When the Emporia Police Department first received a notification of a shooter alarm triggered at Newman Regional Health, eight Emporia Police Department (EPD) officers were on the scene in less than two minutes. Ray Mattas, EPD Captain, said that the national average for police response time to active shooter situations is three minutes.

Mattas explained that when an officer responds to a potential shooter situation, the first course of action is to immediately neutralize the threat.

“We've got to stop that person from injuring anybody else. That's our primary objective. It's not to help the injured, it's not to help anybody else in the building. It's to stop that threat from hurting anybody else,” Mattas said. “Our secondary responsibilities are then to go back and start caring for the

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