Fillmore Central Hosts Active Shooter Training

On August 10-13 there were a lot of sheriff, police and state patrol vehicles parked on the streets near the school in Harmony. Residents may well have been wondering just what was going on there. There was no need to worry; the Fillmore County Sheriff’s Department had collaborated with the FBI to hold an ALERRT (Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training) session to prepare local law enforcement to better respond in the event of an active shooter situation at the school.

According to Matt Vogel, FBI Public Affairs Officer from the Twin Cities, ALERRT was initiated in 2002 following the wave of school shootings following the one at Columbine. ALERRT is housed at Texas State University; trainers travel the entire country to provide expert training free of charge to local law enforcement. Vogel works with schools in the Minnesota, South Dakota and North Dakota area.

Fillmore County Sheriff John DeGeorge has been involved in the ALERRT trainings since 2019. Previously, Rushford-Peterson and Kingsland Schools have hosted the event. This year the event was held at Fillmore Central High School. Each school provides a unique environment, each with different challenges. The opportunity to train in the schools in the county lets the officers become more familiar with the schools and their layouts.

Due to a school mapping grant, maps of the area schools are being created. DeGeorge said he also brings along a Sharpie marker in his pocket on calls. He said that a person with local knowledge can quickly draw out a map to a specific location in a building.

DeGeorge has made it mandatory for all of the Fillmore County Sheriff’s Department to attend the training. Two two-day sessions were held; one on Monday and Tuesday and the other on Wednesday and Thursday. Whenever DeGeorge makes something mandatory for his department, that means it’s mandatory for him as well.

That has resulted in DeGeorge going through the training three times, but he has always learned new things. DeGeorge commented he’d learned some new tactical pieces just this time that he plans to use in the future.

Vogel shared that the curriculum for ALERRT has changed over the years as they learn with experience what works and what works better.

There were a limited number of spots available for the training. After the sheriff’s department claimed their 21 spots, the other spots were offered to other area law enforcement such as Houston and Freeborn County Sheriff’s Departments, State Patrol, Preston and Chatfield Police Departments as well as the Harmony Fire Department.

Vogel stressed that it’s essential to train together; in this way standards are ensured and the officers know how others will move and communicate in an emergency. He pointed out that the FBI partners day-in and day-out with the BCA and county officers. “Partnerships are crucial in the training, investigations and intelligence sharing,” Vogel commented. If an active shooter situation were to arise, law enforcement would respond from all different organizations.

Vogel noted that an active shooter situation is different from the standard response. With the clear threat of active killing and dying, there is a greater sense of urgency.

DeGeorge was grateful for the baseline of tactics and communication learned by all participants so they could do a cooperative response in an active situation. DeGeorge stressed the expert level of the FBI instructors. He pointed out that the schools have been more than happy to host the sessions, knowing such training makes the officers’ response better.

The training consisted of classroom instruction, scenario discussions and active application of what was learned. Simunition training rounds are used. These rounds use a real cartridge to shoot wax rounds. The simunition pistols feel and look just like the guns law enforcement use.

“It does hurt!” DeGeorge emphasized. DeGeorge had slipped off his heavy sweatshirt to check his bruises and welts from an earlier session in which he had played the role of the “bad” guy. “It hurts, it’s loud and you really don’t want to get shot; this adds to the stress and makes the experience more real.”

Since DeGeorge had been through the active shooter training multiple times, he had volunteered to play the role of the bad guy so the rest of his staff could get the most out of their training. (He did chuckle that he thinks his deputies sometimes enjoyed that a little too much!)

You could tell the officers who had done the classes before; they wore hoodies to stave off some of the sting of the simunition bullets even though it was a warm August day. The officers also wore protective masks for the training.

The public sometimes thinks that law enforcement’s job is over after they stop the killing, but then it’s important to stop the dying. They immediately shift to casualty protection. In their training, they practiced tourniquetting the fake wounds. This provides more in-depth training on life saving trauma than they had done in other courses. DeGeorge emphasized that they are not done until all are taken care of.

The Fillmore County Sheriff’s Department will continue to attend ALERRT active shooter classes every couple years to take advantage of the great training. DeGeorge noted that the next session will hopefully be at one of the other schools in Fillmore County. He shared his appreciation of the fact that the classes were provided free, “The county couldn’t afford to bring in experts like these!”