Coral Springs retired police chief conducts active shooter training to Hendersonville PD
On Valentine's Day in 2018, Tony Pustizzi was the police chief of the Coral Springs Police Department when the unthinkable happened.
A gunman opened fire in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and by the time it was over, 17 people were dead, making it the deadliest high school massacre in United States history. The gunman was later identified as Nikolas Cruz, who was convicted of 17 counts of premeditated first-degree murder and was given 34 consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.
Pustizzi has since retired and is now living in Western North Carolina. He spends his time traveling across the country, giving courses on active shooter training, Hendersonville Police Chief Blair Myhand told the Times-News on April 22. He said he became acquainted with Pustizzi not long after the shooting.
"I knew Tony through the (Police) Chiefs Association... that's how I got to meet him," Myhand said.
In his monthly report in March, Myhand said the Hendersonville Police Department was revamping its active shooter training program and enlisted the help of Pustizzi, who conducted a class with all of the Hendersonville police staff.
"Tony's class was the first step in our revising of our plan. I really wanted to get staff in the right frame of mind of what could happen. Of course, Parkland is the worst-case scenario, but I wanted them to see what the reality is of these types of cases, so they understand the importance of us conducting this training regularly," Myhand said.
Myhand said everyone on staff, including the telecommunicators who take the 911 calls, took the class.
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"I'll tell you this... I've sat through a lot of classes with officers, and there have been classes where employees are on their cell phones, halfway paying attention. There wasn't a single person looking at their phones or talking to someone else. They were glued to what he had to say. He has a lot of images and videos and minute-by-minute diagrams of where their shooter was going through the building. There was a lot of lessons learned," he said.
Myhand said the next step will be hands-on training, where officers will learn how to clear buildings and locate the shooter.
"In the end, we strive to be and stay at the forefront of professional and modern policing," he said. "We do that by promoting a culture of continuous improvement throughout our organization and by constantly assessing our previous actions. You should think of us when you think about who the best police departments in North Carolina are."
Dean Hensley is the news editor for the Hendersonville Times-News. Email him with tips, questions and comments at DHensley@gannett.com. Please help support this kind of local journalism with a subscription to the Hendersonville Times-News.
This article originally appeared on Hendersonville Times-News: Pustizzi teaching active shooter training after Parkland massacre
