BEACHWOOD, Ohio – The Jewish Federation of Cleveland is teaming up with local and federal law enforcement agencies for a live training exercise.
“This is an active threat drill and it’s designed to have a whole bunch of units working together, such as the fire departments, SWAT teams, bomb squads, our first responders and our administrative personnel,” explained Captain Gary Haba with the Beachwood Police Department.
He couldn’t release many details about what the training actually includes, but did say they are practicing for all kinds of situations, whether that be a terrorist attack or some kind of work place violence incident.
“As the scenario progresses, whatever characteristics of the event are taking place, we have to respond to. So we may, you know, if there’s a suspicious package that may have been dropped or had been located, then we would send the bomb team in to handle that or if there’s a hostage taker, then the SWAT team and the negotiators would handle that,” he said.
Staff from the Jewish Federation of Cleveland were also involved with the training. Bart Bookatz from the organization’s security committee said it’s important to be prepared.
“Statistics show that we are one of the prime targets as a religious faith organizations and our relationship with law enforcement agencies around here establish that,” he said.
With that being said though, they have not received any threats. This is purely a precaution.
“I want to emphasize that this is just a training exercise and there’s no threat to the community. It’s just so that we can coordinate in case of such a threat,” he said.
