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Police say they field terroist alerts monthly

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Terrorism is something seen in the news, but it's not something people think about happening in their own hometown.

"We probably receive a notification several times a month," said officer Aaron Zemlock with the City of Menasha Police Department.

Those notifications of either terrorism threats to Wisconsin or things to be on the lookout for are coming from the FBI and Department of Homeland Security.

"It's the intelligence community getting information about planned types of targets or things that the intelligence community is hearing that is concerning to them," said Zemlock.

It's information like that, that has officers training regularly for active shooter and hostage situations.
 
"We do a lot of training based on active shooter response and we do training on hostage rescue and those are actually two very different types of trainings," explained Captain Edgar Gonzalez with the Neenah Police Department.
 
Even with all the training, police say they still need help from the public.
 
"So much of it is people being situationally aware of what's going on around them," said Zemlock.
 
The police department says they keep a regular lookout for threats, but that the most important part is the public because if you see someone acting strange or odd they ask you report it.  Officers say bringing up something that seems off, even if it's nothing could be the best way to prevent tragedy from striking.