TEQUESTA, Fla. — At any moment an active shooter situation can arise. It's truly a sign of the times we live in. But Wednesday, the Tequesta Police Department went about coaching community members on how to escape such a situation.
"So I just come in and I'm just picking people off," an officer with the Tequesta police department said.
Sitting in the class is school administrator Cathy Quinn.
"I'm hoping to take back some much-needed knowledge about what's going on in the world today. Which we all know is not good at times," she said.
The training is called ALICE. It's an acronym for alert, lockdown, inform, counter, evacuate. It means alert others to the danger, when possible barricade the room, then communicate the violent intruder's location and direction, creates noise or movement to reduce the shooter's ability to shoot accurately and counter isn't fighting. When safe flee.
"This isn't where we teach the public to fight back. This is for them to be able to escape safely," Sgt. Emir Yildiz said.
Yildiz says, tragically its situations we've seen here in South Florida, like the 2018 Parkland shooting that killed 17 victims at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school.
Quinn says, she's part of the crisis team at here school. She says you can never be too prepared.
"And I really think I will benefit from something like this so yeah I have a big interest in this," she said.
The instructor made it clear, the sooner you understand that you're in danger, the sooner you can save yourself and possibly others.