Ep 113: What Is Your Mission?
Episode 113
Published Jun 9, 2025
Last updated Feb 18, 2026
Duration: 22:53
Episode Summary
The core objectives for responders in an active shooter event – neutralizing the threat, rescuing victims, and securing the scene – are closely linked and must be prioritized based on the situation. Coordinated teamwork and the ability to adapt quickly will maximize the chances of saving lives.
Episode Notes
In today’s episode our panel dives into the essential mission for all responders—law enforcement, fire, and EMS—when confronting an active shooter event. The discussion centers on understanding and executing the three core priorities that define a successful response:
1. Deal with the Active Threat
- The immediate mission for law enforcement is to neutralize the threat—stop the shooter and end the active killing. This requires rapid assessment of where the threat is, what’s driving it, and decisive action to intervene.
2. Rescue the Injured
- Once the active threat is under control, the focus must shift quickly to rescuing and treating the wounded. Stopping the killing and stopping the dying are inseparable: you need to save every life possible by getting medical care to victims as soon as possible. This phase requires strong integration and communication between law enforcement and fire/EMS, often through rescue task forces entering warm zones.
3. Clear and Secure the Scene
- The third priority is to clear the facility to ensure there are no further threats and to locate any additional victims. This involves methodically searching the area, setting up casualty collection points, and preparing for potential secondary threats. These priorities are interconnected and often need to be addressed simultaneously, depending on available resources.
Key Insights:
- Success isn’t just about apprehending the suspect; it’s about saving lives and restoring safety as quickly as possible.
- Responders must constantly ask, “What is the threat to life right now?”—is it the shooter or is it the clock?
- The ability to “shift gears” between priorities and to work as an integrated team is critical. Law enforcement, fire, and EMS must train together and understand each other’s roles to ensure seamless operations.
Takeaway:
Every responder at an active shooter event must understand that the mission is not just a single task but a coordinated effort to stop the threat, save the injured, and secure the scene. Understanding these priorities, and the ability to adapt as the situation evolves, is crucial for protecting lives and ensuring the best possible outcome for everyone involved.
Transcript
Bill Godfrey:As a responder, whether you're police, fire, EMS, doesn't matter. As a responder to an active shooter event, what is your mission? What is the mission of your team? We're talking about that today. Stick around. Welcome to the Active Shooter Incident Management Podcast. My name is Bill Godfrey, your podcast host. I am joined by two of my other fellow instructors here at the National Center for Integrated Emergency Response. I've got Pete Kelting from the law enforcement side. Pete, good to have you back in the studio.
Pete Kelting:
Pleasure to be here, Bill.
Bill Godfrey:
And we're also rejoined by Kami Mertz. A favorite of the podcast series. Yeah, the podcast with you always seem to do very well.
Kami Maertz:
I've heard.
Bill Godfrey:
Yes. Yeah, it's, it, I'm feeling a little left out. Pete, how about you? A little bit.
Kami Maertz:
He does really well too.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah.
Kami Maertz:
That's good.
Bill Godfrey:
Okay. So today's topic is the mission of responders in an active shooter event, regardless of whether you're police, fire, EMS. And this of course, comes down to priorities. Let's start with the overview of the priorities and how, even though we've got three of 'em, that together, those three make up the mission.
Pete Kelting:
Absolutely. Bill, I mean, from the instance of the alert tone for law enforcement, and we're responding to an active shooter, the law enforcement officer's first mission is to respond and put that bad actor down, neutralize the threat. Right? That's what we're focused on. And we have to have that intel to show us where we need to go. Where is the shooting happening? What type of stimulus is pushing that active threat for our mission from law enforcement is to, to put that bad actor down.
Kami Maertz:
Well, and I think also is to recognize what is the active threat? What does that mean for us? Is the active threat, the active stimulus, that driving force that is pushing us forward? The bullets, brass, intel, right? The screaming, he just went there. She just went there, whoever it is. So the active intel that is driving us, the active stimulus by gunshot shots still on scene, all of those things moving us towards that active threat.
Bill Godfrey:
And it comes down to, the mission is made up of three priorities is deal with the active threat, rescue the injured, and then clear and make sure that there's no further threats as you're trying to return back to normal on the facility. But I sometimes feel like we talk about these things in isolation of each other rather than making sure that everyone understands you've gotta take care of all three to complete the mission. And I think both of you kind of hinted at this, when you talk about the active threat, we sometimes get, we get confused about active threat, meaning the same thing as a suspect at large. But they're not.
Kami Maertz:
No, no, absolutely not. The suspect could have left, we've talked about this many times. Could be left, could be bedded down, could have committed suicide. There's different things that could have happened to that suspect that makes them no longer active, no longer actively killing right now, which pushes us then if there's no longer that active threat, we have to move on with the mission. We have to move on to that second priority.
Pete Kelting:
Absolutely. And that's where, you know, training together with our partners from fire and EMS, that at the end of the event, our mission is to put that bad actor down as quickly as possible. Save as many lives by immediate medical care from either law enforcement side or, you know, combination of law and fire and, and RTFs to, you know, to eliminate not being able to have an outcome where we feel that we've responded together at our best effort.
Bill Godfrey:
And I, that's part of what I think concerns me. You know, we touched on this in another podcast that we, we talked about it, is it seems like sometimes responders latch on to one piece of the mission without realizing how it's connected to the others. And this sense of success or failure in the response doesn't really hinge around getting the suspect in handcuffs. It really hinges about stopping the killing and then saving everyone that can possibly be saved, saving every saveable life. And that's a success. We'll get the bad guy in custody one way or the other, sooner or later, whether they fled, whether, you know, whatever the case may be. How, why do you think we're having such trouble or challenge in, getting people to recognize how one priority is connected to the others and the ability to shift gears?
Pete Kelting:
I think from a law enforcement perspective, you know, a lot of times we talk about, we train just tactics for our officers on the street, right? And that we have to, you know, a lot of our deliveries, we always ask people, are you leaning forward into what's next? Do you understand what makes the next part of the mission successful? Do you understand what information needs to flow from contact teams to tactical, to triage, to transport, to make their mission successful? Do you, do we lean forward enough to know that we need to establish casualty collection points now with, you know, additional contact teams identifying warm zones and those immediate action plans to continue pushing towards an active threat if we have a stimulus or we slow down, take a breath and figure out what we need to do next, are we leaning forward into what is the next priority to continue the mission to a successful outcome?
Kami Maertz:
And understanding also of how those first two priorities, active threat and rescue, are tied together. How they are really married together. You are stopping the active killing so that you can stop the active dying. You're trying to prevent him from making more injured patients. Right? So that's what we're trying to do. We want him to, or the bad actor to stop killing. So we have to stop the killing, but stop the dying. But if you don't have any more active killing that active dying has to be your priority. You can no longer chase somebody who is no longer putting down gunfire or has been contained to an area where we can locate them, that intel is driving us, there's something driving us towards them and completely ignore that really that merit partner of that rescue and creating those warm zones, starting that direct threat care and getting those rescue resources down range so that they can really start that treatment.
Bill Godfrey:
Pete, you've got a great phrase that you came up with in, in coaching at the tactical position, asking the tactical group supervisor, Hey, what is your threat right now? Is it the bad guy or is it the clock? And it's a great, you know, rap upside the head to go, oh darn it, I'm focused on the wrong. Should we be asking the question instead of talking about active threat and rescue just say, what is the threat to life right now?
Kami Maertz:
Absolutely. That's, I think that's a great point because that is exactly what it is, is what is the threat to life right now? Are we going towards an active stimulus or is it the bleeding out that is killing people? What is our threat?
Pete Kelting:
Yeah. And Bill, when I say that at the tactical position, it's very obvious when I'm talking to the law enforcement officer who is just living in the silo of just tactical thinking right then and there. When I say, what is your threat right now, the, you know, the bad guy or the clock. And they think, okay, not the bad guy right now 'cause I don't have any more information that, you know, we're chasing anybody. And what happens? He or she turns to the fire representative there and triage and go, you know what we ought to focus on RTF's.
Kami Maertz:
It's your time. It's your time shine.
Pete Kelting:
We ought to work a little bit more together. And, you know, it's natural for law enforcement to get tunnel vision on tactics. 'cause you know, that's the main goal that we think we're evaluated on is, are we successful tactfully, right? We put the bad guy down, we do the high five and all that, and then we forget that we can do other things.
Bill Godfrey:
Do you think that we might have better success if we focus the message, the messaging to law enforcement, to saying, evaluate what is your threat to life? Is it a suspect or is it the damage that's already been done?
Kami Maertz:
Absolutely. And keeping that big picture, which is what that is, right? Keeping a bigger picture than that little tunnel vision of what your little lane is, is keeping a big picture. And it's really important, especially for tactical, triage, those ones to keep everybody on task, to keep everybody on mission, to look bigger picture, much bigger picture, and to keep everybody on the mission.
Bill Godfrey:
So the, our three priorities of the mission active threat then rescue, then clear is, is certainly, and they're numbered. 1, 2, 3.
Kami Maertz:
Yes.
Bill Godfrey:
Yes. In terms of, priority. It doesn't necessarily mean that you can't do more than one thing at a time. So let's talk a little bit about that.
Kami Maertz:
Yeah, absolutely. Right. So if you have enough resources and you get resources down range and you get on scene and you start doing the things, start building towards intel, any active stimulus and say there is none, there's no active stimulus, there's no reason to believe the threat is still active, and you have additional contact teams come on, and then you can make that decision. We're gonna set that casualty collection point, but we have enough resources on range to keep going and keep pushing and start moving towards that clearing right? Start moving towards that and also start creating immediate action plans. If there's an active threat, we're going back and we're circling back around, but we're not letting down those other priorities because we have enough resources. Everybody can have a mission, everybody can be part of the mission and to be successful.
Pete Kelting:
Yeah. And absolutely, we can get to that clear in certain areas, of a venue, right? Our school environment that we, you know, deliver quite often we look at, you know, the training level of are you ready to back flush? Are you ready to take these two buildings and make sure you don't have any other, you know, victims laying around things like that doesn't mean that you have to think clear. So, oh, I gotta wait till I can clear the entire building at one time. I think it was the Covenant School shooting, the after action report, they talked about focusing just on where she was trying to get to her and deal with the victims at that time. And I think in that after action report, it says that, you know, they eventually used SWAT team members or some other type of, you know, personnel to do the rest of the clearing for that, big school. So we gotta stay focused on, you know, what is it at hand, like we said, what is our threat right now? The bad guy or the clock and we know where our injured are at that time, let's focus on our injured at that time.
Kami Maertz:
And I think clearing, the other portion of clearing is we are not only, what you're talking about too is we're not only looking for the threat, we're looking for additional injured. And I think that's very important to keep people's mindset when you're going through that. That you have contact teams, they're setting up the casualty collection point and you're bringing additional, but they're looking also for additional injured, right? So they're looking for, so the mission is still, there's no longer an active threat. You're still looking for additional injured, but that's what you're utilizing those resources for to push forward, are they looking for a threat potentially that could be there, but their mindset is still rescue. So their mindset is rescue, I'm looking for injured. If I come across injured, I'm no longer pushing past that injured and saying, I'm still looking for this threat. That person's injured. We're gonna take priority of that and we're gonna stop. And then we can push additional contact teams to push forward, right? Because you might have a second casualty collection point now, or you might be pulling that additional injured back to your casualty collection point. But you also don't wanna just continue to be like, well, I'm clearing, so I'm just looking for a threat. Looking for those additional injured is really important, especially at the school scenario that we do to make sure, because they could have been injured somewhere else and, and us move past 'em if we're not moving on to that.
Bill Godfrey:
I think that's part of what makes it so challenging to respond to one of these events is it's very hard to what I'll call stay on script. It's, you can stay on script for like the first minute, two minutes and then all of a sudden, you're like, well, this is a little different here and I wanna make this adjustment here. And then bam, you're, you know, you're off script. And I say that with this idea in mind, the number of real world active shooter events where the threat, the active killing ceases By actions or the presence of what essentially is the first contact team. And sometimes they're organized as a contact team. Sometimes it's a solo officer, sometimes it's three solo officers, four solo officers moving in. But the number of times that the, what I'll call, I'll say it this way, the number of times that the problem is solved by those first four officers on scene is an exceptionally large number of these events. And so that second contact team, it's so tempting to say their default task should be to come in behind the first contact team and start taking charge of the injured, getting the casualty collection points secured. I think the challenge with that is you gotta be careful in overly scripting it, because as soon as you do, it'll go off script. You've gotta give people, it's not enough just to give 'em a recipe
Kami Maertz:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
To cook. They have to understand, okay, I can change the order that I add these things. I can add a little extra salt, I can add some onion or, take it away or you know, I can still have a very great meal that I've prepped And I can put it together loosely from this recipe in five, six different ways. But doesn't that start with having to learn the basic recipe in the first place?
Pete Kelting:
Absolutely. But it goes back to that immediate action plan and are we training to respond to the different left and right turns that come about that, you're speaking about is, are we ready? It may be scripted, like you said, the first contact teams are down range, the follow on teams are setting up CCP's and then something happens. Have we, is it fluid enough? Is the confidence of leadership in those teams to be able to talk about that quickly? Hey, if something happens, we're going here, you're staying here. It's just really being ready to adapt to whatever's in front of you.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah. That mission of what's our threat to life?
Kami Maertz:
Yes.
Bill Godfrey:
Right now.
Kami Maertz:
I think that's really important even for when you're talking about that, what if the first contact team comes in and they originally realized there's no longer an active threat very quickly and they set a casualty collection point, that's okay. Right? If that is accomplishing your mission and you know that my higher priority is saving these lives than chasing an unknown threat that might happen. And then that second contact team comes on and you have enough manpower to set that CCP up, then that team can push forward, right and start looking for additional injured, and that's okay. You're going to have to adjust to what's in front of you, what the totality of circumstances that you're facing at that time and how do you work through it.
Pete Kelting:
And that's the importance of our tactical position is to be gleaning that information that intel, they're looking at a greater footprint probably than what the first few contact teams are moving in at. They're probably getting intel from dispatch or other forms of intelligence that say that maybe the active shooter is still over here or whatever. But that's the importance of being focused tactically down range to control those contact teams and help with the scripting or help with the immediate action plans to, address different priorities when you're down range.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah. You know, it is interesting because if you think of the active shooter incident management checklist as being a recipe for the structure of the dish that you're preparing, you know, whatever the food is you're cooking, it's a recipe that gives you the structure of how the thing should go together. But the choice of the quantity of this or substituting this for that all comes from the chef, which is going to be the responders, that are on the scene the day of the incident. And it's not just at the top level. It's not. And I think that's one of the things that people get confused about sometimes is this doesn't land on the incident commander's shoulders. It's landing on the contact teams, the tactical position, law enforcement branch, and then, you know, same thing on the fire and EMS side with the rescue task forces and trying to work together. So it's not one chef making the dish, it's a kitchen full of chefs trying to make a dish that they have a recipe for the structure. But the head chef, in our case, when we're talking about the hot zone and warm zone operations, the head chef would be the tactical group supervisor.
Kami Maertz:
Yes.
Bill Godfrey:
The head chef has gotta call that out. He's gotta keep all the other chefs in the kitchen on the same page. And there's a fine balance there. But you've gotta be proficient at your craft.
Kami Maertz:
Yes.
Bill Godfrey:
You've gotta know how to put that stuff together, how to mix the ingredients to get that good outcome. And you know, we talked a lot about the second contact team pushing on and this kind of thing. One of the things that we see frequently and we see this in training, we see it in real life, is the ambulance exchange point becomes something that you think of once the rescue task force inside says, okay, I'm ready to transport. And then somebody outside goes, oh crap. And then we've just lost five to 10 minutes
Kami Maertz:
Yes.
Bill Godfrey:
Trying to get an ambulance exchange point secure.
Kami Maertz:
That's that thinking that next, that next level right, is when I'm training in the classes, I'm very big to say, right, you have your contact team, you have your casualty collection point, what are you going to need next? They have to go to the hospital. So what do you need doing that natural progression of starting that security element, pushing that security. But it's thinking that big picture thinking what's naturally going to have to come next? And that's a big job for tactical, but that is for the mission, right? So you're saying they're making the dish, they have to know you're up next, so I'm gonna need your ingredients next so you're up next. And, and seeing that bigger picture of the entire mission that's going on to keep everyone on task. But that's a huge one. And you're completely right. We see that huge delay in a ambulance exchange point though. I got rescue task force is downrange, we're good, but it's really, they need hospitals, right? So they need ERs, that's what they need. And so we have to get them off. And so that has to be the next mission portion.
Bill Godfrey:
And generally we gotta get a contact team to secure that area.
Pete Kelting:
Absolutely. And it's, you know, it's funny we're using these analogies of, of chefs and ingredients and kitchens, but it's, you know, you've asked the question many times is, you know, who all should know the entire process of, responding to an active shooter incident? Everybody from the first responder. Because if we're on a contact team, right, and we're downrange and we successfully put the bad actor down, you and I are now thinking where's the best defensible place for a CCP, right? We know where our injured's are at. Now our tactical may say hey, or we say to them, Hey, this is where the CCP, the first CCP comes from the contact team. And then we're looking at an ambulance exchange point. 'cause we know, hey, to be successful, we gotta get patients from the CCP to the ambulance exchange point.
Kami Maertz:
Yes.
Pete Kelting:
Tactical may say, Hey, we would like to set up the ambulance exchange point at such and such location and you and I peek are out the door and we go, ah, that's not gonna work. Right? Yes. And then we know the ingredient.
Kami Maertz:
Yes, absolutely.
Pete Kelting:
We wanna tell you we're gonna put, our eggs over here, not over here.
Kami Maertz:
Yes.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah.
Pete Kelting:
Right, so it's...
Bill Godfrey:
I know that burner's broken on that side.
Pete Kelting:
Yeah. It's not gonna work.
Bill Godfrey:
Well a classic example is you get into a place where that, you know, that access point requires you to traverse a set of stairs and, you know, carrying people's hard enough, moving 'em up and down stairs increases the difficulty as opposed to taking another door where you don't have to deal with the stairs and you go right out into an ambulance.
Pete Kelting:
And, you know, in our deliveries when I coach contact, you know, I immediately start pushing them when I realize that, you know, obviously, we know that maybe there's not another bad actor, but we push them to start thinking about that CCP.
Kami Maertz:
Yes.
Pete Kelting:
You know, where are you gonna put that? Who are your resources gonna be to secure that? How many more contact teams do you need? How are you leaning forward to get, make this successful? And when they start thinking that way, then you see the time starting to get, like you talked about, that inner, that transition to law enforcement, you know, medical treatment to RTFs getting down there quicker for the treatment so forth. It all goes towards the total outcome of the mission of integrated response together.
Kami Maertz:
Yes. Once they start seeing the big picture, once they start seeing it more than just the bad actor, they start seeing the major picture come to part and our view. Right. And they start seeing it. You do, you start seeing 'em being able to make those critical decisions much quicker.
Pete Kelting:
And all this relates back to what we started with in this podcast is, you know, the mission and you know, active threat, not active at the time. When can we start transitioning to warm zones? How quickly can we get RTFs down? It's leaning forward into being successful every next level.
Kami Maertz:
Yes.
Bill Godfrey:
It's not enough to be a chef that only knows how to make the soup
Pete Kelting:
Right.
Bill Godfrey:
It's not enough to be a chef that only knows how to make the soup. Right. You need to know how the whole dish comes together and how to cook the entree and the vegetables. And I've just exhausted my food metaphors.
Kami Maertz:
Make sure they don't get burnt.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah.
Pete Kelting:
Well, don't forget the busboy.
Kami Maertz:
That's very true.
Pete Kelting:
In the, clearing part of the ingredients, clearing the dishes off the table is looking for more injuries.
Bill Godfrey:
Alright, well I think we've taken this one probably further than we should have on the, on the analogy there, but hey, thank you both for talking about this topic. I think this is an interesting way to think about how do we communicate this more effectively to people so they realize that they're not just in a stovepipe, it's not a singular minded piece. There's a mission with several components.
Kami Maertz:
Absolutely.
Bill Godfrey:
Thanks for both coming in. If you have some questions about this, please let us know. Shoot 'em in to us at, info@c3pathways.com. Or you can put 'em in the comments on YouTube if you'd like. If your organization has some specific needs that you'd like to discuss or some challenges, give us a call. We're always happy to help out. Thank you to our producer, Karla Torres, and until next time, stay safe.