KATY MAGAZINE NEWS
September 18, 2021
By Natalie Cook Clark
Harris County Constable’s Office Precinct 5 starts their free monthly Active Shooter Event Class next week. Katy families and businesses can learn from veteran supervisors trained in the curriculum aimed to save lives in the event of an attack. Would you know what to do?
Captain Hubbard gives his Active Shooter Presentation to staff at Methodist Hospital in Katy. Photo courtesy: Captain K.E. Hubbard
Curriculum Offered to Businesses, Churches, Groups for 10 Years
For 10 years Captain K.E. Hubbard with Harris County Constable’s Office Precinct 5 has taught Active Shooter Event Classes to businesses. He has presented the ALERRT (Advance, Law, Enforcement, Rapid, Response) training to businesses such as Methodist Hospital in Katy, Kingsland Baptist, Faith West, Katy retirement homes, local neighborhoods, and many more.
“Nobody wants to find themselves in an active shooter situation, but the reality is these events are more common than even just a few years ago,” says Constable Ted Heap. “If you do find yourself in an active shooter event, it helps to be prepared.”
Families and Residents Can Now Take Class, Enroll Online
For the first time, the training will be available to civilians. Families and residents no longer have to wait for a business or group they are part of to bring this information to them, they can seek it out for themselves.
The Civilian Response to Active Shooter Events classes will be offered the third Thursday of each month starting Thursday, September 23 6:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at the Radack Community Center (18650 Clay Rd.)
Attendees must enroll online.
Captain Hubbard believes that active attacks are incidents that law enforcement can’t stop since the suspects don’t fit any one profile. Active shooters have been women, men, American, foreigner, etc. There is no one group to watch out for and that makes this scenario all the more dangerous.
Learn to Better Survive an Attack
“The one thing we can do is teach civilians to better survive it,” says Captain Hubbard. “When you’re able to teach individuals on how they could respond to it we are giving them the chance on what to expect.”
The ALERRT curriculum was founded in 2004 and the direct result of a need to act and change the response to active shooting after the Columbine High School shooting on April 20, 1999.
“The previous protocol for an active shooting event was for a double patrol to get to and secure the facility, one in front and one in back, and wait until SWAT arrived,” explains Captain Hubbard. “That could take 30-45 minutes. In the meantime, suspects are killing people inside. Something had to change.”
The curriculum is federally funded and involves an informative power point presentation and a reenactment of various scenarios led by officers. The key points focused on are Avoid, Deny, and Defend.
And the presentation has proven to give individuals the knowledge to stay safe and save others in a threatening situation.
Class Has Already Saved Lives
Two weeks after Captain Hubbard taught a class, a woman who had attended was at her office when a co-worker’s husband showed up with a rifle.
The woman jumped into action and denied the potential shooter access to the building by locking it down quickly. Her actions likely saved lives that day.
“There are a number of important things you can learn so, in the event you find yourself in an active shooter event, you can establish a plan of action that, bottom line, will help your chances of surviving,” says Constable Heap.
Families with Children Encouraged to Attend
And anyone can take these classes. Captain Hubbard encourages families to do so. They don’t set an age restriction and leave it at the discretion of the parents on what their child can handle.
“We’re talking about a sensitive topic but, we’re talking about saving lives,” says Captain Hubbard. “Sadly, this is the world we live in.”
The precinct now offering this curriculum to civilians has nothing to do with the recent “Constitutional Carry” law that went into effect on September 1. This is about providing a valuable resource to anyone who wants to learn it.
As part of the presentation, Captain Hubbard shows a slide of the U.S. mapping out active shooting events and asks the participants to see if they can find a correlation to why some states have a lot and others have none.
“These people are cowards,” says Captain Hubbard. “They go for soft targets. That is why schools and churches are often targets. Montana has no shooting cases because no one wants to go into a place and become a shooter knowing that people will have guns and fight back.”
Hubbard cautions that it will take Texas a while to get to where everyone wants it to be.
“The Texas mindset is different than the Montana mindset,” says Captain Hubbard. “Road rage is out of control here. People respond by showing a gun or shooting.”
Social Distancing Honored for Pandemic Safety
The free class will be capped at 40 participants each month to allow for social distancing.
For more information or to sign-up visit the website. The first class is this Thursday and the next one is set for October 21.
“I hope that our class participants never need to use these tactics, but if they do need them, it could be a life saver,” says Constable Heap.
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