We're gonna acquire a target downrange, if necessary, and we're gonna engage it,
if necessary. How would you react to an active shooter? Would you freeze? Or would
you fight back? While America debates gun control, local police officers are
preparing themselves, so they don't freeze up or flee for their own safety.
Since the attack at Columbine school in 1999, mass shootings in the U.S. have
risen from 6 to 20 per year—and they're getting more deadly. Last October, 58
people were killed and 546 injured in Las Vegas, in the worst shooting so far.
And on Valentine's Day, 17 students were shot at a school in Parkland, Florida.
You know, the, the tactics have changed. It's, it's very much if we have to get hurt to
stop this threat, then then that may happen, but we're still gonna do
everything we can to stop that threat. Before Columbine, police would wait for SWAT.
But most active shooter attacks end
before that happens, when the attacker escapes or commits suicide—
normally inside five minutes. It's fallen on first responders to react faster,
hunting the shooter, without waiting for backup. Jourdanton Police Department in
Texas show us the world through their eyes. It's important that our community
needs to know that us, as law enforcement, we're constantly training and they look
towards us when things go bad. My mindset is, it was always gonna be
someone bigger, stronger, faster out there than me, so I have to train for that
bigger, stronger, faster person.
We see that every day around the country, police departments and sheriff's departments
are rushing towards the sound of gunfire. We saw it in Orlando, we saw it in
San Bernardino, we saw it over and over again.
Police are turning to special training companies like Advanced Law Enforcement
Rapid Response Training or Alert. Alert, who've partnered with the FBI, used data
from past attacks to evolve how future apprehensions should look, working in all
50 states to prepare officers to face active shooters. Unfortunately, that's why
we, as law enforcement, are having to go through these situations. They're
happening more frequently. The instructors, they may have blanks, but
there's also times where they're actually shooting at you with
munitions, and they don't feel very good. Feels real to me, everything in those
situations are very fast pace, time is not on your side at that point. Even when
you know that the scenarios aren't real and you know when this is over nobody's
gonna really be hurt, you still experience some of the same emotions
that you would in a real situation, you still have that adrenaline dump and
you've got to control your breathing and slow yourself down mentally, so you can
make the correct decisions. Residents of Jourdanton are familiar with
the devastation caused by a mass shooting. Last year, 26 people were shot at a
church 40 minutes east in Sutherland Springs. Not knowing where the threat is
makes your adrenaline go really hard. Now you're having to see every small detail while
you're out there. You don't know if they're ducking down in the brush,
so it's better to learn your mistakes in a training versus learning them out in
the real world because in the real world there is no second chance.
Alert are in demand. And with an FBI partnership,
they've become American law enforcement's go-to training system for active shooter
apprehension. We rely heavily on people like the people at Alert and other
organizations to keep evolving these trainings, to keep them relevant, so we
need to make sure that we have the right tools in our toolbox to address these
situations in a legal and ethical fashion on behalf of the people that we
serve here. I am saving people for protection and love, not out of hate.
I'm gonna win regardless.