Activated Attack Integrated Response Course at Mount Jumbo

If there was an active shooter situation at a Missoula school or public place, law enforcement, fire and medical personnel will have to work seamlessly in their response.

Missoula law enforcement, fire and medical first responders spent the day at Mount Jumbo Elementary School on Monday, to become instructors in ‘Activated Attack Integrated Response’ training.

Missoula County Sheriff’s Office Captain Dave Conway described the training.

“Today, we’re doing an Integrated Response Training to Active Shooter events,” said Conway. “This is really the first time that we’ve integrated law enforcement, fire and medical all into one training event for active shooters. We have an organization that’s funded through the Department of Justice called ‘ALERRT’, that’s Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training that we’ve developed for active attack integrated response.”

Conway said there are three priorities in the training that apply to law enforcement, fire and medical crews.

“This program has three levels of priority,” he said. “The first level is to stop the killing, which is what law enforcement typically does. Then, it’s to stop the dying and evacuate the wounded. All three of those are critically important in an active attack incident. This gives us that structure to be able to train the rest of our first responders to work together to accomplish this as quickly as possible.”

Conway said the training is being paid for through a federal grant.

“To accomplish all this, we’ve received a grant from the Office of Homeland Security for about $304,000 that pays for the overtime to do this training and pays to host the training, and for the equipment that we’ll need to conduct the events.”

Along with props for the training, the funding will also supply things like bulletproof vests and helmets for firefighters.

“We’ve been working on this project for the last couple of years,” Conway said. “Captain Taylor and myself have been going down to Texas and training with ALERT and we’ve been able to bring that back here and talk with all the agency heads for the different first responder agencies and gotten their buy-in and now all the first responders are represented.”