Letter: Carson City Sheriff's Active Shooter Drill

I attended Citizen's Academy sponsored by the Carson City Sheriff's Office. This 10-week academy is part of Sheriff Furlong's commitment to transparency.

It also gives citizens the opportunity to meet its leadership team and deputies who work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to keep our community safe. We learned about all aspects of the Sheriff's Department – from administration to the coroner to SWAT.

The recent active shooter drill at Carson High School is a great example of Furlong's commitment to using best practices learned from incidents across the county, combined with well-trained staff, teamwork with all agencies and to practice!

In addition to the “live” exercise, the department has an excellent virtual reality training tool that allows officers to practice real-world scenarios that provide feedback to officers in a safe training environment.

This is not something officers learn much at the training academy and it takes more than one exercise to have a competent team.

This continued commitment and dedication of our deputies and the sheriff will pay dividends in lives saved in the event of an active shooter. This happened here (a long time ago) but we all know, no city is 100% safe.

I am grateful to Sheriff Furlong, his leadership and all those who serve our community. Additionally, I support the Board of Supervisors' continued financial support for necessary personnel, new equipment using the latest technology, and training programs to keep our deputies among the best trained in Nevada and keep our community safe.

Kathy Kneer

Town of Carson