Northwestern State University in Natchitoches released an active shooter training video Tuesday. The 15-minute video, produced entirely in house, took a year and a half to complete, according to NSU officer Jon Caliste who headed up the project.
“We saw a rise in active shooter events around the country and we said to ourselves, we need to have something that we can train our people on. It was born from that,” Caliste said.
The video will be shown in all orientation classes, according to Caliste. It was prepared using standards established by the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training program or ALERRT. Executive director of the ALERRT Center at Texas State University Pete Blair says videos are meant to provide protocol to follow, just like how people practice fire drills.
“A well done video is not designed to make people afraid. It is designed to recognize a potential problem and teach that person potential solutions to the problem,” Blair said. “There’s always concern with active shooting events because they are inherently scary. If you talk about them you may scare the people you are talking to.”
The ALERRT curriculum was developed after the Columbine High School tragedy in 1999, and has become the national standard. Blair says ALERRT continually revises procedures as active shooter incidents evolve. He says the ALERRT Center will be coming out with its own active shooter training video in a few weeks.
NSU decided to make its own video because it wanted a more authentic look and feel to the video, according to Caliste who viewed generic options.
“Some of them were kind of cheesy. It wouldn’t really engage the audience and keep their attention. We wanted to put something out with a familiar place, familiar buildings and familiar people. Viewers would automatically be engaged and have more interest in it,” Caliste said.
NSU’s video is available on its website. Caliste says NSU will share it freely with other colleges and businesses, but it’s not meant for audiences under age 18.
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