Agencies Train to Survive Active Shooters

PEACHTREE CITY, Ga. - Police agencies and sheriff's offices across the state are hoping the recent trend of mass shootings spurs civilians to take advantage of active shooter survival training courses.

Many agencies have offered the classes for businesses and church groups for some time now, but some officials say many people don't know the classes exist. The focus of these training courses is to offer training on how to survive an active shooter situation until authorities arrive to respond.

"We don't want people to freeze when these situations happen,” said Lt. Mark Brown of the Peachtree City Police Department, which has offered a training course for several years. “We do fire drills all the time, it's time to do some active shooter violence drills,” said Brown. Authorities say given the prevalence of active shooter situations, people should prepare for them as they would any other emergency, like a tornado or fire.

“If you've never thought about it, if you've never thought what to do in that situation, we're going to empower you and give you some tools to deal with it,” said Brown.

Brown explains how the focus is on three things: run, hide, or fight.

“When you have violent situation we obviously want you to run away, if you can't run we want you to hide, and god forbid if they're still coming after you and you're in your hiding place, we want you to fight back,” said Brown.

For more information on this training course, call the Peachtree City Police department or your local law enforcement agency.