Two years after the Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colorado, a former SWAT team officer developed an active shooter strategy to protect his wife's school. Today ALICE training has been adopted by 2,800 schools nationwide and a few in Ocean County, with the Manchester District becoming the most recent.

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ALICE stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate, and President and CEO Greg Crane said it provides individuals with better options for survival instead when the standard "secure in place" strategy isn't viable.

"It's a spectrum of human responses to danger. Unfortunately, there's no guarantee of good outcomes, but we can guarantee is you can definitely mitigate those outcomes by doing something proactive to help yourself if necessary before the professionals can arrive to help you," said Crane.

Crane pointed out that the training isn't rocket science. "It's just tends to be common sense, that's just not common knowledge." He said it takes into account all of the survival options, all of the tools and the mental mind set one needs to survive in an active shooter situation.

"Thinking about how to respond to this kind of extreme violence as it's happening, is unrealistic. There has to be a level of preparation and training," Crane said.

ALICE initially was viewed as controversial and dangerous by some parents, until the Columbine no longer became an isolated incident, and the nation started seeing similar tragedies unfold in malls, movie theaters, churches and work places, according to Crane.

"I don't hear the it will never happen here mentality much anymore," said Crane.

Crane pointed out that police departments nationwide also have adopted ALICE training, with individuals from those departments usually serving as ALICE instructors for schools.

The private sector also understands the importance of empowering employees with active shooter training, even more so following the San Bernardino, California massacre last year.

"The private sector is where we're seeing the most growth in our company right now," Crane said.

He noted that introducing ALICE training at the elementary school level is something that individuals can apply later in life.

 

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