Knoxville held a security training day at the Marion County Courthouse Tuesday. It was for all who work in the courthouse. 

Marion County Sheriff Jason Sandholdt tells KNIA/KRLS News, “Anybody that’s in the courthouse, just how to keep themselves safe, things they can do and obviously we want the public to be safe. Sometimes tempers get flaring, whether it be in court or somebody who is upset paying taxes. We just want people to know how to protect themselves and protect the public that’s there that we serve.”

Sandholdt added that the training covered around three and a half hours. The first part was the educational aspect of it. Training the employees what to do. According to Sandholdt it included the run, hide and fight concept for survival and knowing how to react in a bad situation.

One of the individuals who spoke about the importance of the training was Melissa Poffenbarger, Marion County Zoning Administrator. She told KNIA/KRLS News about the training, “We had a security training on Tuesday afternoon the 4th of April. To go over kinds  of situations of anything from hostile customers to active shooter training. It was good training to go through in your work environment. So it really made us think about what actually would happen if we were in our work environment. Where would we hide, how would we react.” 

Jake Grandia, the Marion County Auditor tells KNIA/KRLS News, it was a new experience for him and it was very eye opening. It got him to think about situations in a different manner. He said the training was good.