Law Enforcement Officers Complete Active Shooter Training at Christoval High

All eight divisions of the Tom Green County Sheriff’s Office (TGCSO), three San Angelo Police Department (SAPD) divisions, as well as Homeland Security were on campus at Christoval High School March 10-13, when the school hosted Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training (ALERRT) in order to train response skills for the event of an active shooter. The Christoval middle school and high school students are enjoying Spring Break this week and were not at school.

The training consisted of two classes, each totaling 16 hours. During the course, officers received ALERRT Level 1 training, which consists of weapon manipulation, threshold evaluation, concepts and principles of team movement, including solo officer strategies, room entry techniques, approach and breaching the crisis site, a TGCSO press release states.

“This is a nationwide program, they train all over the United States, and it’s the one that’s recognized by the FBI as the standard for responding to these type of incidents,” Sheriff David Jones said Thursday.

“This teaches people how they respond on a one or two or three or even four-man cell to eliminate the threats of active shooting,” he continued. “A lot of lessons were learned at Columbine and some of the other big instances where people didn’t respond quite right at the time. At the time, they were responding the way they were trained. Well, the training’s changed to be more responsive, especially to an active shooter. You go in and you confront the shooter and try to eliminate the threat and the possibility of more people becoming injured.”

The Christoval campus is no stranger to the specialized training. The course this week was the second held on the school grounds and the three classes have been taught on site. Christoval ISD Superintendent David Walker said Thursday that he is “extremely elated” about having the opportunity to play host to the training, and about the partnership between the district, the TGSO and the SAPD.

Christoval ISD is a “guardian school”, meaning that select teachers and staff are armed at all times. The school faculty also undergo regular practice and training in order to enable the best response should an active shooter situation break out on campus.

In addition, TGSO Deputies visit Christoval ISD campuses daily and do walk throughs, in order to make their presence known and help prevent incidents from happening. Walker says that without the Sheriff’s Deputies, the school would be an “easy prey”.

“People do not do stupid stuff in front of uniformed law enforcement officers,” Walker says. “Just having that presence and also knowing—one, they’re getting to know our faculty and staff and the locations, the layout of the facilities, also making a relationship with our students—especially for us, since we’re a guardian school, being able to recognize the guardians and the guardians get to know various officers on staff, so that if we ever have to link up in a highly-charged situation with adrenaline going and everything, we’ll be able to readily identify one another and we’ll be able to work together as a team.”

Teamwork is exactly what the ALERRT training fosters.  As the U.S. standard for active shooting response, the program ensures that officers across agencies receive the same training, and are therefore more prepared to work together should a crisis occur and the forces combine.

Tom Green County Sheriff’s Lieutenant Stacye Jackson was the first in the SO to take the training and is credited with bringing it to Christoval and the Sheriff’s Office. She describes the training as the best she’s ever seen, due to the number and varied experience of the instructors.

“I went to the first ALERRT program for the school that was here, the San Angelo Police Department actually brought it in after Columbine, and I have a friend that is an ALERRT instructor that was bragging on how much they’ve learned from different things happening throughout the United States and that he practices are better,” she said. “We have a lot of new officers with out department that we want everybody that works for the Sheriff’s Office on the exact same page. That everybody will know how to respond in the exact same way. Since ALERRT is the training standard for the United States, they were the best people to bring in to do the training.” Walker and Jones agreed.

While the guardians at Christoval High regularly practice, there is a difference between that practice and the training, Walker says. In training, participants are actually learning new skills and working together in groups with law enforcement, enabling them to discover strengths and weaknesses. Keeping up to date, he says, is important, because as incidents occur nationwide, new strategies are developed and those have to be trained as well.

All entities involved in the training expressed a gratitude for the continued partnership and participation of other agencies and the school district. At the training this week were the following divisions of the TGCSO: Patrol, Mental Health, Detective, Courthouse Security, Commercial Motor Vehicle Division, Civil Diision, Warrant Division and Administration. County and district court bailiffs were also present, as was Precinct 4 Constable Randy Harris.

In addition to the SO, members of Homeland Security were in attendance, as well as the SAPD’s SOS, Detective and Patrol Divisions. The course was taught by Erik Sprieger from San Marcos Police Department, Todd Harrison from San Marcos Police Department, Ryan Watkins from Hays County Sheriff’s Office, and lead instructor Sam Stock from Hays County Sheriff’s Office.

The TGCSO wished to express their appreciation to the ALERRT program and their instructors for providing the training, as well as to Superintendant David Walker for making his campus available, and to all attending officers outside of the TGCSO “who attended to make this school great.”