In the wake of the shooting that took place at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, students, parents and people everywhere are getting more and more concerned.

The morning of Oct. 1, Christopher Harper-Mercer, a 26-year-old student at the college, entered his introductory composition class with two handguns, and after shooting the assistant professor, proceeded to ask his fellow classmates for their religions.

He shot each one after they responded and ended up killing nine people, and injuring nine others before killing himself.

This was yet another school shooting amongst the 150 that have occurred in the United States since 2013.

#BREAKING: Active shooting reported at Umpqua Community College #UCCShooting https://t.co/zvTuBRxR28

— The Oregonian (@Oregonian) October 1, 2015

Now, schools everywhere, whether they’re elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, colleges or universities, are left wondering what to do in order to prevent their campus from being next, and especially what to do in the event that another one of these tragedies does occur.

Here at the University of Hartford, the Department of Public Safety has taken measures to ensure that officers are specially trained to deal with a situation such as this.

Assistant Chief of Public Safety Michael Kaselouskas explained, “My officers are fully equipped and trained, and trained better than any agency in the state on responding to these incidents. We train several times a year. Hopefully we’ll never respond to a real incident, but we train both mentally, physically, and with the Simunitions [training ammunition] and etc. weapons to respond to these incidents.”

• Public Safety armed to protect

Kaselouskas went on to describe that several officers are indeed armed, especially due to the possibility that an event like this could occur, saying, “All of our officers, to be in an armed position, go through physical assessments, go through combat training on the range, night shooting, shooting behind targets. It’s an over 40-hour class of combat training. They also go through psychological background checks, psychological checks, and go through a whole monotony of checks that they need to pass in order to be selected for that position.”

The @UofHartford is arming its public safety officers. @BeauBermanFOXCT got the info, and student reactions http://t.co/5QVwLneOv1

— FOX CT (@FoxCT) August 26, 2014

The Department of Public Safety, especially Kaselouskas, has made extensive efforts to provide training sessions for University faculty, staff and students regarding how to respond in an incident involving a shooter on campus.

Kaselouskas explained that Public Safety officers and police, in an event like this, are actually “second responders” and went on to refer to faculty and staff who may actually be on the scene during an attack as the first responders.

“I want to train the first responders to mitigate that threat right away,” Kaselouskas said. “I want those first responders to take out that threat should they have that opportunity.”

Training sessions such as these offered by Public Safety here at the University are being offered in settings across the country for staff at various facilities, and according to Kaselouskas, the country wide training is to hide out, get out, take out; flee if you can, hide out if you can’t or take out if you have to.

“I’m doing everything I can and putting myself out there to accommodate whatever schedule I need to, to get the training done because it’s important,” Kaselouskas said. “But people need to take responsibility for themselves to get this training for themselves. A lot of people think they’re just going to call the police when something happens. Well, the police are not there immediately, and you need to do something in that meantime.”

Kaselouskas also discussed his plans of holding similar training sessions open to the entire campus community, including students and he really believes that as many people should make an effort to attend as possible in order to ensure that they are trained as well as faculty and staff members. Spreading this information will help keep campus as safe as possible.