UDPD trains for an active shooter protocol with the Dallas FBI
On August 21, 2025, UDPD officers participated in a training module with FBI officers in Dallas to learn how to deal with an active shooter on campus. Such a situation is entirely unprecedented at UD, but as school shootings continue to prove themselves as a tragic reality, UDPD takes active steps to protect the student body in the event that such a tragedy should come to our doorstep.
UDPD’s Chief, Russell Greene, invited me and a handful of other UD students to serve as training actors for this exercise. We shuttled with UDPD officers to the former University of Dallas College of Business, which was operational before SB Hall was built, but is now used as a training center for UDPD officers and Dallas FBI agents.
The training officially began with dividing the student volunteers into three categories: severe medical emergencies, basic injury care and situations without an injury. The agents then demonstrated moulage, which are prosthetic mock injuries that simulate burns, gunshot trauma and other types of medical emergencies and are used to practice first-aid and injury management. The moulage was molded with realistic human anatomy and filled with fake blood to simulate a real emergency as accurately as possible.
I was sorted into the uninjured category with another student, and we were led into a vacant office with only a desk and a couple of chairs.
We waited there for what seemed to be an eternity. With the door shut, we had no way of knowing what exactly was happening in the hallway or the other rooms in the building. All we could rely upon was our ears as we heard the sound of students screaming phrases such as “Here! He’s over here!” and the sharp smash of doors being kicked open and slammed shut.
I was conflicted as to what to do. Would joining in the noise contribute to the exercise, or would it be an unnecessary obstacle for the agents’ training? Was the training module over, and had I missed my chance to be identified by staying silent? Perhaps the entire group had been waiting in the lobby downstairs for us, ready to leave, and I was altogether oblivious.
When the noise had finally abated, the door to the office flew open, and five agents in full military gear flooded into the room. Each pointed a mock rifle directly at us, and the first agent to come into the room shouted “Get on the ground! Get on the ground, now!”
“Hands flat and out in front of you!” he said, before putting our hands behind our backs and laying a pair of handcuffs flat on our palms.
While I lay face down on the old carpet replete with flecks from their paper targets, handcuffs placed on top of my hands, my first thought was–admittedly– “Wow, this is pretty cool!” While under normal circumstances, this would not be the kind of situation I would want to find myself in, I had to admit that this was a very uncommon, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to participate in the critical practice of training law enforcement. Plus, I can add another item to my long list of firsts at the University of Dallas: I can now say that I was arrested by the FBI.
After we were led out of the building by the agents, I noted some of the other exercises that my fellow students participated in. One was being carried away on a stretcher by a pair of EMTs, moulage wrapped in post-operative bandages. Another was sitting on the back edge of an FBI van, wrapped in a foil blanket as if in shock.
Shortly thereafter, UDPD shuttled us back to campus. I was grateful for the opportunity to see how this training is done, especially since the skills they refined in this multifaceted exercise may in fact be the determining factor in saving my own life in case of an emergency.