LOUISVILLE, Ky. (LEX 18) — During Tuesday’s press conference, the Louisville Metro Police Department shared how they teach people to react in active aggressor situations — a strategy they say saved lives at Old National Bank on Monday.
One officer said, "We teach people run, hide, fight. I can say that we do know that people saved their own lives yesterday."
Two former officers who worked together on a major metropolitan SWAT police team, now travel around the state working to train people how to react before an incident happens through STAT: Strategic Threat Assessment Training.
Co-founder Dale Massey says, "All too often in situations like this, people reach out after the fact. Right? Which is horrible because what could we have done in the interim to hopefully prevent and mitigate an attack."
Co-founders Dale Massey and Eric Culver teach the Escape, Evade, Engage method — as the three pillars of survival. They say that “Hope is not a tactic."
Massey says, "You may want to escape or evade into your office where you can lock the office door, cover it up with as much furniture as you can and we train people to actually lay down on the floor against the wall, to avoid gunfire potentially coming through the drywall. In a large-scale event, like somewhere like where we are today, a large venue — your best bet is always gonna be escape and get away from the area."
As a part of their services, they also offer threat assessments where they come into buildings to look at safety measures that could be improved and evaluate organizations' emergency plans, and an aftermath investigation timeline.
Culver says, "What the hard part is for most people to understand is the aftermath. Reunification of families, notification of victims, then the continuity of your business. How are you gonna continue your business?"
STAT also works with other partners including one Louisville-based app developer who created "SafetyStream" — an app that allows organizations to discretely communicate with one another, and alert dispatchers in an emergency. These STAT founders say their main goal is incident prevention.
Culver says, "Check on your fellow human being. Show some compassion to each other, understand that everybody goes through hard times, everybody has some issues — if we just check on each other a little bit more and actually show some compassion toward them, we may prevent things that we don't even know are gonna occur."
This team says they are available for training around the clock. More information on STAT can be found online at www.activeaggressor.com.
