Premont police to host active-shooter response training

Premont police were set to host ALERRT Level I active-shooter response training, a 16-hour course built around the first minutes of a school, church or store attack in Jim Wells County. The program teaches officers to isolate, distract and neutralize an active shooter, then finishes with dynamic force-on-force scenarios that test room-entry, movement and breaching under pressure.

Texas training listings identify the class as TCOLE 3311, and state law now requires Texas peace officers to complete at least 16 hours of ALERRT active-shooter training every two-year training cycle. Senate Bill 1852 took effect Sept. 1, 2023, turning the course into part of the continuing education every Texas officer must carry.

ALERRT stands for Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training. Texas State University says the program was created in 2002 through a partnership with the university, the San Marcos Police Department and the Hays County Sheriff’s Office, and the university’s ALERRT Center received a $9.8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Justice Community Oriented Policing Services office in October 2022 for active-shooter scenario training for first responders.

The COPS Training Portal says ALERRT delivers training across the nation on operations and tactics for active attack situations, and that training is provided at no cost to first responders and agencies when federal and state funding is available. That makes the model especially important for smaller departments that may not have the resources to build comparable drills on their own.

Jim Wells County law enforcement has already crossed paths with the program. A Jim Wells County Sheriff’s Office Facebook post said Sgt. Chris Bowen and Sgt. Chris Zamora attended ALERRT training, and earlier active-shooter instruction in Alice included county sheriff’s officers as well.

For Premont, the value of the course is speed and coordination in the opening minutes of a crisis, when officers cannot wait for a specialized team to arrive before moving toward the threat. In a county where the first unit on scene may be the only protection between an attacker and the people inside a public building, the training gives local officers a shared playbook that reaches from Texas State University to patrol cars in southern Jim Wells County.