First Responder: Officer who ended massacre trained by Texas State program

Nov 10 2009 - 1:27am | Bianca Davis

Sara Strick/Star photos

To the world, Sgt. Kimberly Munley is a hero. To the San Marcos community, she is a reminder of the success and value of the A.L.E.R.R.T. Program.

A.L.E.R.R.T., or Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training, is a program, which equips first responders with tactical skills and training needed to stop active shooters.

Sgt. Munley, the first responder to shoot Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, used skills she received through training in San Marcos to stop Thursday’s shooting at Fort Hood. Munley was wounded by a shot that hit her femoral bone, but continued to fight despite her injuries.

Munley, a Carolina Beach, NC native and civilian police officer, was one of the first responders at the Fort Hood massacre. Munley was trained through A.L.E.R.R.T.— a joint program through Texas State, the City of San Marcos and Hays County.

A.L.E.R.R.T. instructor Bo Kidd taught Munley in Killeen before she came to June training in San Marcos. Kidd said she did exactly what she was trained to do.

“She saved a lot of lives,” Kidd said. “She was hit and continued to fight on. She’s a hero—no question about it.”

Terry Nichols, San Marcos Police Department SWAT commander, is an A.L.E.R.R.T. instructor who has been with the program since its founding in 2002. Nichols, who served as director of training, said A.L.E.R.R.T. teaches first responders to stop the shooter.

Nichols said the program instills a mentality within first responders to aggressively move to the sound of gunshots.

“Every time you hear a gunshot, that is someone potentially dying,” Nichols said. “So you cannot wait, you have to go.”

Skills learned through the program are room entry, medical, breaching, how to approach an active shooter in progress and how to cross open ground.

“Nobody is really dying, and we induce that level of stress so when it happens in real life — like it happened at Fort Hood — hopefully, their bodies and minds are telling them ‘I’ve been here, done this, I can survive this, I can do this,’” Nichols said.

Shaun Appler, an investigator with the North Carolina Wrightsfield Beach Police Department, was Munley’s first partner when both were rookie officers in 2000.

“You aren’t going to die when you get shot; you’re going to die when you give up—she had that mindset,” Appler said. “There are very few people I would want to go into battle with—she’s one of them.  She is one of the few people I can count on, one that I would want there with me.”

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