“The blood was pumping,” Chief Steve Dixon admitted. It was Thursday night, and he and his Cornwall-on-Hudson Police Officers were inside the elementary school for rapid response training.
They had spent hours on the proper way to check classrooms and mount staircases. Now they were responding to scenarios, using weapons loaded with blanks. The sound was real and so was the sense of apprehension.
A year ago, the chief applied for a $10,000 Homeland Security Grant to cover the salary expense associated with the ALERRT Program (Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training). The course, conducted by members of the Sheriff’s Department, began on March 5 with an eight-hour classroom session inside Village Hall.
The program continued on March 14 with the officers and instructors entering the school building after the students and teachers had gone home. The chief was careful to publicize the event in advance so that someone seeing the policemen in the school wouldn’t think there was a real emergency.
The 10 Village officers remained in the building until almost 11 p.m. Three of their colleagues, who were not available on the 14th, signed up for training in the Town of Highlands.
Undersheriff Tony Weed, who led the instructors, has been teaching an average of a class a week. He’s worked with several departments, and that’s important because more than one agency would respond to an emergency, and it would be important for everyone to be on the same page.
The armed members of the Sheriff’s Department assigned to the schools would also be on that page. Their two-week orientation included ALERRT Programs I and II as well as medical training and several days on the firing range. All of them had backgrounds in law enforcement before accepting their current assignments.
Members of the Thursday night class knew their way around the building. They were familiar with the layout from doing walkthroughs and lockdown drills there. Chief Dixon said his officers were also well acquainted with the classrooms and dormitories at Storm King School.
The chief was impressed with the instructors. “These guys are the best,” he told us. “They teach and train all over the state. It was very good training, And, ironically, the next day was the tragedy in New Zealand. Everything has changed since I came on the job in ‘88.”
