Crenshaw County Sheriff’s Office Investigator Lt. Chris Stewart completed a two-day ALICE instructor training on Dec. 21.

The training, which stands for alert, lockdown, inform, counter, and evacuate, is designed to help individuals involved in an active shooter situation know techniques which counter an attacker’s shooting accuracy and help avoid sustaining a gunshot wound.

“We teach people how to make everyone aware of an active shooter situation and to lock down the area where the threat is close,” Stewart said. “We also teach them to always look for a way out.”

The training teaches individuals to use noise, movement, distance, and distractions to make a shooter’s accuracy difficult to achieve. Learners also gain techniques to swarm a shooter, when appropriate, to take back control as a last resort.

“We do not teach fighting at all,” Stewart said. “It’s just countering, learning to form methods where people can physically take down the aggressor and detain them or secure the weapon.”

Carlton Carmichael, school resource officer and Luverne Police Department chaplain said the risk of an active shooter is a real danger, not just something that happens in other places.

“If people think it’s not coming this way, it is,” Carmichael said. “The ALICE training is very important. School resource officers are there for the kids.”

School resource officers like Carmichael are trained in the technique known as “Run, Hide, Fight.” Training provided via ALICE builds on the concept, emphasizing what individuals can do to minimize their risk.

Crenshaw County Sheriff Terry Mears said the training is a valuable tool for schools, hospitals, and other organizations which may encounter active shooter situations.

Mears said his goal is to train school resource officers in ALICE techniques and to open that training to school systems faculty and staff who wish to attend.

“My goal is to make sure that everybody has the required training,” Mears said.