CHESAPEAKE, Va. — There was a large police presence in the city of Chesapeake Saturday morning. But don't be alarmed: it’s all a drill.
Chesapeake first responders and city staff got a chance to test what they would do when faced with an active shooter.
The active threat training event, hosted by city leaders, happened at Chesapeake City Hall.
City manager Chris Price said the training exercise was a chance for city staff to test how they would respond in an actual, real-life emergency.
“This is a simulated active shooter event within city hall that will have a full-scale simulated public safety response,” Price said.
“The next steps will be we will activate our emergency operations center, we will go through a simulation there just like we would in a true emergency. Really with the goal being: what did we learn, what did we observe, what lessons can we deploy in the future,” Price said.
Chesapeake Police Chief Mark Solesky said this “Full-Scale Public Safety Training” is designed to help train first responders and city staff about how to face an active threat at city hall.
"Unfortunately it is necessary because we see it going on all around the country and we can’t just assume it’ll never going to come here. I think we’d be remiss if we didn’t plan for such things. It’s the call we hope will never come but if it does, we want to be prepared,” Solesky said.
It's all part of Chesapeake’s ongoing efforts to plan and prepare for the worst.
"We have some of our police recruits - they’re using moulage on them to make them look like victims. We’ll use mannequins to be the deceased folks. There’ll be blanks fired which will sound like real gunshots,” Solesky said.