Pickens County Sheriff’s Office training deputies on active shooter situations

There’s no such thing as too much police training. We know that now more than ever.

“You can never have too much training to be prepared for any incident that may arise or come up,” said Pickens County Sheriff Jordan Powell.

Every law enforcement department in Pickens County and even others from outside the area took part in an extensive two-day training that wrapped up Friday focusing on active shooter situations.

“Active shooter training is important because I think we can all agree that children are one of our most valuable assets. We should do everything we can to foster a good learning environment while that is happening,” said PCSO Patrol Chief James Young.

The training was held here at the former Pickens County Medical Center in Carrollton, which closed is 2020.

“It represents a large building that an active shooter scenario could take place at and we would know how to respond,” said Powell.

The training was so top secret that the officers would not even let us catch a glimpse of them in action for fear of compromising future cases.

“The number one thing is if you find yourself in an active shooter situation, I would tell people is run away,” said Young. “Get as far away from the threat as you can from the threat if at all possible. If that’s not possible, find a good place to hide. We are coming.”

Powell and Young hope all of the officers left the training feeling more prepared to do their jobs.

“The main thing we are learning here are not only tools we can use ourselves but the tools we can use to work together to allow us to accomplish that goal,” Young said. “The fact that we are able to do that with other agencies in such a good learning environment and take that back to the departments we work for, is going to reap tons of benefits.”

PCSO hopes to make this training annual.