On ALERRT: Multiple law officers engage in simulated shooter attack response

It’s a training that every law enforcement personnel who has gone through the program wish they never have put into use.

ALERRT – Active Attack Response Training – brought together 46 law enforcement officers for two separate two-days training sessions last week at Brandon Valley Intermediate School. The level 1 active shooter response class is a patrol-level course for first responders.

“If there was an active shooter attack that would ever occur, this is what they do when they arrive at the scene,” explained Jeff Crow, the Regional Manager for the Midwest ALERRT program. Crow oversees this type of training in 11 Midwest states. The University of Texas-based program, which is funded through grant dollars, is offered free to law enforcement agencies, such as the Brandon Police and surrounding departments. Last week’s training involved about a dozen agencies from South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa.

Brandon also served as the host site for ALERRT training in 2020, and Police Chief Jamie Steffel said it was important to repeat.

“We were looking at doing one of the other courses this time, but since so much has happened since 2020, and this organization, they are constantly reviewing things when they happen and constantly updating their curriculum and their practices, we thought it was beneficial,” Steffel said.

Steffel said it’s even more beneficial to repeat this course for his department because of the number of new officers  that are now wearing the badge.

“Next year, we’re already in discussions on moving onto some of the other curriculums that they do and building upon this,” Steffel said. “Unfortunately, a lot of things have happened and unfortunately, not all of them have went well. There’s a lot of people in the area that get to partake in this – not just our agency – so it gives them an opportunity to send people to it as well.”

On day two of the second session of two last week, attendees put what they learned in the classroom into practice in live simulations. 

“As close to real life as we can … we put them in those high-fidelity type of scenarios trying to get them to feel what it might be like and help them through that process in how they would act,” Crow said.

The live scenarios have proven to mimic a real-life situation, he said.

“Surprisingly, in these scenarios, we elicit those same physiological responses whenever they are put into those stressful situations, they are very similar to what they would experience in a real-life situation. So, it’s very helpful beyond just sitting in the classroom and learning the techniques and talking about them to actually go out and practice them. And then, putting on the protective equipment with the marking rounds and put a little bit of discomfort with getting hit with those rounds, it causes those spikes in heart rate,” Crow said.

Brandon Police Lieutenant Austin Peterson attended the first session of ALERRT training last week, and described the two-day training as invaluable.

“I can say that I’ve been in law enforcement for the last 13 years, and this is the most beneficial training that I have ever received,” Lt. Peterson said.

Although Brandon has largely been fortunate to not have to put this training into use, Crow said that too many officers have found themselves in active attack situations.

“The shooting at Nashville recently, one of those officers had attended our training. There’s great value in training in making the effort to have active attack trainers, and we’re really pleased that our program is research-based and grant-funded. We’re not a for-profit organization.”

Bringing in various agencies for these trainings is also beneficial, Crow said.  

“Each agency does things different. One of the things they do, is when you have something big like this happening, you have multiple agencies that come together,” Steffel said. “So, what they’re doing is spreading this broadly to multiple agencies and multiple states, so when these people come together, there is some commonality to what they’re doing. City police, DNR, county, state patrol are all going to descend on the scene and they all have to come together to solve the problem.”

Adds Crow: “The realities of these events is there are going to be multiple departments, agencies that show up. Even after the problem has been dealt with and with whoever the attacker is, then the added complexity is how do you get the injured the medical care that they need as soon as possible. The next iteration of what we do is that integration piece, integrating fire and EMS into the response. That’s one of the classes that we will bring up here in the future.”