This session highlights the latest research from the ALERRT Center shaping officer wellness, performance, and active attack response. Several research findings will be presented. ALERRT researchers open with new work on deaths of despair among first responders, examining patterns in suicide, overdose, and alcohol-related mortality across the professions that answer emergency calls. Attendees will then explore results from an experiment testing how badge placement on plainclothes officers affects positive identification by responding officers, with implications for reducing blue-on-blue misidentification. A third experiment compares room entry to the quick-peek technique. The session also explores how access control and door locks perform school-based active shooter events. Lastly, we will deliver the latest active attack data update, inclusive of all active attacks from 2000 to 2025.

This presentation will cover an in-depth analysis of the challenges law enforcement, fire department, emergency medical services, and emergency communications personnel encountered when responding to the Annunciation Church Active Attack in Minneapolis, MN on August 27, 2025.

Operational debrief of Canfield Mountain ambush incident near Coeur d'Alene Idaho, June 29th 2025.

Breakdown the process of FDNY Warm Zone Triage and its utilization within the Warm Zone. Speak on the advances of Rescue Task Force Body Armor and its protections.

This session draws on social theory and real-life examples to dig into why bad things sometimes happen in police work. It offers ideas about what officers, supervisors, and managers can do to reduce the odds of bad policing outcomes and how to handle the aftermath of police activities. It also offers informed ideas about what police organizations can do to enhance tactical performance throughout their agencies.

This presentation provides a detailed analysis of a complex active shooter incident in DeKalb County involving four jurisdictions and multiple responding agencies. Attendees will gain insight into real-time decision-making, rapid Rescue Task Force (RTF) deployment, and Unified Command implementation during a high-risk, multi-agency response. The session incorporates radio traffic, body camera footage, and surveillance video to reconstruct the timeline of events and highlight critical operational and command decisions. Presenters will also discuss lessons learned and how those lessons led to changes in policy, training, and interagency coordination. Emphasis will be placed on the practical application of ALERRT principles and how they influenced response effectiveness and outcomes.

No one had truly heard of Aurora, CO, Ferguson, MO, or Uvalde, TX, until the unthinkable happened. In the blink of an eye, these agencies were thrust into a relentless international spotlight. In the current threat landscape, it is no longer a matter of "if," but "when." Award-winning instructor and investigative journalist Steve Gregory leads this high-intensity session, conducting a tactical autopsy of press conferences from major critical incidents. Participants will analyze real-world footage in real-time as Steve breaks down the "wins" and "fails" of agency leadership under fire. Drawing on 20+ years of experience as a national correspondent in the Los Angeles media market, he provides an insider’s view of reporter psychology and details how any agency—regardless of size—can harden its messaging strategy before the first camera arrives.

Optimal nutrition is mission-critical for law enforcement and tactical professionals, supporting mental clarity, physical endurance, and career resilience. This course provides practical strategies to optimize food choices, hydration, and supplements, helping officers sustain focus, prevent fatigue, and perform at their best under demanding conditions.

When the Uvalde tragedy exposed the catastrophic consequences of siloed communications, Texas legislators responded with House Bill 33: a landmark mandate requiring vertical integration and real-time information sharing between school districts, local police departments, sheriffs’ offices, and the Texas Department of Public Safety. The message was clear: the next active shooter response could not afford the communication failures that cost lives. Texas DPS answered that mandate by adopting Bridge4PS and Team Awareness Kit (TAK) as the state's official interoperability application suite for all large-scale incidents and disaster activations. This session tells that story: from the legislative driver to the technology selection, from the first pilot deployments to statewide rollout, sharing hard-won lessons for any agency navigating the same challenge. Attendees will learn how Bridge4PS provides a secure messaging, file sharing, and voice/video collaboration platform that connects personnel across school campus security, local PD, county SO, and DPS, enabling real-time cross-agency communication that existing radio systems cannot support, while TAK provides the geospatial common operating picture that places every unit, resource, and threat on a single map in real time. Together, the two platforms fulfill HB33's vertical integration requirements, layering digital coordination and situational awareness on top of agencies' existing communications infrastructure. The session blends a policy overview of HB33, a live technology demonstration, and structured table-top discussion so attendees can immediately map the Texas model to their own jurisdictions. Whether your state is considering similar legislation or your agency is already searching for a technology solution, this session delivers a replicable framework built on real-world deployment experience.

PREPARE SWEAT RECOVER is a movement-based training approach that emphasizes consistency, effort, and long-term readiness. Participants begin by preparing the body through warm-ups and mobility work that prime movement patterns and reduce injury risk. The SWEAT phase focuses on purposeful workouts designed to elevate heart rate while building strength and endurance. Sessions conclude with recovery strategies, including cooldowns and mobility work, helping the body reset, reduce strain, and stay ready to train again.

The integration of health care. A discussion regarding what’s required of hospitals for critical incident planning and what opportunities for funding are there.

Over the span of 8 years, Dane County, WI experienced 3 active threat incidents. Each one changed our community and the way we responded to subsequent incidents.   In 2018, we experienced an active threat at a business, and in 2024 2 active threat incidents occurred in one of our public and private schools.   In this session, we will share our experiences with the response and recovery, lessons learned, the importance of conducting transparent After Action Reviews, and discuss how to implement changes moving forward.  These tragedies highlighted the value of collaboration and of continuously learning from AARs and conferences like ALERRT.

For more than two decades, the Rancho Cucamonga Fire District has led one of the nation's longest-standing and most innovative multidisciplinary response-to-violence programs. Through close collaboration with law enforcement, EMS, emergency management, hospitals, and regional partners, this model has evolved alongside changing threats, emerging medical evidence, and operational lessons learned from incidents across the United States. This presentation provides attendees with a practical roadmap for building, sustaining, and advancing an effective response-to-violence program within their own jurisdictions. Participants will explore the 4 critical pillars of program development, interagency collaboration, operational medicine integration, training sustainability, equipment standardization, and continuous improvement. Drawing from twenty years of operational experience and lessons learned from active violence incidents nationwide, attendees will leave with actionable strategies to strengthen their agency's preparedness, improve multidisciplinary coordination, and ensure their programs remain relevant in an increasingly complex threat environment.

In high-risk disciplines such as law enforcement, fire, EMS, and emergency management, training is expected to translate into decisive action under pressure. Yet many well-designed programs lose their effectiveness before instruction truly begins. The issue is not always the content. It is how the training experience is introduced. This session examines how the opening moments of a training event can either activate attention, relevance, and engagement, or quietly undermine them. In many public safety settings, sessions begin with administrative procedures, policy review, instructor biographies, or logistical briefings. While necessary, these approaches often fail to align with how adults learn and how the brain prioritizes information, reducing retention and diminishing the overall impact of the training. Grounded in established learning principles such as primacy, recency, relevance, and emotional engagement, this presentation explores why the first five minutes of instruction carry disproportionate influence over what participants retain and apply. When those moments are not intentionally designed, even critical, high-quality training can fall short of its intended outcomes. Drawing from concepts presented in The Ultimate Police Trainer’s Playbook, recognized as ILEETA Book of the Month in August 2025, participants will be introduced to practical frameworks that enhance instructional impact. The S.T.A.R.T. framework provides a structured approach to designing powerful training openers that establish immediate relevance and cognitive engagement. The E.N.D.I.T. framework reinforces how purposeful closings strengthen retention, clarify key takeaways, and drive post-training application. This session is designed for instructors, trainers, and leaders responsible for delivering or overseeing training in high-risk environments. Participants will leave with actionable strategies to transform routine course introductions into intentional learning experiences that increase engagement, improve retention, and strengthen the connection between training and real-world performance.