Making Schools a Hard Target Isn't Enough

Hard Target Theory

As SRO’s we have a duty to keep our students and staff safe in our schools. I don’t know of any SRO around who hasn’t trained and prepared for an active shooter response every year. Countless hours of training, evacuation planning, reunification planning, and drills are a constant reminder that the threat is real.

Last year was my first year as the SRO. I was responsible for six different schools all by myself. To say I lost sleep at night thinking about the safety of the students and staff was an understatement.

While I felt like I was prepared for the response and aftermath of an active shooter; I often asked myself: “What am I doing to prevent an active shooter?”

Like most SRO’s, the “Hard Target Theory” is our attempt at prevention. This is a very important aspect to school safety. Our presence as an armed officer in the school should act as a deterrent. Sadly, this isn’t the magical solution to the active shooter threat and incidents have occurred in the most hardened of targets. Also, in my experience, schools can be outdated and don’t have the funding to have the proper safety equipment. We can only control what we can control.

SRO’s of the 21st Century: Quasi-Social Workers

The SRO’s of today wear many hats. In a way, we are quasi-social workers who speak with a variety of troubled students. I found out during my first year that I had a gift for speaking with troubled students and getting through to them on an emotional level. Students constantly strolled into my office to speak with me. Word soon began to spread among the students that I was someone you could talk to about anything.

At the time, I just saw my rapport with the students as something that would decrease the overall amount of fights and drama occurring in the schools. I wasn’t thinking in regards to anything more serious, such as an active shooter.

Leakage

Later in my first year as SRO I went to a training being held by the FBI in regards to the pre-attack behaviors of active shooters. I learned a lot in the training in regards to concerning behaviors exhibited by active shooters before they attack. The most intriguing behavior to me was “leakage”. Leakage is essentially when an active shooter “leaks” his/her plans to another person prior to an attack. The issue to me was learning that 92% of students, 75% of school staff, and 25% of law enforcement noticed concerning behaviors prior to attacks. Those were very large percentages of people who noticed concerning behaviors, yet the attacks still occurred. These were all studies done by the FBI between 2000 and 2013.

Lightbulb-Moment

Later in the year I had a situation at the high school. One of my students expressed that he wanted to shoot everyone in the school. The student’s parents were called down and we spoke with them about the incident. I was adamant about not charging the student or having the school discipline him because I did not want to discourage him from ever “leaking” his threats in the future. The school then made the parents send the student to crisis to have a mental health screening and be cleared prior to returning to school. I also searched the bedroom of the student (with the permission of the parents) and found nothing. At the time we thought: “Hey, we did what we had to do. It’s now on crisis if anything happens.” Shame on me and shame on us for that way of thinking. It wasn’t good enough and it was lazy.

The student was held out of school until he was cleared by crisis. A few days later the student was plopped back into the school and disappeared into the crowd. There were maybe one or two counseling sessions provided by the school, but after that, the student was never checked on again.

A couple months went by and I decided to stop into the band room to interact with some students. I started playing a guitar and the student who made the threat months before approached me. He sat down next to me and asked me how to play a few songs. I eventually started popping into the band room more and continued to build rapport with that student. Eventually, that student no longer disappeared into the crowd. He always stood out to me in the hallways because we had built that rapport and would greet each other.

It dawned on me that I felt safer than ever. I knew how this student was. If something was not right with that student, I would know better than anyone. Our rapport was that solid. It was also at this time that the light bulb went off and I thought about the “leakage” mentioned in the FBI training.

Sustained Intervention Program

When this school year began, I advised the school that we would implement a new program. Should any student make any type of transient or substantive threat, they would be required to enter a “Sustained Intervention” program.

We essentially have the same response as before, we just add this program as an extra step. With this program, the student would be required to meet with me weekly for at least 2 school years (unless the student graduates before that time).

I’ve already implemented this program and it has been going great. I have several students who meet with me throughout the week for about 30 minutes and we do anything from talking, playing sports, playing video games, or completing school work. I’ve been able to connect with these students more than anyone else in the entire district. The thought behind this program was to become close enough to these students that I will be the person they ever report “leakage” to. I know that if I hear the threats directly, there’s no excuse. I do not want to leave leakage in the hands of students, teachers, or even other officers who may fail to take the threats seriously.

I also think that as an SRO with emotional intelligence, I shouldn’t have to rely on an assessment chart to tell me when a student is an imminent threat or not. I should know if a student is an imminent threat or not by the weekly conversations I have with him/her. This is why this program is important.

Just last week I assisted one of these students by typing a resume for him so he could apply for a job at the local video game shop. Heck, I even put myself down as a reference. This is just a typical day in the “Sustained Intervention” program. As SRO’s we need to do whatever it takes to build rapport with students and make sure that everyone is safe.

I’m in no way disparaging threat assessment charts, anonymous tip lines, hardened targets or anything like that. I’m just saying that we should consider getting to actually know these students as an added layer of security. Let’s add this to our arsenal against the active shooter threat.

I hope that any SRO reading this strongly considers implementing this program or something similar to it to improve the overall safety of their school. Let us not forget about prevention and let us continue to be innovative.

Stay Safe,

SRO Ryan Alcott

New Jersey