With ski season only 100 days out for Taos Ski Valley, the New Mexico resort’s village Police Department has taken a proactive approach toward gun violence and avoiding mass casualty events by providing trainings to village inhabitants only a month after two people were killed in a gangland shooting at Whistler Mountain Resort in British Columbia. Last week, the department conducted two half-day trainings to prepare municipal employees, village officials, and the public in the event that an active shooter targets the village, according to Taos News.
Taos Ski Valley Police Chief Virgil Vigil told the Taos News in an interview that his department would conduct similar trainings for resort employees in the coming weeks. “They want to do it a little bit differently, to actually have individual departments do trainings so they can [prepare] for active shooters,” he told Taos News.
In the United States, theย Investigative Assistance for Violent Crimes Act of 2012 defines mass killings as three or more killings in a single incident. So far, there have been over 300 mass shootings this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit organization that tracks shootings across the United States.
Hopefully, those in the village of Taos will never have to put their training to use.ย