Sheriff provides insight on active shooters awareness

Stephens County Sheriff Will Holt provided members of the Rotary Club of Breckenridge with useful advice on dealing with an active shooter.

The Sheriff provided these tips during the regularly scheduled Rotary Club of Breckenridge meeting on Tuesday, June 30 at the L & L Country Cooking restaurant.

“Chief Deputy Roach and I have given this training to various schools and churches,” Sheriff Holt said. “At the end of 2017, we went through a training course in Abilene, and that certified Kevin and me to give this training to civilians. There is a think-tank at Texas State University and it is called ALERRT, and all they do is study active shooter events around the count and the world. The group is made up of retired law enforcement, professors, ex-military and they study active shooter events and break them down to provide as much detail as possible.”

The course is designed to provide citizens with a response and a mindset of dealing with an active shooter situation.

“The biggest thing I want this group to take away from today is called: Avoid, Deny, Defend,” Sheriff Holt said. The definition of an active shooter event is attempted mass murder. These are not serial killers, these individuals want their body county to be as high as possible. The attempt to justify that by saying that they have been wronged in some way.”

The civilian’s response to active shooter events is normally a two-hour event, but Sheriff Holt provides the club with an abbreviated account on the topic. The training course focuses on locations of attacks such as places of commerce such as restaurants, malls, or banks, places of education, and outdoors.

“The purpose is for you and others to go home and see your families,” Sheriff Holt said. “So be creative in your thinking to survive these situations.”