# Active shooter exercise on DSCR puts training to the test

/ Published Feb. 24, 2023
RICHMOND, Va., 
On an unseasonably warm February day in the Richmond, Virginia area, Kenya Blount, a resolution specialist within Defense Logistics Agency Aviation’s Planning Directorate’s Inventory Management Division, was going about her daily routine when things became very hectic.

Blount said around mid-morning, a man wearing all black and toting a semi-automatic gun, burst into her workspace located in Trailer 91 on Defense Supply Center Richmond, Virginia, and began spouting angry rhetoric while threatening to shoot people.

“Honestly, it did startle me a little bit because I didn’t know what exactly to expect,” said Blount.

Fortunately for Blount and her co-workers, they were never in any real danger of being physically harmed. The gun was fake and the man in all black was Virginia Army National Guard Staff Sgt. A.J. Korngage, roll playing the part of the bad guy during an active shooter training exercise Feb. 16, conducted by DLA Installation Management Richmond’s Security Operations Branch’s Security and Emergency Services Division.

Don Bartlett, chief of the Security Operations Branch, said live exercises afford an outstanding opportunity to validate emergency response procedures and facilitate the development and refinement of existing response plans designed to meet the challenges of an ever-changing threat environment.

Bartlett said this exercise was planned and executed at the request of DLA Aviation Planning Directorate Director Kent Ennis.

“Anyone can look at the news and see that these types of tragic events are becoming regular occurrences in our lives, and I thought we should be prepared in the event something like this were to happen to us at DSCR. The only difference would be that our threat would more than likely be an insider threat,” said Ennis.

Ennis said in addition to working with Bartlett’s team, which included Julio Clavell, emergency manager, and John O’Kleasky, antiterrorism officer, on planning for the live exercise, they also put together a separate training evolution that included two, two-hour active shooter training blocks held in the Frank B. Lotts Conference Center on DSCR, for employees that stressed work area response drills and the injection of suspicious activity scenarios within the workplace.

“Being able to simulate these events, in my opinion, helps personnel think about how they would react and how their actions could potentially save their lives and the lives of others.” Said Ennis. “I think it’s just as important to ensure our first responders have an opportunity to exercise their response to these types of events so they can look for opportunities to refine and improve response time as well as how they should ultimately subdue or eliminate the potential threat.”

“We hope the employees of the Planning Directorate have enhanced their knowledge, skills and abilities to better prepare, respond and ultimately survive in the event of a tragedy on DSCR.” O’Kleasky said.  “We strongly believe the employees walked away from the exercise with increased awareness of the threat environment and a better understanding of their roles in the prevention of workplace violence.” 

After DLA police subdued the “bad guy,” effectively neutralizing any threat he posed to the workforce, Blount got a chance to come out of hiding from under her desk, sit down and reflect.

“I feel that the training was very much needed. It gave me insight on how I should act if something like this happened in real life. Even though it was “arranged,” it made me seriously think about my actions, and how they could affect my co-workers,” said Blount.