A few weeks ago I got a call from the Dallas Morning News, wanting me to cover the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training (ALERRT) program in San Marcos.
I’ve gotten to cover this program a few times since 2006, since I used to be a staffer at the San Marcos Daily Record. ALERRT offers training for police officers and other law enforcement officials on how to deal with active shooter situations.
Unfortunately, there have been an increase in these types of situations in recent years, which is why this story is always timely.
In the past, I’ve photographed these training sessions in abandoned buildings, vacated schools and in college classrooms, but this was my first time to their new dedicated training facility.
Any time I cover this type of training, I take it very seriously. Even if the guns aren’t real, it’s still daunting to be on the wrong end of one. No matter the situation, if there are fire arms or gunfire nearby (there was a live practice range being used on the campus), it’s always best to be extremely cautious about your surroundings.
When reporter Claire Cardona and I arrived, a door breaching class was underway. We got a quick tour of the campus from director John Curnutt before joining the class. He showed us three different training areas and a shooting range.
One of the training facilities was used for live round training, one was a multi-level structure set up to look like a school or office building, and the third was an outdoor facade where we ended up meeting the class in progress.
They were working on door breaching, meaning opening a locked or jammed door with a potential shooter on the other side. Each officer got to try different devices for forcefully opening doors.
Since these were just walls with doors and not full buildings, I could easily move around and play with angles as each team trained. It was a bright, sunny day, so I didn’t have to worry much about lighting as they moved from outside to “inside.” I just had to steer clear of the battering rams and sledge hammers.
The next part of the training was to go through the door as an armed group of officers. They learned how to approach the door, open it quickly and enter in a way that would disarm anyone threatening, while protecting innocent bystanders.
This was the part that really made me nervous. Like I said, it doesn’t matter the situation, being on the wrong end of a gun is scary.
My efforts on this assignment landed my work on the front page of the Dallas Morning News. A first for me!
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