If you guys realize that someone in your community may be a problem, you’ve got to pick the phone up,” Sutherlin said. “Getting them help afterward is not the time.”

Sutherlin went on to say that he knows such situations are always a possibility but he hopes to someday retire having never dealt with an active shooter event in Greencastle.

“My family is grounded here,” Sutherlin said. “If there’s anything and everything I can do to protect this community, that’s what I’m going to do.”