Preventing The Next Lone Actor Attack
Preventing The Next Lone Actor Attack:
Are Behavior Assessment Teams the next layer in school safety…
as well as in other public/private sectors?
As organizations in every public/private sector work to prevent the next lone actor attack, a quick observation as to how school safety is proactively approaching this devastating threat presents a potentially effective plan to recognize and identify a violent threat before violence becomes a reality. Most recently, the Governor of New Jersey signed into law the mandatory establishment of school-based multi-disciplinary Behavior Assessment Teams (BAT) to work cohesively to identify violent threat actors in the public-school settings. Although BATs are not necessarily a new concept in the U.S., this legislative mandate makes every public school, including charter and magnate schools in New Jersey to have BATs assembled, trained, and implemented by the 2023-24 school year. These future teams will be adding an additional, and albeit important, new layer to overall school safety model. Although this legislative action is solely public school focused, those serving in the public/private sector security industry could easily incorporate many of the elements detailed in this new law to their own security plans and policies.
Behavior Assessment Team: The New Jersey Department of Education Model
As most schools throughout the United States have been developing, reviewing, establishing, and practicing different security plans and methods of approach to the lone actor / active attacker threats in educational settings, the establishment of BATs provides another innovative layer to current school-safety security models. Many schools for the past two decades have increased their security posture by creating and implementing school safety plans and audits, increase school safety/resource officer presence, addressing weapons presence by authorized personnel, and mandated performance of safety drills. The BAT layer has a mission to proactively identify potential violent threats early, and most importantly, before the violence strike out.
The establishment of school-based BATs with a mission to identify potential violent student threats will require a multi-disciplinary team composition which will include senior school administrator, school safety/resource officer, social worker, school psychologist, teachers, and counselors. More importantly, guidelines for BATs, will draw from the NJ DOE, State law enforcement agencies, and the NJ Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness. Each BAT member will have to attend state mandated training that includes various programs that address childhood trauma, cultural competency, adverse childhood experiences, and implicit bias. Although the NJ law does not specifically articulate additional training outside of the listed programs, it would be difficult for state law enforcement and NJOHSP not to suggest a core of training programs that focuses on suspicious activity and threat behavior recognition, and response to violent threat behavior.
The primary role of the school-based BAT will be identifying potential threats by students (we suggest this role should also expand to faculty and school personnel as well) by creating a formal threat assessment system using policy and procedure to competently address violent threats, particularly where a student intends to cause harm to others. Proponents of the new law suggest the multi-disciplinary approach in the BAT model can also help reduce the chance for over-reactions, and/or inadequate or inappropriate decisions in case assessments. However, opponents indicate that this method to prevent violence could be counterproductive and cause long term harm to those identified through an assessment, unnecessary student removals from school, and violation of student due process rights. Whether for or against the BATs, the multi-disciplinary approach can provide a form of internal checks and balances by allowing different perspectives to be equally addressed in each case.
Why BATs are a critical component to the overall school safety program
There will be arguments for and against the implementation of school-based BATs and to be honest, that conversation should continue to discuss at length. However, in the meantime, the BAT is a necessary and critical addition to the safety of students and school personnel. The significant uptick in school shootings over the past 30 years and the increasing casualties resulting from these attacks has necessitated the need for ongoing improvement and layering in the school safety operations. The obvious primary advantage is the potential prevention of another Santa Fe, Uvalde, or Parkland type school shootings. In a significant number of school related attacks, the attacker is known by the students, administration, and/or personnel prior to the attack. There were frequent observable indicators of disruptive and potentially violent behavior related to the attacker. In some cases, the school administration had identified a student as a particular threat based on their behavior and removed them from the school and even consulted with local law enforcement (this will be addressed in more depth a future article).
School setting attackers follow a very close pathway to violence as domestic and international terrorists who are motivated with political, social, or revenge-oriented ideologies. In both school attackers and terrorists, violent action is not random, but planned out after a period of priming triggering events they experience. In their priming phase to violent action, both types will begin preparing for their action through several initiative-taking measures. Accumulation of weapons and supplies, conducting hostile surveillance of the target(s), and practicing their attack actions during dry runs are common observable actions. Similarly, they will have a strong knowledge of their target in terms of layout, population, physical security posture, security response capabilities, ingress and egress points, and initial attack starting location. More importantly, attackers may have specific individual targets or a type of individual (faculty, athlete, gender, age group, etc.) they will attack as observed in several cases. Not all, but many of an attacker’s pre-event actions and behaviors are readily observable, even though those behaviors can be very subtle to the untrained eye. Yet, a well-trained BAT member trained in recognizing suspicious activity and behavior recognition, as well as an understanding of intricate dynamics in the pathway to violence can be the critical component of the security plan that has been missing.
Incorporating the BAT Model in the Private/Public Sectors
There are obviously many questions that will be discussed regarding the idea of incorporating BAT-like models into the private/public sector settings. Two primary questions are briefly discussed with the hope of opening dialogue for current and future consideration of the efficacy of BATs. To begin, the primary initial question to consider is “how do we incorporate a school-based BAT model into the private/public sector settings?” Secondly, and another important question is “Does the incorporation of a BAT-like version have to be a one-size fits all model?”
It is important to understand that any BAT-type model must be consistent with the setting it will be employed. No one organization is the same as another and all organizational settings may require tailoring to fit its own needs, which the proposed New Jersey model can allow for such flexibility and adaptation. What will help incorporate a solid and functional model will be the team that will be assembled as well as the communication mechanisms that will be in place. Communication and discussion are the hallmarks of any model no matter the size of the BAT or the organization that is using it. Large and medium size organizations are better situated with personnel and resources to create formal BATs, whereas smaller organizations may find a formal team to be highly challenging or not possible at all. However, no matter the size of the organization, the key to successful intervention will always fall upon observation and communication. Employees need to be more mindful in recognizing suspicious activity and abhorrent and anomalous behavior and then more importantly communicating and reporting what they are seeing. Even though the “one-size fits all” model is not possible with such diverse sector work settings and sizes, observation and communication spans across all organization sizes and resources. These two focal points allows for the iconic slogan “See something, say something” to remain extremely relevant and applicable.
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Summary
The BAT model set forth in NJ legislation and similar models around the country provides innovative insight in the ever-expanding responsibilities of protecting our students and personnel. This relatively new direction should be explored, discussed, and implemented by various organizations across the public/private sectors. Observation and communication, as with most things in life, will continue to be what separates success from possible tragic consequences of inaction. Keep moving forward. Never accept mediocrity when it comes to safety of others. Learn together, train together, save lives together!
Written by Spartan School Consulting, Dr. Christopher Biddle, Chief Learning Officer (CLO)?
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