EVANSTON — “As police officers we constantly play the ‘what if’ game, and we’re trying to teach you to do the same thing,” said Josh Rasnake of the Uinta County Sheriff’s Office. Rasnake’s comment emphasized a key point of a public training event held in Evanston on Thursday, Sept. 28 — be prepared and take action.

Members of the Evanston Police Department and Uinta County Sheriff’s Office conducted an ALICE training event that evening at Evanston’s Roundhouse. ALICE stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter and Evacuate; it’s a program designed to train people and businesses on what to do in cases of violent intruders. 

The two-hour evening training was free and open to the public and between 25 and 30 individuals attended, with the majority being women. The program consisted of a presentation explaining the components of the ALICE program and why it is now being taught as an alternative to only lockdown, as well as examinations of acts of mass murder in recent history, opportunities to ask questions and opportunities to role play to engage in some of the presented tactics. 

Presenters included Rasnake and Uinta County Sheriff’s Office Investigator Brooke Hale, as well as Evanston Police Department Lt. Mike Vranish, Sgt. Josh Buhmann and Officer Paul Robbins. The five, who have recently been certified as ALICE instructors, rotated speaking duties and each engaged with the audience throughout the course of the evening. 

According to the officers, the purpose of the program is to urge people to act and to provide people with choices in the cases of violent scenarios. While previously the standard practice was to encourage people to lockdown in active intruder situations, it has since been determined that may not always be the preferred course of action. 

The 2007 mass shooting at Virginia Tech was discussed to provide an illustrative example of different outcomes. A map of the classrooms where the shooting occurred showed that classrooms which had only locked down had higher numbers of casualties than those which had actively barricaded the room or taken other action besides lockdown. 

It was emphasized by the presenters that human responses to crises are to fight, flight, or freeze. To freeze actually goes against most human instincts; however, that is what people have been trained to do with a focus solely on the lockdown response. The ALICE program does not emphasize training people to ignore their instincts and instead emphasizes taking action.

“Doing something is better than doing nothing,” said Buhmann. 

According to statistics shared at the training, in 160 violent intruder incidents between 2000 and 2013, the shooter acted alone in 158 of them. The average response time for law enforcement to arrive is five to six minutes, and in that amount of time some of the incidents have already reached their tragic conclusions.

For example, the entire Sandy Hook Elementary tragedy took place in less than five minutes. 

The “alert” piece of the program focuses on calling 911. 

“Calling 911 is always part of the alert process,” Hale said. “Even if you can’t talk because an intruder is in the room, when you make that call dispatch is sending someone.”

The “lockdown” piece includes locking doors and staying in place, when warranted. 

“Inform” involves letting other people in the area know what’s going on, whenever possible. For example, rather than a building-wide communication with a single word, “Lockdown,” a communication could be issued saying, “Lockdown. Intruder in administration hallway.”

This allows people in the immediate area to lockdown, but allows others in more distant areas an opportunity to evacuate instead of just staying in place. 

The officers said that “counter” is the most controversial piece of the program as it focuses on people countering the moves of the perpetrator if they feel it is appropriate. Counter doesn’t necessarily mean with weapons, it can mean throwing things at an intruder to make an attack more difficult. Finally, “evacuate” means exactly that, leaving the building if possible.

It was emphasized by the trainers that the components of ALICE are not a step-by-step sequence to be followed in order, but are rather options to take dependent upon the situation.

“What I like about this training is that it gives people choices,” said Hale. “You’re not forced to do one thing.” 

The training also emphasizes awareness and paying attention to surroundings and circumstances. Vranish said that it’s important to look for exits, to have ideas of what could be done in the case of a violent intruder, and to actually practice plans.

“If you don’t practice your plan for something, you don’t know what you’re going to do when something happens,” said Vranish.

Buhmann emphasized the importance of training.

“You always fall back on your training.” he said, “Your body can’t go where your mind hasn’t ventured.” 

In order to allow attendees to really see the way in which different choices can lead to different outcomes, the officers asked for volunteers and had participants act out intruder events.

For the first event, local woman Dianna Ottley played the role of an active shooter in the Roundhouse’s Portland Rose Room. Participants were allowed to do nothing but hide as a response. Ottley went through the room with her model handgun to show how quickly carnage could have ensued. 

Following this role-play, a visibly shaking Ottley said, “It gave me the shakes because I could have taken everybody out.” 

Other scenarios had participants barricading themselves in the room to slow down the “shooter” and then throwing things and actively countering the person playing the role of intruder. Both scenarios resulted in fewer “casualties.”

“If there’s a point to be made,” Robbins said, “it’s that some response is better than no response.”

The officers said that local law enforcement is offering the training to the community, and businesses and organizations can contact them to set up sessions.