Fargo police perform Violent Intruder Training at City Hall

At Fargo City Hall, law enforcement is conducting a staged exercise simulating a violent intruder scenario.

FARGO, N.D. (KVRR) — A training exercise at Fargo’s City Hall designed to be a realistic active shooter scenario. It’s to put security, sheltering and evacuation plans into place for those inside City Hall.

The point of the exercise: to prepare and recognize anything could happen at any time, especially in a public building.

“We have a lot of staff and a lot of our officials there which is an open building to the public so anyone can come in. I’m not aware of any particular instances or cases where there have been conflicts in City Hall but measures have been taken to improve some of the safety and security,” says Brady Scribner, the Emergency Manager in the City of Fargo

He says they’ve added extra security to the front entrance of City Hall to greet the public and staff to make sure everyone is safe.

While you can’t simulate something so complex like evacuations and other chaos, city officials say they’d be prepared if something were to actually happen because of this exercise.

“One surprising element to this that i did not anticipate was how quickly the responders reacted to the exercise. It almost threw us a curve ball on the emergency management side,” Scribner said.

He added it was such a curveball they had to alter their exercise a little.

The city has made it clear it’s nothing related to the recent spike of shootings across America or any specific heightened concerns.

It’s to prepare city hall workers and law enforcement on how to react when there’s a sign of danger in a public space.

Scribner says they’ve been planning the violent intruder exercise since 2018. They put the training on hold during the COVID-19 pandemic.