Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training, (ALERRT) is a program designed to train police officers in how to effectively respond to incidents involving an active shooter. The program was created in 2002 and since then has trained more than 60,000 law enforcement professionals across the country.
This week, the program came to Alaska.
In March 2013, the FBI made ALERRT the national standard of training for their agents. Special Agent Samuel Benson decided to bring the training to Anchorage to help better prepare the state for mass casualty shootings, like the Columbine, Sandy Hook and Fort Hood massacres.
“It’s a phenomenon that’s here in the United States,” said Benson. “It’s continuing to grow, it’s continuing to evolve, so I feel that we as police officers, if we are not evolving and growing with our own training model, then that puts us behind the curve.”
During the five-day training program, representatives from 16 different police Alaska departments will be participating in intense training exercises. In all, 22 officers have entered the program and will be certified to train others as well.
On Wednesday, officers donned their protective gear and ran through scenarios they might encounter while out in the field. Run-throughs included hostage situations, homicides in progress and mass shootings.
“This is just one of those tactics that, I think, is extremely flexible and it’s extremely useful,” said Benson.
ALERRT Trainer Brian White says in active shooter situations, the long-standing procedure had been for patrol officers and first responders to secure the area and wait for SWAT personnel to arrive. They were never instructed to go into the building to seek out suspects.
Realizing people were dying, ALERRT’s founders set out to give non-SWAT officers the tools necessary to neutralize the situation.
“If we get a call to an active shooter and we actively hear people dying, as a duty, we are to go in and alleviate the threat,” said White.
Trainers say it isn’t possible to predict how a critical situation will play out, or when and where it will happen.
“What is possible is to give these guys the tools necessary to think through their own issues, their own problems so that they can ultimately be successful,” said Benson.