In the past ten to fifteen years we have seen an unprecedented spike in active shooter events. They have occurred in schools, malls, business buildings, churches and more. With the on-going threat of terrorist attacks, the same methodology may be used to attack an entire city as we saw in Mumbai, India. It is imperative that law enforcement professionals in every state and territory - and indeed, anywhere we have a military outpost in the world with a civilian population - understand the proper tactics and techniques to respond to such attacks / events. This training DVD, Active Shooter / Rapid Response from Emergency Film Group is an excellent resource to be part of such training.

I have to admit that, to some extent, I've cheated in performing this review. I was honored to serve as one of the technical development committee members on this project. As a result, I knew going into my review of the DVD program how much information was included, what format and outline was used to organize it, and what level of detail was covered.

It's my personal belief that, all too often, when active shooter situations are discussed in a law enforcement classroom setting today, too much emphasis is put on SCHOOL shootings and not enough on those that occur in other locations. Further, I have long said that many of the tactics and techniques we use to respond to active shooter events are also applicable in the counter-terror / terror-event response arena. Emergency Film Group did an excellent job of including such application for the planning and tactics throughout this program - from the very beginning.

The program opens with information about the active shooter events that occurred in Littleton, Colorado (Columbine); Blacksburg, Virginia (Virginia Tech); Beslan, North Ossetia, Russia (terrorist event); and Mumbai, India (terrorist event). The Beslan school seige is the one that truly crosses the line, blurring definition of what is an active shooter event and what is a terrorist event. The important thing to realize is that the planning and tactics for response to one may be equally applicable to the other.

In the Introduction of the program the types of equipment and munitions that may be used are discussed as well as the tactics and planning that the bad guys may have used. This program is one of the best I've seen at articulating how the bad guys can be better equipped for a confrontation than the responding patrol officers are. Certainly, if the attacks that occurred at Beslan or Mumbai had happened here in the U.S., our responding law enforcement officers may not have been properly prepared depending on what threat level their body armor is rated to and what weapons they are equipped with as a standard.