TPSO Completes Active Shooter Training

Terrebonne Parish Sheriff Tim Soignet announced that the Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office spent the month of June training employees on response to an Active Shooter based incident.

Sheriff Soignet confirmed that the Active Shooter training is completed as a yearly in-service training and is a joint effort with Public Safety partners, to ensure that first responders are prepared for a “worst case scenario” incident.

This year’s training took place at HL Bourgeois High School and serviced close to 300 first responders of the Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office, the Houma Police Department, and the Terrebonne Parish District Attorney’s Office. The training is administered by trained and certified Instructors of the Terrebonne Parish Training Academy Staff, which is comprised of employees of the Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office and the Houma Police Department.

Each instructor has attended the ALERRT (Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training) based training program. The ALERRT Center at Texas State University was created in 2002 as a partnership between Texas State University, the San Marcos, Texas Police Department and the Hays County, Texas Sheriff’s Office to address the need for active shooter response training for first responders. In 2013, ALERRT at Texas State was named the National Standard in Active Shooter Response Training by the FBI.

The Terrebonne Parish Training Academy staff certified instructors in the Active Shooter based training programs administered to our area’s first responders. Each instructor holds certifications in Level 1 and AAIR based training.

The Level 1 Training certification is a dynamic course of instruction, designed to prepare the first responder to isolate, distract, and neutralize an active shooter. The Active Attack Integrated Response (AAIR) is a performance level course designed to improve integration between law enforcement, fire, tele-communicator, and emergency medical services (EMS) in active attack / shooter events. The course provides law enforcement officers with key medical skills based on tactical emergency casualty care (TECC) guidelines, which can be used at the point of injury (POI) to increase survivability of victims. The course also provides a model framework for law enforcement, fire, and EMS to integrate responses during an active attack / shooter event through the rescue task force concept. This course has been designed to improve the safety and survivability of victims of active attack / shooter events and increase the effectiveness, coordination, and resource integration between law enforcement, fire, tele-communications, and EMS when responding to these events.

Sheriff Tim Soignet said, “This training is extremely important, because it transcends rank, division, specialized training, and even different agencies. The training is standardized for officers of all experience levels, from entry level correctional officers to the highest level of the Administrative Division. In an active shooter-based incident, First Responders from multiple divisions and agencies will respond, and it was supremely important to develop training that would allow all responders to understand and utilize the same training. Training is an important part of developing young law enforcement officers, and continued education allows our deputies/officers to better serve our community. We will continue to train our staff to the highest level possible.”