Aug 24, 2022
It was a Thursday morning in May. Five days after a shooter killed 10 people in a Buffalo grocery store. Five days before a shooter killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
Tresor Kolimedje, 28, was at work in a state government office across the street from Catholic Charities’ location at 93rd Street and Bedford Avenue in Omaha.
From her desk, she heard gunshots, peered out the window and saw people running from the building, past other people who were lying on the ground. “She believed (they) had been shot,” according to a detective’s affidavit.
She wasn’t the only one. Multiple Catholic Charities employees rushed out of the building — some believing they had seconds to live.
What they knew: A man with a semiautomatic handgun had opened fire. Victims were on the ground, streaked in blood.
What they didn’t know: Their bosses had approved the “drill” — hiring the gunman who, in turn, brought along the “victims” to play dead after he fired off several blank rounds.
Now, the pretend gunman, who at the time described himself to police as an Offutt Air Force Base “citizen police officer,” is in jail — facing five charges of terroristic threats and one charge of weapon use...
Authorities are scratching their heads that any organization would think Channels’ active-shooter drill was kosher.
“Bad, bad idea,” Douglas County Attorney Don Kleine said Tuesday. “Bad enough what happened — somebody could have gotten killed. Just think of the potential things that could have happened with this — it’s frightful.
“Thankfully, nobody else got hurt more serious than the mental damage these individuals suffered.”
The World-Herald sent a series of questions to Catholic Charities of Omaha Executive Director Denise Bartels, asking why the agency didn’t warn employees about the drill and what the agency was doing to help those employees in the aftermath.
Bartels declined to answer questions. She had authorized the exercise and agreed to Channels’ request that she shield from employees the fact that it was a drill, according to police.
According to the affidavit, an employee ran out of the office behind Bartels and asked “what was going on numerous times,” but neither Bartels nor anyone else responded.
Bartels issued a statement Tuesday that said: “Catholic Charities has cooperated fully with the Omaha Police Department and continues to do so. This is an ongoing criminal matter and we have no further comment at this time.”
Kleine said it is unclear how many employees were at the Catholic Charities office that morning. But Kleine said he has been informed that some were so shaken up they have yet to return to work, three months after the May 19 drill...
In the nine-page affidavit, Omaha Police Detective Derek Mois detailed what happened:
Catholic Charities’ compliance coordinator, Carrie Walter, and Security Director Mike Welna agreed on April 28 to pay Channels $2,500 to conduct the training. Walter stated the idea of conducting an “active shooter” training “had been discussed for some time ... due to having the new facility open ... which contained a domestic violence shelter.”
Walter said she and Welna had little idea how to go about organizing such training, so they yielded to a security guard’s suggestion of hiring Channels. Channels had claimed to have conducted other active-shooter drills and claimed that law enforcement “would be present during the training event and would even participate and ‘play along’ with the scenario.”
“Walter stated that Channels planned to start by shooting victims outside of the office windows and doors to be viewed by employees, then make his way through the building (with keys provided by staff) hoping to cause employees to flee from the building or hide,” Mois wrote. “Walter stated Channels specifically stated he did not want the Catholic Charities staff to be informed that the scenario was only a drill and wanted to feel as though they were in danger.”