First responders find Christmas decorations -- and bodies -- in San Bernardino - Los Angeles Times
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First responders find Christmas decorations -- and bodies -- in San Bernardino

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When San Bernardino police Lt. Mike Madden and his colleagues arrived at the Inland Regional Center on Wednesday, it was for a report of an active shooting.

Inside, they saw tables decorated for Christmas and a Christmas tree. And bodies.

It was “immediately evident that the reports were 100% true,†Madden said.

“Although we train for it, it’s something you’re never actually prepared for,†he said Thursday.

Madden oversees the police dispatchers. He said he knows their voices and how severe something is based on their tone.

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“I could hear it in my dispatcher’s voice. That this was actually happening, that this was a real event.â€

He said that moving through the building, he saw dead and wounded people outside of a conference room. There were more inside.

“The situation was surreal,†Madden said.

Police have trained for active shooters since Columbine, he said. Officers are subjected to sensory overload during the training. “They try to throw everything at you to prepare for what you’re hearing, what you’re smelling -- and it was all that and more,†Madden said.

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It’s “unspeakable the carnage that we were seeing, the number of people who were injured and unfortunately already dead. The pure panic on the faces of those individuals still in need, still needing to be safe.â€

He told people to get out as fast as they could. He estimates that more than 50 people ran out behind him.

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“We went further into the building, and that was a difficult choice to have to make as well, passing people who we knew were injured and needed help, but our goal was: We needed to get the shooters.â€

He said fear mounted as the responders reached the back of the building near a hallway because they thought the gunmen were holding hostages. They had to try to coax the employees out of the building. Once one of them stepped forward, they came in a wave.

“There were people who were obviously injured and obviously in great amounts of pain and that was evident in the moans and wails we heard in the room,†Madden said.

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