HAYS COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE
In the wake of the recent mass shooting in Austin, the Hays County Sheriff’s Office is reminding residents that civilians can receive training on how to respond during violent attacks.
The training teaches civilians what to do if they find themselves in the middle of an active shooter attack or violent incident and how to make decisions quickly under extreme stress.
“We have offered CRASE, which is an acronym for Civilian Response to Active Shooter Events, for quite some time,” Hays County Sheriff’s Deputy Mark Andrews said. “However, on the heels of a traumatic event, the one that recently happened in Austin, we thought it would be good to put out a refresher, as people need this.”
The roughly two-hour class is based on training developed through the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training Center, known as ALERRT, at Texas State University. The program focuses on a simple decision-making framework: avoid, deny, defend.
“To put it in a nutshell, they use the avoid, deny, defend platform,” Andrews said. The training emphasizes that the first goal during a violent incident should always be escape.
“First of all, avoid the incident,” Andrews said. “That’s the first and most important. If you can’t avoid it, then you want to try to deny the attacker access to where you’re at. And if the avoid and deny fail, we get to the defend yourself part, which is the last part of the scenario.”
Andrews said the course is increasingly being described as training for “active attacks” rather than only “active shooter” situations because many modern attacks involve other methods of violence.
“We also are getting away from calling it active shooter to now calling it active attacks,” Andrews said. “There have been attacks made with vehicles. There have been attacks made with knives.”
The class is designed specifically for civilians and is commonly hosted by businesses, churches and other organizations as part of safety training.
“If a church would like to put it on, we can do it at their church,” Andrews said. “I know we’re doing it for some businesses in the area. They use it as training for their employees. So any type of group we can come out and do this presentation at.”
Deputies will travel to the organization hosting the class and conduct the training on-site.
The training is offered at no cost to the community.
In addition to practical safety tactics, Andrews said one of the most important parts of the course focuses on how the human body responds during stressful or life-threatening situations.
“Part of what makes it unique is we talk about how the human body responds to stress,” Andrews said. “When you’re in a stressful environment, like an active attack situation, if your computer hasn’t been programmed, it can’t recall the information.”
The training encourages people to mentally prepare for dangerous scenarios before they happen so they are better able to react if an emergency occurs.
“When you’re under stress, you don’t necessarily react the way you would want to react,” Andrews said. “The class covers that, and we kind of help you pre-program the computer, per se, so you can recall that information if the time comes.”
Organizations interested in hosting a CRASE training can contact Andrews at mark.andrews@hays countytx.gov or Clint Pulpin at [email protected].
