Manatee County Sheriff's Office offers active shooter webinar

Very few people plan to find themselves in a violent confrontation.

But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be prepared for one just in case.

Manatee County Sheriff’s Office is hosting a webinar about active shooters and other violent situations at 1:30 p.m. Oct. 23. The webinar is a slideshow presentation, accompanied by a lecture with video reinforcement.

It will focus on recognizing the tendencies of a violent or unstable person, according to Lt. Robert Andrews, as well as how you should respond when you see those indicators. The presentation will also discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted trends in violent situations.

It’s highly unlikely you will be involved in an active shooter incident in your lifetime. There was an average of 21 per year in the United States from 2009 through 2018, according to the FBI. But the advice you should follow if you are threatened by an active shooter also extends to more common situations.

“It's still one of those things that people should be prepared to deal with,” Lt. Robert Andrews said. “Even though the odds are low for [active shooter] incidents, people can find themselves in a similar incident where having a plan on how to respond is so vital. You could find yourself in any sort of violent confrontation relatively quickly.”

The slideshow lasted 60 to 90 minutes when the sheriff’s office conducted the program as an in-person seminar, before the pandemic. But attention spans tend to shorten online. So the presentation has been trimmed to its core information to keep the audience engaged. But the ability to do it online does allow people more flexibility to fit the webinar into their busy schedules.

The sheriff’s office hasn’t held their usual in-person seminars during the pandemic. Its first foray into the virtual world was a webinar about scams and fraud. The active shooter seminar was a popular program, making it a natural second choice. Andrews foresees more webinars coming down the pipeline.

It’s not just the public gaining value from the webinar, according to Andrews. For the sheriff’s office, it is an opportunity to build relationships with people and update them about what’s going on in the community.

“The more educated the public is, not just with active shooters, but just your happenings in the community, the better the response from the public is going to be,” Andrews said.