XENIA — He hopes it never happens, but Xenia police Captain Steve Lane is confident the city would be able to handle an active shooter situation like last weekend’s in Dayton.
“Everyone in our division receives active shooting training on a regular basis,” Lane said. “We are very well equipped, as well equipped as anyone else in the area. We train well.”
Dayton police had the situation in the Oregon District — and the suspect — under control in about 30 seconds according to reports. That likely saved many lives and it’s a response Lane hopes is emulated if there is a need in the future.
“Dayton did it as well as anybody,” he said. “Every police department hopes to respond as well as Dayton did.”
Like other departments, there is a plan in place in the event of a mass shooting or other emergency.
“Greene County law enforcement has a Greene County active threats protocol,” Lane said. “Xenia Police Division has been instrumental in its development and its refinement. It’s all hands on deck and of course it depends on who is on duty at that point in time. We regularly train in the schools, at the hospital, in business environments, as many different environments in the city we could train in.”
XPD takes the lead on any such response, but other law enforcement agencies could pitch in to help, as was the case in Dayton.
“Generally speaking it’s going to be a cooperative effort,” Lane said. “It’s going to start out chaotic and what we will do as quickly as anyone is bring it to an organized chaos and then bring it back to normalcy.”
Without giving away the exact strategy, Lane said the first step is to stop the threat and then aid those who are injured, in conjunction with Xenia Fire Division.
“We work really well with the fire department,” he said. “We’ve trained with them on active threats. It’s great that we have a fire department who is willing to do that because many are not.”
Lane stressed that if an event takes up the XPD resources, others will pinch hit and make sure the rest of Xenia is still covered through mutual aid agreements in the county and Miami Valley. Xenia sent a couple cruisers to Dayton to respond to other calls last weekend while DPD handled the Oregon District.
“We’ve been on both the giving and the receiving end of that,” Lane said. “It works really well.”
