Willoughby Hills Police Department hosts ALICE training in light of active shooter events
Feb. 21—The Willoughby Hills Police Department recently hosted a two-day ALICE (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate) Active Shooter Response instructor training.
The training course, attended by 30 police officers, school administrators and other professionals from around the Cleveland area, had a focus on Violent Critical Incidents .
According to Willoughby Hills Police Chief Matthew Naegele, VCI are man-made forms of violent disasters, such as active shooter, violent intruder, mass shooting, terrorism, workplace violence and other unexpected tragedies.
Based upon the history of active shooter events across the country and what's observed day to day, the luxury of just being bystanders is no more, Naegele said.
"We will continue to be proactive in our stance on preparedness, working with our local community, and having a zero tolerance position on victimizers coming into our city and the Lake County area unchallenged," he said.
ALICE was created in 2000 as a small school security training company, dedicated to promoting proactive strategies to improve the chances of survival during an active shooter event. It's now a widely-adopted method of active shooter response training and has since worked with hundreds of thousands of individuals in police, kindergarten through 12th grade schools, healthcare, higher education, business, government and House of Worship organizations.
"The mission of ALICE is to save lives," Naegele said. "We have an obligation in law enforcement to take a proactive approach in regards to organizational preparedness, as well as training others to be prepared for a violent event. It's about teaching strategies that empower participants to choose their best survival options when seconds count."
According to ALICE, the training has been designed to teach participants the skills and strategies to increase survivability during the gap between the time a violent event occurs, and law enforcement arrives.
During the two-day training, attendees provided tools and required certification to provide hands-on training to other organizations, and public entities within respective jurisdictions such as local schools and libraries.
Willoughby Hills Police Officer Cory Planisek and Detective Joe Fink, two members of the department's training staff, worked with individuals and groups to teach critical lifesaving strategies during the two-day course.
"The knowledge gained during this will allow them to coordinate and train with our local schools, businesses and community members," Naegele said, noting that they were joined by numerous officers from surrounding agencies who will also be able to bring the training to their communities.
Going forward, Naegele will continue to provide officers with tools to safely do their job.
"We can now provide some of these tools to others outside our police department," he said. "After all, they will need to react well before first responders arrive at the incident location."
