ALERT Members and Friends,
Message from the President...
We are very excited to officially announce our 2022 ALERT Annual Conference and Training Symposium will be held October 2nd through 6th 2022 in beautiful Charlotte North Carolina! This will be a full 4 day Conference hosted by Charlotte-Meckenburg PD and will be held at the Embassy Suites by Hilton Charlotte, 4800 South Tryon Street Charlotte NC. Track Day on Tuesday October 4th will be held at CMPD training facility. Registration for the 2022 ALERT Conference and Training Symposium will be opening very soon and our tentative training agenda and line up will be posted shorty. We are still currently finalizing the agenda and line up but currently have an exciting line up of presenters and topics already planned! The presenters include Kevin Navarro, Michigan State Police, Hugh Anderson, Louis Callard, North Carolina Highway Patrol, Charlotte-Mecklenburg PD., FLETC, and ALERT Board Members and Membership. Topics this year will include- being a better driving instructor, looking beyond the cones, legal updates, post incident critical stress management, critical decision making, post pursuit tactics, downed officer rescues, 2022 police vehicle testing results, electric vehicles, and many more! Registration, Conference and hotel reservation information can be found at alertconference.org.
We would like to thank Officer Melissa Cicio and CMPD for stepping up to host this year’s Conference!. As we are still working to finalize our agenda, we will be updating the conference site weekly as we solidify presenters, activities and vendors. Please also like and keep checking our Facebook page for the most recent updates that we will be posting.
We are hopeful and optimistic after having 2 difficult years for ALERT, as far as Conference planning, that this will be an outstanding training event! With the difficult decision to cancel our conference 2 years ago. and the crazy unpredictable times the last few years, I am blessed as the President of this organization, to have such a strong enthusiastic Board and membership! We were able to have a great event last year, and we all were able to keep this organization, not only “afloat”, but moving forward! With unprecedented rising costs of many things, once again there are going to be challenges for a small organization. But as many restrictions are lifted for in person events, and some things start to get back to where we were when I took over as President, I’m excited about the future of this organization!
Sincerely,
Geoff
Request for Information from ALERT Members
ALERT has received several different requests for information sharing:
-If any agency would be willing to share their current pursuit policy.
-With an increase of Police Officers getting struck on the highway, does any
agency specifically address ways to mitigate these types of incident with
vehicle positioning and lighting? I know TIMS addresses larger scale events
involving fire departments, we are looking for information about one or two
vehicle police vehicle involved incidents IE traffic stops, along major
highways.
-Has anyone’s agency seen an increase of shooting at vehicles at the end of
pursuits/PIT’s? What training or techniques are being taught to mitigate
officers being in vulnerable positions post pursuit/PIT?
-There have been some recently published articles on police lighting and
vehicle reflective striping. Does anyone know of official studies or information
regarding either topic?
Z man Award
Mark Y. Zylawy, “Z-Man”, a highly regarded Portland police officer, died January 27, 2008 in a tragic and untimely accident at the age of 40. He worked as a district officer in Northeast Portland for 17 years with passion, dedication and enthusiasm throughout his career.
In memory of Mark and what he stood for in regards to Emergency Vehicle Operations Training, ALERT International has set up the ACHIEVEMENT AWARD. This award is presented on an annual basis for the best innovative idea in Police Driver Training in the past year. We give out this award at our annual conference on the last night at our banquet. Do you know of a training unit or an individual that has made an impact on EVOC? It’s not too early to start thinking about someone to nominate. We welcome your submissions at [email protected].
Bruce Cabral Memorial Scholarship
ALERT International issues educational scholarships each year to children of ALERT Members. Applications are received between May 1st and August 1st each year. Applicants must (1) be a son/daughter whose parent has been a member of ALERT International for at least the 12 previous months (United States and Canada), (2) be a graduating senior (3) have a scholastic average of at least a B, or 3.0 on a 4.0 scale (4) plan to attend a college, university, trade or business school. Please email your application or questions to: [email protected] c/o Bruce Cabral Memorial Scholarship.
As many of you know we have a raffle the last night of the conference to help fund the Bruce Cabral Scholarship. In past years, we had many great items including TV’s, Yeti Coolers, knives, and many high dollar items from Cabela’s outdoors and other retailers. So we have lots of items to raffle off, we like to have everyone attending the conference bring something from their agency to contribute to the raffle. Again it’s not too early to start gathering coins, shirts, or anything of interest to a police officer or trainer to bring to the conference. The more items we have the more successful the raffle will be!
Social Media
Our Facebook page is constantly being updated with new information, articles, stories ect. If you haven’t already, please “Like” and follow ALERT's page. Ask all your LE friends to “Like" as well. If you have any information you would like posted please send to me.
Regional Events
With COVID restrictions hopefully all but gone, please consider putting on a regional training event!! If you have any questions about hosting an event please reach out to Al Liebno, [email protected] or myself.
More updates will be coming as we start to get past these difficult last 2 years year for training and law enforcement in general. Keep continuing to push the ALERT International mission--of Improving police driver training, reducing and eliminating preventable automobile related line of duty injuries and deaths!
URGENT NEED...ALERT Newsletter Articles
ALERT is looking for articles and information from our vast experienced members to share with other members. Please consider sharing your expert knowledge and information with ALERT's members and partners. Submit articles to me at
Thank you and stay safe!!
Geoff Bush
ALERT International President
