RUMFORD — Dispatchers, first responders, educators and school administrators are encouraged to attend a conference focusing on preparing and protecting first responders in an active-shooter situation.

The daylong conference, organized by the Oxford County Regional Communications Center, will be held April 5 at Mountain Valley High School in Rumford.

According to Deputy Communications Director Geff Inman, this is the fourth year the communications center has sponsored the conference. Between 75 and 100 people are expected to attend, Inman said. 

Organizers decided to focus on active-shooter situations this year because it is a topic that has “been on the mind” of dispatchers, law enforcement officers and first responders, Inman said. Among such incidents recently are a shopping mall in Maryland in January that killed two people and a rampage at the Washington Navy Yard in September that left 12 dead.

The conference’s two keynote speakers, Maureen Will, director of communications for Newtown, Conn., and Gary MacNamara, chief of police of Fairfield, Conn., were both directly involved in the Dec. 14, 2012, shooting spree at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown that killed 20 children and six staff members.

The conference is free and includes lunch. For more information or to register, contact Geff Inman at 743-9554, ext. 9 or ginman@oxfordcounty.org or Melinda Thurlow at 743-9554, ext. 106, mthurlow@oxfordcounty.org.


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