Police workshops at Waubonsie to train groups on emergency response

Aurora police will use Waubonsie Valley High School on Tuesday afternoon and evening as the site of an emergency response training for several community groups.

Participants in two sessions are set to learn a response tactic called ALICE, which stands for alert, lockdown, inform, counter and evacuate.

Aurora police said officers will be teaching leaders of hospitals, mental health agencies, health departments, senior services, theaters, businesses and houses of worship, along with teachers and substitute teachers, the response procedures to help prepare for "sporadic mass violence" or "active threat situations."

In what they called a "rare training opportunity," police say they will explain the fundamentals of threat response in a way that can be applied in nearly any setting.

The trainings are scheduled to take place from 2 to 4 p.m. and 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the Waubonsie auditorium at 2590 Ogden Ave. in Aurora.

The workshops come on the same day police, fire and municipal officials from Naperville and Aurora are scheduled to begin a two-day Joint Counterterrorism Awareness Workshop hosted by the National Counterterrorism Center, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the FBI.

Naperville city spokeswoman Kate Schultz said the counterterrorism sessions hosted by federal officials are not related to the ALICE training hosted by Aurora police.