Omaha charity workers recount terror of 'shooter' firing gun; only bosses knew it was a drill

Another day in America.

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.

John Channels, 27, also is awaiting trial on separate felonies alleging he sexually assaulted a girl and produced child pornography.

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.”

It worked. Several employees interviewed by Omaha police say they showed up May 19 for what they thought would be a normal Thursday.

Walter stated she and other staff were “somewhat uncomfortable with the idea of not fully notifying the staff but trusted Channels’ expertise and counted on his statements that (authorities) would be involved.”

About 9:30 a.m., Sandra Lopez was sitting at her desk, talking with a friend on her cellphone. She had just started working at the Bedford location after working at a South Omaha location for two years. She heard a noise outside her window and saw a Catholic Charities director, Dave Vankat, looking “scared” and screaming, “Run, run, get out,” Lopez told police.

Lopez followed Bartels and others and began asking “what was going on numerous times,” Mois wrote. “No one responded to her.”

Once outside the north entrance of the building, Lopez told Mois that she saw what she thought was a dead woman on the ground. The woman’s eyes were closed and she had blood smeared on her.

She then heard three gunshots behind her. She ran as fast as she could toward a retaining wall, with a dumpster several feet below. Lopez tried to jump into the dumpster to hide. She landed outside the dumpster and curled into the fetal position. Fearing she would be found and killed, Lopez then ran about three blocks to a fast-food restaurant to hide inside.

When she later called her bosses to tell her she was OK, they informed her the events were “part of a scheduled training.”

On the second floor of the building, Amanda Driver, 24, said she knew training was scheduled that day for the on-site classroom and believed it would be a speaker and a PowerPoint presentation. An earlier email made no mention of actors simulating a gunman or his victims.

Then she heard gunshots. “Driver stated she heard Denise Bartels yell her name, which startled her, and she began running toward the north (exit) door,” Mois wrote. There, “she observed a female down on the ground and believed it was a dead coworker.

“Driver stated she ran away from the building harder than she has ever run before because she believed she was about to be shot.”

In another department, one supervisor gathered three women in the cafeteria for what they thought was going to be a security presentation. They sat there for about 45 minutes, waiting for it to begin — no one told them that it was going to be an active-shooter drill.

Then Gloria Kern heard a noise she thought was gunshots — and saw her colleague, Sheila Garland, jump and run out of the room. As they fled, Kern said she saw a gunman “banging on the windows with the gun.”

“Kern said she saw the individual ‘holding the gun then shoot at the window,’” Mois wrote.

Garland told police that she was in a conference room with Kern when she saw a man in “dark colored clothing with a dark colored hoodie” walking by, firing a gun in the air. She said she was “absolutely in shock.”

Garland “stated specifically that she did not believe that any training that would be put on would involve someone firing a gun.”

When they made it outside, they saw a female on the ground with blood on her. Kern believed it was a co-worker. Garland was overcome at the sight.

Soon after, someone approached Garland and told her that she “needed to calm down.” “This was not real,” the person said, according to police.

Employees weren’t the only ones in the dark. Authorities say they weren’t notified of the drill. Dispatchers had no idea that several 911 calls of an active shooter were part of a scheme. And arriving Omaha police officers had no idea what they were encountering. One Omaha police officer had his hand on his gun as he approached co-workers, unsure who the shooter was.

Channels described himself then as an “Offutt Citizen Police Officer.” It is not clear what that title means; Offutt representatives couldn’t be reached Tuesday.

Two weeks after the drill, Omaha police issued a statement asking businesses, churches and other organizations to inform them before conducting any live training.

Kleine said it’s hard to conjure all the things that could have gone wrong. One of the employees could have had a heart attack while fleeing. Someone could have taken out a gun and fired at Channels. An officer could have done the same, killing Channels or someone else. Channels himself could have inflicted damage; just a year ago, actor Alec Baldwin fired a gun he thought had blanks in it on the set of a Hollywood movie. A live round instead killed a cinematographer.

Kleine said it’s also hard to imagine what was going through Channels’ mind: Was this some kind of video game cosplay he found exciting? Channels operates the Exousia Protection Agency that, according to its social media posts, specializes in home security and firearms training.

Channels’ arrest affidavit is complete with security stills showing Channels brandishing the gun and employees rushing out.

Authorities said Channels asked employees after the training whether they had guns for protection; he also shared a business card encouraging them to pay for his firearms training class.

“It’s hard to figure out what possibly could have been his intention,” Kleine said. “He obviously wasn’t someone who took into account the issues or problems that could have resulted from doing it in this manner.”

As for Catholic Charities’ managers, Kleine said their decision-making is a civil, not criminal, matter. Two decades ago, the then-chief of police in Schuyler, Nebraska, and an officer, both armed and in disguise, stormed a convenience store as part of a staged robbery. One of the workers, who believed she was going to die, later sued the convenience store chain in federal court. That “drill” took place in the wake of the Norfolk bank robbery that killed five people.

The Catholic Charities drill took place just 2 miles from Westroads Mall, where a gunman killed eight Nebraskans in 2007.

Lopez teared up as she recounted the trauma to police.

“Lopez stated specifically that she believed the victim was a Catholic Charities employee who had been killed,” Mois wrote. “She believed she was involved in a real shooting event with real victims.”

Kern, too. The Omaha woman, who is in her late 60s, told police that she felt helpless as she fled. Her physical state would only get her “so far,” she said.

“I thought, ‘This is it, I’m done.’”