AMERICUS — The Department of Public Safety at Georgia Southwestern State University (GSW) hosted Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training (ALERRT) recently allowing local and regional law enforcement personnel to earn Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST).
Led by Georgia State Patrol Officers Rob Sawyer, Trey Howard, Scott Jeter, Will West, Jeremy Swain and Tim Brantley, the two-day ALERRT training was worth 16 hours of POST credit for participating law enforcement officers. The classroom and “force-on-force” active shooter training sessions took place in GSW’s Duncan Hall, a vacant residence hall. The training was facilitated by Public Safety Director Mike Tracy.
“By hosting ALERRT training, our officers will be better prepared individually and as a team for an event where rapid response is necessary,” said Tracy. “We want to give special thanks to the Georgia State Patrol Training Unit for the excellent job they did leading the training session and to all of the local agencies who sent officers to train and work with us.”
The ALERRT curriculum, developed after the tragedy at Columbine High School in 1999, has become the national standard in active shooter response training. The ALERRT Center at Texas State University was created in 2002 to address the need for active shooter response training for first responders. To date, the ALERRT Center has trained more than 70,000 police officers nationwide in dynamic, force-on-force scenario-based training. In 2013, the FBI partnered with the ALERRT Center at Texas State and named ALERRT their standard for active shooter response training (alerrt.org).
For more information, call GSW Public Safety at 229-931-2245. To learn more about ALERRT training, visit alerrt.org