Brown County law enforcement agencies are working to provide classes at no charge to local businesses, schools, and organizations that would like to know how to react and possibly defend themselves in an active shooter situation. Through these classes Brown County Sheriff’s Office along with Brownwood and Early Police Departments will provide awareness of how to think, observe and react rather than the previously accepted teachings of hiding from an active shooter.
“Locking down and hiding was found to be not so well thought out, just waiting for the shooter to come,” explained Brownwood Assistant Chief James Fuller.
Fuller explained that all of the six officers pictured above have received training through a class through the ALERRT Program (Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training) in San Angelo which was taught by Abilene Chief of Police Stan Standridge. Through these classes, Brown County law enforcement agencies will now be able to provide training on civilian response to an active shooter situation.
“We offer a service to businesses, community groups, which is free, just to have a dialogue. Especially with everyone’s concerns about the new Open Carry laws and what is going on in the world today,” Fuller said.
Early Chief of Police David Mercer has already begun teaching such classes, most recently to Early Independent School District teachers and staff. His next class will be offered through the Early Chamber of Commerce on February 22nd. The classes are usually about an hour long.
Brownwood Police Department and Brown County Sheriff’s Office are just getting started teaching the classes. Interested organizations or businesses simply need to call one of the three agencies to schedule a time for a class. All three agencies have attended the same course and will be teaching the same information so that everyone in the community is on the same train of thought.
“We will teach civilians how to understand your surroundings, how to avoid potential danger, and how to get away or fight to defend yourself,” said Mercer. “People are concerned with open carry and the potential threats.”
“This teaches you to react, not deny, to do something when you hear it,” said BCSO Investigator Scott Bird.
“This type of education gives people ideas to help, think about ‘what if’ situations, and have a plan rather than being caught off guard,” said Mercer stated, “Cops all the time, when they go to the store or while driving down the road, they always think about what ifs, ‘what if someone comes out with a gun or I see someone running from a store,’ ‘I’m in here eating and I see someone with a gun, what am I going to do?’”
Mercer stated that no children have died in school fires in the past 100 years simply because schools have fire drills on a regular basis. This thought of being prepared also applies to an active shooter situation in a business or school, knowing the way out, and how to fight back before it happens, according to Mercer.
Local firefighters, EMTs and other first responders will attend a Critical Response in Active Shooter Event (CRASE) class on Friday. For them, the course will help them understand the process of how local agencies will respond in the event of an active shooter, to eliminate some of the chaos that can occur in such an event.
According to Assistant Chief Fuller, there have been 179 active shooting events identified by the FBI in the U.S. in the years of 2000-2014.
It is a sad situation that such happenings need to be addressed, but is “just the world we live in today,” according to Bird who stated, “It’s something we offer, but hope we never have to use it.”
