WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio _ Wright-Patterson Air Force Base officials in Ohio Thursday confirmed a person inside the base medical center called 911 to report an active shooter, but none was found.
No one was injured, according to Col. Tom Sherman, Wright-Patterson Installation Commander. The base was given the all-clear, and personnel were being asked to avoid the medical center.
After the call was made to 911, security forces began a systematic sweep of the 99,000 square foot facility. At one point, a security officer discharged his weapon to get through a locked door.
What made Thursday's incident more complicated for base responders is that a half mile away in the Kittyhawk section of Area A, a planned, scheduled installation exercise involving an active shooter scenario was taking place.
That exercise stopped immediately with the news of the call about a possible active shooter at the medical center.
"We don't have any reason to believe the 911 caller was influenced by any exercise activity," said Daryl Mayer, base spokesperson.
The scheduled exercise was published to all base personnel before Thursday.
The training exercise did not use any simulated gunfire, and the weapons being used were brightly colored and clearly not real, Mayer said.
Sherman said he doesn't think anything went wrong during the incident.
"I'd like to redefine it by saying we received a 911 telephone call from inside the hospital from someone who truly believed there was an emergency situation taking place."
The gunshot fired by a member of the WPAFB security forces during the sweep of the base medical center is under investigation, as is the entirety of what happened on the base Thursday, Sherman said.
"We have thorough investigation that's taking place that will give us the opportunity to determine the context, the reaction and decisions that were made," Col. Sherman said.
"We treat all scenarios with a level of urgency to determine the reality and ensure that we are responding according to the situations that are dictated to us ... ," he said.
