FBI brings active shooter training to Fillmore County law enforcement

Brian Todd, Post-Bulletin, Rochester, Minn.
·4 min read

Jul. 13—SPRING VALLEY — The shooters may have been fake, but the adrenaline and the lessons were real Thursday, July 13, as Fillmore County Sheriff's personnel — including Sheriff John DeGeorge — and local first responders took part in active shooter training at Kingsland High School in Spring Valley.

FBI trainers were on hand to teach law enforcement and first responders how to deal with an active shooter, should the unthinkable occur.

DeGeorge, who took part in his first active shooter training back in 2002 in the wake of the 1999 Columbine High School shooting in Colorado, said even after multiple trainings, he's still learning new techniques to help him if he were to respond to an active shooter scenario.

"One of the things that I've picked up our last couple of days — and I think what it speaks to — is the fact that we have been training for all these years and now we get to the point where I start to pick up the smaller things," said DeGeorge, who has been in law enforcement for 26 years. "And for me, its a little bit about footwork and my ability to move through a doorway to clear an area quicker."

While DeGeorge said he's been through this particular FBI training protocol before — in 2019 at Rushford-Peterson High School — for many of his deputies, this was their first time.

The training, called ALERRT — Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training — was developed at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas, in the wake of Columbine. According to a special agent on the scene who asked that his name not be used in the media, the Minneapolis FBI office brings the same two-day course to anywhere from eight to 12 local law enforcement agencies a year throughout Minnesota, South Dakota and North Dakota. That means training for as many as 300 law officers a year on how to react to an active shooter scene.

The training has developed over time.

"This used to be a course that just stops the killing," the agent said. "Now, we also include stop the dying. ... We're really going to be the first responders to triage inside the school and get (victims) to a trauma center. A lot of times that's going to be on our law enforcement officers."

Still, the training does include other first responders such as EMS and fire department personnel.

Thursday, in the middle of an exercise, Spring Valley EMS rolled up on Kingsland High School and crews entered the school then exited with "victims" a short time later.

DeGeorge said it's important to be able to integrate different organizations that might respond so personnel that might not normally work together can know what to do and where to go in a real emergency.

DeGeorge said in addition to his own officers, he invites other law enforcement agencies in Fillmore County and even neighboring counties. For example, he said, should a shooting take place in Houston County, it is likely Fillmore County Sheriff's deputies would respond as well.

During training, the FBI makes sure to group together teams from multiple agencies so they understand how to work with one another.

The FBI receives a lot of requests to do training exercises in the summer when schools are, for the most part, empty. Another common location for training is office parks to deal with workplace shooters. What's important, the agent said, is to conduct "training in the environment that they're going to operate in is is key for us. It really puts them in the right mindset to train, it becomes real to them."

Part of that reality, DeGeorge said, is the use of simulated ammunition during the exercise. The sheriff pointed to blue and red marks on his hoodie where he'd been shot with wax bullets.

"The scenarios are elaborate. We have people who are playing the force, we have teams of officers responding, which is awesome. And we do have bystanders," DeGeorge said. "We need that chaos to exist for this training to be real. So we need people to provide that chaos, and the added element of having real weapons that go bang — and it hurts when those rounds hit you — adds a little bit of real life anxiety to the teams of officers going through this, which is really important."