Stephens County Sheriff’s Office Offering Active Shooter Training to Businesses, Schools, and Churches

Stephens County Sheriff Randy Shirley says his Department will be ready if an active shooter event occurs here.

With the two mass shootings over the weekend in Texas and Ohio, the reality is, such incidents can occur in our own backyard.

Sheriff Shirley said his deputies receive ongoing training on how to respond should such an event happen.

“A couple of years ago I sent my Chief Deputy along with two of my deputies to Charleston, SC for CRASE training. That’s an acronym for Civilian Response to Active Shooter Events. It’s a training-the-trainer program for local and State law enforcement. We were one of the only counties in the State that received that training,” Shirley said.

The Civilian Response to Active Shooter Events (CRASE) course for law enforcement is designed and built on the Avoid, Deny, Defend strategy developed in 2004.

CRASE provides strategies, guidance, and a proven plan for surviving an active shooter event for civilians in the workplace, schools, and churches.

Topics include the history and prevalence of active shooter events, civilian response options, medical issues, and considerations for conducting drills.

Law enforcement participants in the four‑hour Train-the-Trainer course receive a manual and Power Point presentation suitable for use in their own presentations.

Working with the Toccoa-Stephens County Chamber of Commerce, the Sheriff said his department now offers the course to any business, school, or church in the area who wants it.

“We hope that some of the businesses will take advantage of the training,” he said. “We are ready and willing to sit down with them and map out a time, because you know we live in a different culture now.”

So far, the Sheriff said his officers have taken the CRASE course to eight businesses in the County, but he says every business should avail themselves of the free active shooter training presentation.

And not only businesses, but churches as well.

Sheriff Shirley says his deputies will come to the church and do a safety assessment first and then go over that with church staff.

“We would love more churches to call so they can find out their weak areas,” the Shirley said. “We have a PowerPoint presentation that we will go back and do after we do that initial assessment. We have 95 churches in Stephens County. We’ve hit about 20 churches, but we would surely like to sit down with the rest and let them know what to be on the lookout for and to make sure their sanctuary is safe and our youth and  children are safe as they do their Bible study or whatever.”

Any business, church of school interested in having their staff take the CRASE active shooter course, can call the Stephens County Sheriff’s office at 706-886-2525 to schedule an appointment or the Chamber of Commerce at: 706-886-2132.