What is Augusta’s plan for mass shooting incidents?
AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - Saturday’s shooting calls into question the City of Augusta’s plan for mass shooting incidents.
We talked to city leaders about the possibility of an active shooter plan.
12 people were arrested and charged, but the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office is now on alert for the potential of another mass shooting, all stemming from Saturday’s incident here at the Outcast biker club.
“Our communities are not the wild, wild west. You know, it’s not an unsafe place to be,” said Jordan Johnson, Augusta Commission member for District 1.
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Even before this weekend’s mass shooting, Augusta commissioners were already on track to approve new security plans to prep for active shooter situations.
“It just really disturbs me that we’re even having to have a conversation about how to respond to mass shootings in our communities when we’re telling folks to come to Augusta, live in Augusta, play in Augusta, and certainly, Augusta is worth all of those things,” said Johnson.
It’s called the Asher Program. It stands for the standard for an active shooter event response.
With from the sheriff’s office and fire department, it gives city-wide training recommendations to departments across the city and is already used statewide in Massachusetts, but we’d be the first in Georgia.
Richmond County Sheriff Richard Roundtree said: “We had many resources out, but we didn’t have the information. We didn’t know that trouble was coming to our city, we didn’t know that trouble was already in our city cause if we had known, we could have intervened while they were at Maypark, had we known.”
With a new system, a hope to be as proactive as they can.
“Like I said we do have protocols, we have done major events here, so this is not nothing new to us, the advantage that we have is that we are aware of it,” said Sheriff Roundtree.
The active shooter plan is expected to in Tuesday’s Augusta city’s consent agenda, but for the time being the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office is still on alert for another potential mass shooting.
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