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Violent Intruder Preparedness & Response seminars coming to Sussex Co. high schools

Delaware Public Media
Starting this week, active shooter training will take place for the general public at two Sussex County high schools

Delaware State Police are partnering with state’s Department of Education to host Violent Intruder Preparedness and Response (VIPR) seminars starting this week.

 

The first two VIPR seminars are in Sussex County - at Sussex Central and Indian River High Schools.

Delaware State Police spokesperson Corporal Melissa Jaffe says these sessions are one way to address the threat posed by shootings at schools or other public places.

“And the purpose of these seminars is actually to provide citizens with the preparation techniques that can increase their survivability rates during an active shooter event. Certainly, these events have been going on throughout the entire country and this is just our time to get the citizens of Delaware prepared for when the event is going to come to Delaware,”Jaffe said.

Corporal Jaffe says the seminars will cover a variety of topics related to active shooter threats, emergency preparedness, suspicious activity reporting and hometown security threats.

 

Detective Tim Kerstetter is a terrorism liaison officer with State Police. He sees these public training sessions as extremely important.

 

“One, in response to the spike in violence we’ve seen in recent years since the massacre at Columbine High School back in April 1999.  And in recent years we’ve seen a spike...in fact, according to the FBI Active Shooter Study, in 2017, we met a record high now with 29 active shooter events in that calendar year alone,” said Kerstetter.

 

Detective Kerstetter says in the past three years, 10,000 people have been trained through the VIPR program, in conjunction with the Hometown Security Program that he spearheaded.

 
The VIPR seminar at Sussex Central High School in Georgetown is this Wednesday from 6 to 8 p.m. and is open to the public.

The session at Indian River High School in Dagsboro is April 17th, also from 6 to 8 p.m.

Corporal Jaffe says future seminars are currently being scheduled at other high schools throughout the First State.

 

Kelli Steele has over 30 years of experience covering news in Delaware, Baltimore, Winchester, Virginia, Phoenix, Arizona and San Diego, California.