If there’s an active shooter in Boise, how would police respond? Would they let you know?
An active shooter situation can happen at any time, in any community, anywhere in the country. That includes Boise.
In late October, two people were killed and four injured in a shooting at the Boise Towne Square mall. In February a man was found with a gunshot wound in The Grove plaza, prompting active shooter concerns before it was found that the man had accidentally discharged his own gun. An active shooter is “an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area,” according to the FBI.
Such incidents may not be common, but the Boise Police Department has procedures in place for them. The Idaho Statesman asked Boise Police Capt. Spencer Fomby to lay out the plan of action if an active shooter situation takes place.
The shooter’s location is known
As with most active shooter situations, police officers are first alerted to the scene by a number of indicators that show the shooter is active, Fomby said.
Primarily, among those indicators are multiple phone calls to dispatch. Upon arriving, police officers look for people running away from one direction, and for injured people on the ground.
“If they hear the gunshots, then the officers are trained,” Fomby said. “And the protocol has been since Columbine to move to the direction of the shots, and then try to locate the shooter as fast as possible.”
The Columbine High School shooting in 1999 in Colorado left 13 people dead, plus the two perpetrators, and prompted wide-reaching discussion around gun control and safety in the United States.
Once the shooter is located, if the shooter poses an immediate threat to either civilians or police officers, officers are instructed to stop the shooter’s actions and mitigate the threat as soon as possible. Often that includes deadly force, Fomby said.
If deadly force isn’t used, officers will attempt to isolate the shooter in a corner of the building and then start rescuing people who are injured.
Alerting the public
If the shooter’s location is known, the police department will alert people in the area via multiple channels.
In Boise, one of those is the CodeRed emergency system. CodeRed, which is run locally by the Ada County Sheriff’s Office, is similar to the Reverse 911 system in that it allows local emergency response teams to notify civilians about an emergency.
Landline phones should already be hooked up to the CodeRed system, but mobile phones require an opt-in.
Boise residents can sign up for CodeRed online to receive mobile phone alerts when situations occur close to their place of residence. The CodeRED mobile alert app can also be downloaded to receive notifications.
Updates would also be available on the Boise Police Department’s Facebook and Twitter pages and through local news media, Fomby said.
The shooter’s location is not known
In some instances, the location of the shooter is not known, because the suspect escaped or because of other circumstances, such as an accidental discharge like the one in last month’s Grove plaza incident.
If that’s the case, officers will use the same indicators listed above, such as looking for victims and people running. But they will also try to locate any witnesses or the people who called the police.
From there, officers will choose a central location, such as the scene of the shooting, and begin a systematic search moving outward.
“If it’s downtown it’s likely going to be a grid search,” Fomby said. “So they would identify one intersection, create a perimeter, and then start to go in one direction and work their way in a grid pattern so they don’t miss anything.”
As officers work outward they will begin to isolate the area of innocent bystanders and remove them. There’s no rule for how many blocks are isolated, Fomby said, and a lot depends on where police think the suspect is.
If the shooting occurs within a building, officers will isolate the building. If it’s an outdoor area, the main concern of officers will be looking for the shooter and assisting victims.
“If it’s out in an open area and the officers don’t have any reason to believe that the shooting is active, then they’ll slow things down and make sure that anybody who’s injured gets help,” Fomby said.
Alerting the nearby public in person will depend on if the department has the resources to do so. Updates will still be provided by social media and CodeRed, but if enough officers are available, they will start notifying businesses and residences by knocking door-to-door and telling people to shelter in place.
Police have to be careful to release accurate information and not provide so much information that it becomes a detriment to officers on the scene, Fomby said. The police department wants to give people information that will help them make decisions on what to do and where to go or if the situation is over, Fomby said, but also do not want to provide the public inaccurate information, cause unneeded panic or make it harder for police to control the scene.
“We can’t always give everybody all the information that we know. And a lot of times that information is not verified,” Fomby said. “So we want to give people information so that they can make decisions on where to go or if the situation is over.
“We understand the media is going to want to know everything we know as soon as possible,” he continued. “And it’s just not always feasible for us to give that much information initially.”
This story was originally published March 3, 2022 at 4:00 AM.
