Courthouse employees receive safety training

Sheriff's Deputy Tim Felton gives ALICE training to courthouse employees

It used to be that when someone talked about a shooting incident at a public building, they were referring to an incident at a public school.  But shooting incidents have now happened in other public locations, including county courthouses.  On September 9th of this year a Maquoketa man fired two shots during a Board of Supervisors meeting at the Jackson County Courthouse in Maquoketa.  One of those shots killed the gunman, 71-year-old Gus Glaser.

That shooting and others have led authorities to give the same kind of active shooter training to county employees as they have given to school district employees.

Recently 26 Winneshiek County residents and three police dispatchers took part in "ALICE" training sessions at the courthouse.  "ALICE" stands for "Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter and Evacuate."  Winneshiek County Sheriff's Deputy Tim Felton, who has been doing the ALICE training at all of Winneshiek County's schools, led the ALICE training at the courthouse after receiving a request from the Clerk of Courts office.  A number of other county courthouse workers joined the training after Deputy Felton agreed to offer it.

Felton told the county employees that surviving a shooting has to be their #1 priority, which means getting out of the building, if at all possible.  He taught them how to make noise and exaggerated movement as a way to distract and confuse any shooter.
 
Most of all, Deputy Felton assured the county employees that police dispatchers always want to be alerted to any potential problem.  "If you think something is strange, you should contact us," he said.