If you are interested in attending a scheduled ALICE Training, or would like to schedule a session for your organization, class, or department, please email msnyder@westliberty.edu.

Information on ALICE Training was obtained from the ALICE Training Institute.  For more information, you are encouraged to visit their website. 

ALICE Training is being adopted by many schools, universities, hospitals, and businesses across the country.  There are five elements the acronym ALICE.  Each are intended to be used dynamically in each unique situation, not sequentially by one standard.

ALERT: Use plain and specific language to Alert others to the danger.  The alert should be given in a manner that informs as many as possible.  West Liberty University will utilize email, Toppernet text message alerts, word-of-mouth, campus media, and appropriate staff to alert the campus community of a violent intruder or active shooter.  The objective of the alert step is to convey the information as quickly as possible to as many as possible.

LOCKDOWN: Barricade the room you are in and prepare for the next step to evacuate or counter if needed.  Lockdown is important in the response to an active shooter or violent intruder.  This provides a secure or semi-secure starting point from which survival decisions can be made.  Relying on lockdown alone will significantly endanger occupants in a violent intruder situation.  Traditional lockdown creates readily identifiable targets and makes a shooter’s mission easier.  Lockdown offers you time to strategize and plan your next steps and response.

INFORM: While in lockdown, it is important to gain as much information as possible.  Use cell phones and other electronic devices to get information from Toppernet Alert system or through email.  Contact police and give them any information you may have on the violent intruder or active shooter.  If you see the person(s) take note of descriptive features (height, weight, gender, race, clothing, tattoos, piercings, etc.)  Effective information sharing can keep the shooter or intruder off balance, and gives students and employees more time to further lockdown or evacuate.  Active shooters work alone 98% of the time.  if the shooter is known to be isolated in one section of a building, individuals in other areas can evacuate safely and those in direct danger can lockdown and prepare to counter.  Knowledge and communication are the keys to survival.

COUNTER: Create noise, movement, distance and distraction with the intent of reducing the shooters ability to shoot accurately.  ALICE Training does not state that actively confronting a violent intruder is the best method of ensuring the safety of all involved.  The COUNTER step in the ALICE Training focuses on actions that create distraction.  Creating this environment decreases the shooter’s chance of hitting a target and can provide precious seconds needed to evacuate.  ALICE does not endorse civilians fighting an active shooter unless confronted directly in a life-and-death situation.  Rather, concentrate on creating those distractions through movement, noise, and distance (i.e. throwing items in the direction of the intruder, screaming and yelling, running, pulling down obstacles behind you as you run, etc.).

EVACUATE:  When safe to do so, remove yourself from the area of danger.  If know that the individual is a specific area of the building and you are locked down at a distance from that area, get out quickly.  If confronted with the active shooter or violent intruder, utilize the COUNTER methods outlined above and then evacuate as the intruder is distracted.