DENVER — Mass shootings are rare.
They happen enough, though, for students and teachers to be trained to respond to active shooters.
It has become routine practice at a school, like a fire drill.
No such routine outside of school.
"What we teach is 'Avoid, Deny, Defend,'" said J. Pete Blair, executive director of Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training (ALERRT) at Texas State University.
ALERRT was created in 2002 and teaches law enforcement how to respond to active shooting situations, but it also has a civilian training course.
"Run, Hide, Fight" is a registered trademark used by many law enforcement agencies.
ALERRT teaches a modified version of that.
"If you can avoid the attacker, you want to do that. If, for some reason, you can't get away from the attacker, say you're in an office and you hear gunfire in the hallway, the next best thing is to deny access to your location to keep them from getting to you. And the last resort is to defend yourself, which is, if you find yourself in close proximity to the attacker, you couldn't avoid, you couldn’t deny access, you need to defend yourself," said Blair.
He makes a distinction about the importance of denying access versus simply hiding.
"If you're hearing 'Run, Hide, Fight,' make sure that that middle term 'Hide' does not mean to you: duck under a desk and hope that they don't find you. That's not a good strategy," said Blair.
What can you do in everyday life, at a grocery store or big box store, that does not require having to go through a training course?
Be more aware of what you have probably seen, but really never noticed.
"There are alternate exits in any commercial structure that you go into, and they have signs that are designed to mark them and make them visible from far away," said Blair. "We all get so used to them, they don't show up on our cognitive radar, we just don't see them. So, get in the habit of looking for those when you go somewhere."
Practice that the next time you are at Target, Walmart or King Soopers. Look up and find the exit signs that have always been there.
"One of the big skills that we recommend to people is just get into the habit of when you walk into places, of looking around and seeing where the alternative exits are at," said Blair. "I, actually, coach people to go to that secondary exit before the primary exit because everybody else is going to go to that primary exit."
ALERRT performs "Train the Trainer" classes, where local law enforcement gets trained on the "Avoid, Deny, Defend" techniques and can then teach community members.
According to ALERRT's online calendar, the FBI held a "Train the Trainer" course in Colorado Springs in June 2020.
"I do know a lot of them will go to almost any kind of community group that you have to give a talk, whether it's a church or a rotary club," said Blair. "We don't want people to live their life in fear that this is going to happen at any moment, and (that) they should be afraid to go out of the house. It's unlikely to happen."
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