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Active Shooter Training, "It's a need"

Sgt. Darrell Coslin hosted an active shooting training at the Shiloh Road Church of Christ.

TYLER — Sergeant Darrell Coslin with the Smith County Sheriff's Office has been teaching active shooter training classes for the past two and a half years and he said while not much has changed with the actual training, it's the execution and readiness of people that they're trying to emphasize.

"Right now we're averaging more than one major event every six weeks in this country alone,” Coslin said. “So if we know that they're going to happen and they're going to continue to happen we need to educate the population our civilians what they can do to help survive these incidents until law enforcement arrives on the scene."

He said that the average time it takes for law enforcement to arrive on scene of an active shooting is three minutes. Coslin teaches in his training to help people avoid, deny and defend until help can get there.

"It's important that we at least have a plan that we know what we're going to do and how to react so when the event occurs we can react quicker and remove ourselves from that situation as fast as possible," Coslin said.

Avoid means to have an exit plan, deny doesn't mean hide but to find somewhere away from the shooter and defend means “defend yourself” if the shooter is near you.

Coslin said it's important for people to be actively involved in their own survival.

"Just like a fire drill if we're going to teach our kids what to do in case of a fire, we're going to teach our kids how to cross the street safely because it's dangerous, we also have to face that this is a fact that this is a world that we live in and we have to prepare our kids and ourselves to deal with this threat," Coslin said.

The next active shooting training will be Sept. 27 at the Church of Nazarene on S University.

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