ELERTS Corporation, a leading provider of mobile communication for emergency response, and the ALICE Training Institute, the foremost active shooter response program, have entered into an exclusive agreement to improve response options during emergency events.

ELERTS develops mobile security solutions for academic, corporate, hospital and mass transit systems. Leveraging the popularity of smartphones and the power of crowd-sourcing, ELERTS apps enable rapid, shared communication when seconds count.

ALICE-alert, lockdown, inform, counter, evacuate—was founded by Greg Crane, an ex-SWAT member, and his wife, Lisa Crane, a former elementary school principal, in the wake of the Columbine shooting. The purpose of the training is to increase the likelihood of survival through proactive response options for those critical moments between the beginning of a violent event and the arrival of law enforcement to the scene.

Over the last 15 years, more than a million educators, law enforcement officers and corporate personnel have received ALICE training –now considered the “standard of care” for schools and other facilities.

This partnership facilitates the implementation of ALICE training through the use of the ELERTS smartphone app: Lock It Down™.

This app allows teachers and others to immediately communicate security concerns and situation updates with their peers and First Responders. Lock It Down solves the problem of classrooms in lockdown being kept in the dark as to what is occurring outside their room.

Alerting people of potential danger and Informing them with real-time updates will help their decision making during the crucial moments of a violent situation, which in turn will help to increase their chance of survival. Users of the ELERTS app may initiate Lockdown, Evacuate, or Shelter in Place with the push of a button.

Unfortunately, violent events often end within 5 to 6 minutes, while average police response time can be more than 10 minutes and closer to 20 minutes in rural settings. For those agonizing first minutes, teachers are on their own.

Because of this reality, the safety recommendations of the Department of Education, Department of Homeland Security, FBI and FEMA have shifted from lockdown-only to proactive, options based response, as pioneered by the ALICE Training Institute.

The concept is logical: if you are isolated in a darkened room and don’t have the information you need, you can’t make an informed decision. But with ongoing communication and visual context, safer decision making, such as an evacuation route, or next step could be planned.

“Just as ELERTS Transit app makes ‘See Something, Say Something’ actionable for transit riders in Boston, Atlanta, San Francisco and others,” says ELERTS CEO Ed English, “Lock It Down highlights the ALICE strategies even more so, by enabling situation-in-progress communications.”

ALICE founder Greg Crane adds, “ALICE is honored to work with ELERTS on building out a smartphone app to make implementing ALICE training quicker and more effective. Both companies are coming together to make schools a safer place.”