How to keep our Kids Safe from Active Shootings

I don't know about you, but I have school-age kids attending public schools and I'm not going to lie I nervously bite my nails a little every day when I send them off. I was initially inspired to come up with the Critical Incident Officer (CIO) program back when Columbine happened in 2007 when 13 teenagers in Colorado were murdered by two of their peers. The CIO program involved a layered security approach with CCTV cameras coordinated with highly trained, unarmed, armed security officers. I was working full- within the Intelligence Community during this period so maybe I didn't have enough focus or time to pull it off but also, no one seemed interested I think. I later revisited the program in 2012. I was emotionally crushed and moved to act when Sandy Hook occurred when those 21 children and 1 school teacher were murdered at a daycare/elementary school. I thought at the time, how could the CONGRESS not act after such a universally heinous and soul-crushing act occurred?

Yet all we got was a President of the United States openly weeping and grieving for the deaths of those innocents and an NRA lobby that helped to make nothing happen at all; as well as the myriad of craziness around 2nd amendment rights and not taking their guns nonsense. It has always baffled me how the loss of our most precious resource, our children, could be overlooked after their extremely violent and sudden deaths at the hands of mental illness and access to military-grade weaponry. Most recently we have the shooting of our children in Uvalde TX, of which this time, I now understand it's up to us the people to figure this mess out.

I've been in the National Security arena for over 25 years, and lately, I have begun revisiting what the FBI and Homeland Security have on their website in regard to "Active Shooter Preparedness". Let's just say I was not impressed. You would think with the backing of billions of dollars in training and capability, the U.S. government would come up with something better than RUN-HIDE-FIGHT and a guide booklet that encourages schools to figure out how best to build an emergency operations plan to prepare for an Active Shooter. On the surface, this sounds like it might work right?

Yet, Run-Hide-Fight is NOT a strategy to prepare for an active shooter; at worst these are only primitive instincts that EVERY mammal on the planet exhibits (can vary depending on species) when under the stress of losing their life. At BEST, this is the worst-case scenario that SHOULD be drilled for such a situation, however, there is an indefinite amount of time for more innovative and thorough preparation that has to be explored.

This brings us to a possibly better process to prepare for an Active Shooter. Again, RUN-HIDE-FIGHT has its place but only as the last resulting action in what should be a much bigger landscape for preparing for a critical incident such as a shooter within a school.

Our approach is based on a pyramid of preparation EFFORT in which the organization can put in place techniques tactics and procedures (TTPs) based on what they can control right now, in lieu of a prospective attack on their facility; in this case, we are using a school for demonstration purposes.

1. 50% of their effort should go into "Internal Threat Prevention"; this involves ensuring there is a full-time and trained school resource officer on the premises, an anonymous tip line so if students hear something they can say something without recriminations; security awareness training that focuses on scenarios which look like something that could cause fights and negative responses in school; tightening and improving access control protocols, command, and control activities around emergency response and succession of command based on circumstances; and the notification system which could be based on external technologies purchased or an intercom system as well as personal mobile devices, which would be prepared and fine-tuned for an event. This part of the pyramid is what can be done right now, and if done with the best intentions and effort will set the foundation for both slowing down a prospective attacker and possibly preventing an attack.
2. 30% of the effort should go into "Detection and Protection" which are physical security measures that will be the most costly of the pyramid. However, our approach can optimize current physical security capabilities and coordinate them with what has been done within the green zone of the pyramid. The most important part of Detection and Protection; is the OPTIMIZATION of whatever physical security measures you put into place, any external force has to be drilled and coordinated with all TTPs that are in place within the facility in order to be most effective.
3. 15% of the effort goes into Community Engagement with law enforcement, and mental health professionals for adolescents (in case of middle school thru college), as well as conducting Bi-annual to Quarterly drills which involve the school, and all other parties, in lieu of an incident. Such drills and engagement will help to bring out potential weaknesses in response time, facility access control, notifications, and security awareness. The effort score is so low because we are getting into those things that are outside of the direct control of the main organization but is nonetheless very important to pursue action towards.
4. 5% of the effort goes towards RUN-HIDE-FIGHT drills; while we do not believe it is realistic to spend the majority of time training kids and teachers to prepare to confront a hell-bent killer determined to use military-grade weaponry on unarmed students. The top of the pyramid signifies the worst-case scenario when all control is out the window; however like the age-old story of Brer Rabbit and Briar Patch; the organization has the home-field advantage; there are ways to set up potential choke points and passive ambush points (to be explained if working with S3 GSG), that the perpetrator will not be aware of, all within the context of optimizing the opportunity for the occupants of the facility to remain hidden and or be safely evacuated. Finally, there will be some combative survival techniques we may show to the occupants however 99% of Run-Hide-Fight will be focused on the RUN and HIDE portion of their survival.

Finally, there are no perfect answers to defending against such sudden and violent actions, as those posed by an active shooter. However, we can do better as citizens and businesspeople in preparing to protect ourselves against this horrible and somewhat common occurrence in our society. #publicsafety #activeshooter #business #schoolsafety