Hamilton County statement on not issuing alerts over active shooter incident
HAMILTON COUNTY, Tennessee (WDEF) – Hamilton County is getting questions about their Emergency Notification system alerts during the active shooter incident near Hamilton Place on Monday.
Here is the statement they have issued:
“In this case, a perpetrator was contained in the building. If a threat was outside the building, our office would have conferred with Chattanooga Police (who was in charge of the scene) for approval of public messaging. These messages are only distributed if the public is endangered and by no means serve as news notification.
We analyzed all sources of information during yesterday’s incident and worked will all agencies involved to make unified decisions .
This serves as an important reminder for citizens to sign-up for our emergency notification system, REGROUP. Hamilton County has more 360,000 residents and to date, only 6,000 have subscribed to receive alerts. In order for OEM to use this tool effectively, people must be signed up. We encourage local media to use this as an opportunity to make the public aware of this asset in the event of an active shooter situation.”
Hamilton County Office of Emergency Management continue to encourage Hamilton County residents to sign up for emergency notifications: www.hamiltonready.org
Front page in a red box: SIGN UP FOR EMERGENCY ALERTS
