The Norwegian Police - a Learning Organisation? The case of the Kongsberg 2021 Mass Casualty Event

Armed confrontations represent the most extreme and demanding tasks faced by police. On 13 October 2021, an individual armed with a bow and arrows and several knives killed five people in Kongsberg, Norway. Following the incident and subsequent arrest, the Norwegian Police Directorate and the Police Security Service established a committee tasked with identifying learning points related to both the events leading up to the attack and the police's operational management of the incident. This paper examines the extent to which the committee's mandate and the subsequent follow-up actions related to operational police management demonstrate characteristics of the Norwegian police as a learning organisation. The study is based on document analysis of police directives and instructions, the Kongsberg evaluation report, the mechanisms for disseminating lessons learned throughout the Norwegian Police after publication of the report, and the degree to which this knowledge is received and used to adjust police and security service procedures to reflect newly acquired insights. The findings indicate a strong motivation at the management level across all Norwegian police districts to use the Kongsberg incident as a learning opportunity, as well as considerable interest among police emergency response officers. Nevertheless, despite clear evidence of learning following the events of 13 October 2021 and a willingness to draw lessons from the incident, there remains room for improvement in systematically identifying experiences and transferring knowledge throughout the organisation as part of a structured effort to modify police modus operandi in armed confrontations in line with new insights.

Keywords: Mass casualty event, Experience, Experiential learning, Collective learning, Learning organization.