By Traci Chapman
Managing Editor
Editor’s note: This is the first in a series about local efforts to enhance safety measures and promote threat training for law enforcement and others – and why those are so important.
With Robb Elementary School in Uvalde serving as a stark reminder of how quickly – and terribly – one person can wreak havoc and death, Okarche Police Chief Forrest Smith and his staff have made training and preparedness a priority.
Their goal is to ensure nothing like that ever happens in Okarche and beyond – a goal furthered last week as Okarche Lt. Kyle Bridges led an effort that not only provided training to department personnel but also several working in law enforcement beyond the town’s borders.
Bridges knows first-hand about school safety measures — as one of two of the first-ever Okarche Public School District school resource officers, he has been guiding efforts to better secure school sites and other facilities; he also has not only the training to back up that knowledge but the experience to help others expand skills specific to active shooters and other threats.
The Okarche police lieutenant was one of four instructors presenting the Okarche training, which ran from Thursday through Sunday.
That training was offered by ALERRT – or Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training – a program headquartered at Texas State University.
ALERRT training is offered at no cost to law enforcement agencies and individual officers. Much of the funding for sessions is made available through grants from the Community Oriented
Policing Services (COPS) Office, part of the U.S. Department of Justice and state of Texas. Training is provided across the country and at the ALERRT facility in San Marcos, Texas, Rusty Jacks said.
Like Bridges, Jacks and other trainers have extensive law enforcement backgrounds. Jacks retired in August as assistant police chief of Tyler Police Department after 29 years. Bridges is certified as an instructor in the Level 1 class presented in Okarche, as well as Level 2, the ALERRT Exterior Response Course (ERASE) and Civilian Response (CRASE).
Two two-day sessions were sponsored by the department. Eighteen law enforcement personnel from five departments — including Okarche Police Department’s Sgt. Sean Cordova and officers Chris Sadler, Eric Vincent and Joseph Jones — participated in training. Sadler, like Bridges, serves as a student resource for Okarche Public Schools.
This year is the first Okarche Public Schools has school resource officers on its campuses, thanks to a partnership between OPD and the district.
Other agencies know how important the training is, as well. Veteran El Reno Police officer Troy George said the Okarche sessions were his second; these were more advanced and
demonstrated new techniques important for anyone in law enforcement, he said.
“This is invaluable and a good investment of time for us,” he said, referring to fellow El Reno officers Caleb Statton and Brady Dillingham, who also attended the two-day session.
In addition to Okarche and El Reno, representatives of agencies from Kingfisher, Waukomis, Garfield County and Kansas also participated in the ALERRT training. All sessions were conducted at Okarche High School.
“I feel like the training is so much information that you could probably take it 19 times and still take something from it and learn,” Bridges said. “Even as instructors we pick up on new things and learn, and that allows us to test things and evolve the training even further.”
