City of Augusta creates new program for active shooter incidents

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) – Augusta city leaders approved new security plans Tuesday to better prepare for active shooter situations.

The new program recommends training to departments across the city.

The ASHER Program stands for active shooter event response.

It’s already used statewide in Massachusetts, but Augusta is the first to test it out in Georgia.

A life-saving system, powered through community coordination.

“If everybody is operating off of a different standard; while all of the different standards have good intentions, all of the good intentions in the world don’t lead to all of those things on scene of a hostile event. That interoperability and the quick transition from response to recovery,” said John Ryan, emergency manager of Augusta University.

The ASHER plan for Augusta, originally conceived in 2019, had to be put on hold when COVID-19 hit.

60 subject matter experts across the nation created the plan that will soon be put to the test at Augusta University.

“You’ll see that more in the ensuing months with agencies, law enforcement agencies, fire agencies, EMS, private sector, academia, everybody working together, using NFPA 3000 to bring #strongaugusta to life,” said Ryan.

They’ll also push the hashtag strong Augusta campaign reaching out to nearby companies and Fort Gordon for more active shooter training for civilians.

Brian Ozden, supervisory senior resident agent for FBI Augusta Georgia resident agency, said: “All of the agencies, if you will, came together and looked at historical, active shooter hostile events, and they came up with a plan: a plan to prepare, a plan to respond, a plan to recover from.”

Creating a community-wide, proactive plan before tragedy strikes.

“I am just so excited to be a part of the first in Georgia and one of the first in the country, to really adopt it as the community standard and move forward with it,” said Ozden.

Augusta University’s demonstration on Thursday has been months of planning.

Ryan says he and fire chief Antonio Burden will also head to D.C. next week to continue to present this plan and try and streamline it to more communities, even at the state level in Georgia.

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