Police train for active shooter
Shawn Seaman of the Carnegie Police Department, an ALERRT instructor, shows the simunition gun the officers used for their training.
South Fayette Police Lieutenant Bob Kurta works at the computer in the Mobile Command Unit.
Mark Baker of the Moon Township Police Department with instructors Kris Sabin of the Collier Township Police Department and John Leninger of the South Fayette Police Department.
While students were home enjoying their final day of winter break, the halls of the South Fayette High School were filled with the sounds of police officers training for an armed intruder.
On Jan. 2, officers from several area departments including Collier Township, Moon Township, Carnegie and South Fayette, participated in a type of training called ALERRT, which stands for Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training.
ALERRT was developed by Texas State University in 2002 as a partnership between the local police and sheriff’s department in San Marcos, Texas, to address the need for active shooter response training for first responders, according to alerrt.org. More than 40,000 police officers have been trained in the ALERRT program. The goal is to eventually have every officer in the country trained in the ALERRT program.
Officers were placed in several different scenarios during the training that took place inside the school.
“It’s going well,” said South Fayette Police Officer John Leninger, who was one of the instructors. He noted that two classes of about 20 officers each went through the training.
“We intentionally implement new scenarios that put the officers under stress,” Leninger said. The officers were working with simunition guns that fire a small ball of paint instead of a bullet.
South Fayette Police Chief Louis Volle said the simunition guns are incapable of firing a bullet, but the guns are the same weight as a real gun and offer the same type of kickback.
Shawn Seaman of the Carnegie Police Department, also an instructor for the training, said the paint round bullets are as close to a real live bullet that you can get.
“It shoots at 440 feet per second,” Seaman said of the simunition guns.
The simunition rounds can still pack a punch, so the officers in the training were wearing protective gear.
Leninger added that the scenarios are put in place “to make this as real as possible” for the officers. He said some of the situations the officers were trained in involved an active shooter and others did not.
Volle added that a lot of what the officers are training in is in response to real-life situations, like the recent shooting in Newtown, Conn., where 26 students and adult staff were killed by an armed gunman who broke glass to enter the school.
“We have an AR-15 here today,” Volle said, adding that the AR-15 is the type of gun the shooter used in Connecticut.
“We make adjustments as need be to prepare the officers,” Leninger added.
“It’s a really good training,” said Mark Baker of the Moon Township Police Department.
In addition to the inside training at the school, the South Fayette Police Department also brought its Mobile Command unit, which is equipped with computers and televisions that allow for information gathering and surveillance if an incident happens at the school or elsewhere.
“It’s used at the scene of a critical incident,” said South Fayette Police Lieutenant Bob Kurta. He added the van and South Fayette police cars are able to tap into the school’s security cameras to monitor anything that may be happening at any of the district’s three schools.
Kurta said with wireless Internet access, the computers can connect to the server that controls the schools’ cameras. The van also has blueprints for each school for the officers to look at so they know what they are walking into.
Kurta said the department has owned the van since 2010 and it is outfitted with about $25,000 worth of equipment. The van has three televisions, one for each local news station, which would enable the officers to monitor what may be happening at the scene. Kurta added that the van has a police radio that allows for communication with Allegheny County as well as Washington County police departments.
Volle added that the mobile command unit also helps “hold the fort until we get the big troops in.”
“It’s just one more tool we have that can assist us in an emergency situation,” Kurta said.