5 Ways to Make Our Schools More Secure

There is quite a bit of focus these days on the fact that corporations, churches, businesses and other organizations need to focus more time and resources on preparing for a critical incident such as an active shooter. I couldn’t agree more as I am very passionate about this fact. However, the single most critical organization that needs to focus A LOT of time and energy into critical incident and active shooter preparation is our schools. Whether it is a crazed gunman, an extremist terrorist, or the lunatic ex-spouse of a staff member, the threats to our schools are real and are not going away.

It was in April of this year when the ex-husband of Karen Brown, a special education teacher in San Bernardino, entered her classroom and gunned her down while she was teaching. He also struck two students in the process, killing one, before turning the gun on himself. In the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre, the shooter wandered the school executing victims for 11 minutes before being encountered by the police and taking his own life. All of his victims were shot between 3 and 11 times EACH. These are two starkly different incidents with very different shooters behind the gun. Their motives and intended targets in both incidents were vastly different yet the result was still the same. Innocent lives were taken by crazed gunmen on school grounds and the existing security policies and measures failed.

Outside of the existing potential threats previously mentioned, our schools have to begin considering that they qualify as both a soft target and a high value target to terrorist organizations. Both terrorists and active shooters alike seek maximum carnage with minimum resistance and our schools would traditionally provide both to these deranged individuals. Although police response times to active shooter events have improved greatly, it could still be the most important three minutes of your life.

HERE ARE FIVE CRUCIAL THINGS EVERY SCHOOL SHOULD BE DOING TO IMPROVE THEIR SECURITY.

Consistently secure all buildings. This may seem simple and elementary but it can be a game changer. One door left unlocked and unattended could make a life a death difference. In the Columbine High School shooting, not a single locked door was breached by the shooters. In the San Bernardino incident, the gunman attempted to enter a side door where he would go unnoticed but it was locked and he was forced to enter the main entrance. Although their security policy still failed, the incident could have been much worse had he entered undetected. Even on the most beautiful of days, keep all classroom and building doors secured and locked. You are sending a message to anyone seeking to infiltrate your campus.

Conduct regular and visible patrols. This task should be shared by staff and faculty so that everyone participates in proactively creating a secure environment. Furthermore, the more personnel involved, the better. This also sends a message to any potential intruders that you have multiple people involved in securing your campus and that they will meet resistance. If ANY unknown or suspicious person is identified on campus or in a building, then you MUST confront them. Confront them IMMEDIATELY and ASSERTIVELY and preferably in pairs if the personnel is available. When any criminal is seeking a victim, they are looking for just that, a victim. Being assertive and not avoiding the situation communicates clearly that your campus is not a soft target.

Get a threat assessment and security evaluation done for your particular campus. Every school building and campus is different and will have different strengths and weaknesses when it comes to achieving physical security. There are also several ways to advantageously exploit certain features of particular buildings and construction materials during a critical incident. Hiring a professional to evaluate your facility can make all the difference when it comes to critical incidents.

Have a plan. This also sounds elementary and obvious but I have been astounded at the number of school personnel I have spoken with that don't have a real plan. Unfortunately today our schools face multiple threats from both nature and man and having specific plans for those events and your particular campus are extremely important.

Waiting for the School Resource Officer to handle the situation is NOT a plan. Although SROs are an outstanding resource for schools, they cannot be everywhere all of the time. Even if your campus is small and it only takes one minute for the SRO to get anywhere on campus, one minute is an eternity during an active shooter event. Every school, campus, and faculty composition is different so having a customized plan creates an outstanding advantage when seconds count.

Practice and train frequently. When in danger, the human brain goes directly into survival mode. We cannot reason, our only instinct is to survive. When we do this, we have one of three reactions, fight, flight or freeze. These are primitive instincts that have kept our species alive for thousands of years, but they are just that: primitive. Our survival instincts can be programmed to change the way we respond under critical stress levels. The ONLY way to do this is through training and repetition. During any critical incident most people will have some sort of reaction, but prior training allows you to RESPOND.

To learn more about obtaining a security evaluation, training for a critical incident, or strengthening the security of your school or campus, please visit our website at www.defendsystems.com or give us a call at 615-236-6484.

7 Deadly Reasons Why EVERY Organization Should Train for an Active Shooter Event

One historical fact about 2017 is that it was a grim reminder that active shooter and mass casualty incidents are on the rise in America.  The staggering number of casualties, the vast amount of locations, and the varied motivations of the attackers are all reasons that our mindset as a society should be changing.  It is still unthinkable to believe that enough evil exists inside some people to commit these heinous acts, but the seemingly endless news cycle of violence remains a stark reminder that there are truly evil people among us. 

In the aftermath of every active shooter and mass casualty attack, most people immediately search for a motive and become hyper-focused on determining the “why”.  The truth is this, active shooters and terrorists all have varied motivations and triggers and attempting to determine what these are for each incident will not prevent the next tragedy.  Beyond the increasing number of attacks and the vast number of victims during the last year, what is even more alarming is the number of different locations where these incidents occurred. 

HERE ARE SEVEN CRITICAL REMINDERS ABOUT WHY 2017 SHOULD MOTIVATE US TO ACTION:

1. Eugene Simpson Stadium Park, Alexandria, VA – A lone gunman opened fire on lawmakers and aids who were participating in a baseball practice in preparation for an upcoming charity game.  Capitol police officers assigned to a security detail for Representative Steve Scalise returned fire and engaged the gunman.  Two Alexandria Police officers also arrived and continued to engage the suspect in a gunfight that lasted roughly ten minutes.  The suspect was shot by police and later died at the hospital.  A total of four victims were shot by the gunman, all of them survived.

2. Aztec High School, Aztec, NM – A 21-year-old former student gained access to the school by disguising himself as a student during normal student arrival.  He wore a backpack which contained a 9mm handgun and made his way to the bathroom to prepare for his rampage.  After classes began he exited the bathroom and shot and killed two students.  The school went on immediate lockdown and his access to other students was thwarted.  The shooter then took his own life. 

3. Bronx-Lebanon Hospital, New York, NY – A former doctor and ex-employee of the hospital, armed with an assault rifle, opened fire on the 16th and 17th floor of the facility.  The gunman killed a doctor, wounded six other people, and attempted to set himself on fire before turning the gun on himself and taking his own life.

4. UPS Facility, San Francisco, CA – A disgruntled employee armed with two pistols began shooting his coworkers during a morning meeting at the facility.  The gunman killed four people and wounded two others before being confronted by police at which time he took his own life.

5. First Baptist Church, Sutherland Springs, TX – A single lunatic gunman opened fire on churchgoers who were attending Sunday morning services.  The gunman was eventually confronted and shot twice by a neighbor to the church as he was fleeing.  The suspect fled in his vehicle and eventually crashed at which time he shot himself in the head.  The suspect killed 26 people, ranging in age from 18 months to 77 years, and wounded 20 others in his rampage.  A total of fifteen empty magazines were located inside the church, each of which had a 30 round capacity.  

6. Fiamma Awning Company, Orlando, FL – A former disgruntled employee entered the business through a back door armed with a handgun and a large hunting knife.  He began shooting several former co-workers with most of them being shot in the head and some, multiple times.  Police arrived within two minutes and prepared to enter the building at which time the suspect shot himself.  A total of five people were shot and killed during the attack.

7. Route 91 Harvest Festival, Las Vegas, NV – A lone gunman hell-bent on executing as many innocent people as possible, opened fire from his 32nd-floor hotel room that overlooked the Route 91 Harvest Festival. Utilizing several rifles and magazines, he shot indiscriminately into the crowd of concertgoers killing 58 people and injuring 546.  The shooter fired over 1,100 rounds during the attack and ultimately committed suicide as police officers closed in on his location.

These seven incidents are fundamental examples of why EVERY organization should be training to deal with an active shooter or mass casualty incident.  These cowardly attacks have no bias or consistent methodology as to the location or targeted victims.  Every shooter has a different motive or perceived reason as to why they rationalize their actions and they typically PLAN TO DIE.  The truth is this, it can happen ANYWHERE, ANYTIME and to ANYONE.  What’s your plan?

To learn more about improving your physical security, training for a critical incident, or obtaining an evaluation for your school, church, business, or home, please visit our website at contact us or give us a call at 615-236-6484.  We are passionate about helping all organizations achieve real security.

5 Common Factors Present in Most Active Shooter Incidents

I believe every American asked themselves the same questions Monday morning upon seeing the news from Las Vegas.  Why did he do this?  Why do these keep happening? Will this ever stop?  Although it’s in our human nature to want to understand the why, at the end of the day, the “why” does not matter.  The “why” will not bring any of those victims back to their families.  Furthermore, the specific reason that each of these gunmen use to justify their actions is different for each one. 

Although in each incident there are a multitude of differing contributing factors, the ultimate responsibility lies with the person that made the decision to place so little value on human life and execute their fellow man.  As to the question of will these ever stop, the sobering answer is no.  Mass casualty incidents are on the rise in both frequency and body count.  So we must focus our attention on studying these events to aid us all in developing a plan of action for when they do occur.

Here are five common factors that exist in the majority active shooter incidents.

• Maximum Carnage.  Active shooters have one common goal and that is to inflict as much carnage and mayhem as possible.  They seek to feel powerful and victimize others to fill some void in their warped mind.  This can’t be predicted.  Each one of them has a different trigger that ultimately made them snap.

• Soft Targets.  They seek out and select soft targets.  Soft targets are those with lack of intense security and where they expect to meet the least amount of resistance. Selection of these soft targets increases their chances of being able to inflict as much damage as possible in a short amount of time.

• Reconnaissance.  Active shooters typically visit and are familiar with their target locations.  In the business, we refer to this as reconnaissance. They observe and familiarize themselves with the target location in order to maintain the upper hand should they meet any resistance.  The shooter in Las Vegas had been there for four days.  The shooter at the Pulse nightclub had frequented the location on prior occasions.  One of the shooters in San Bernardino actually attended the party first before leaving to arm up.  The two shooters at Columbine High School were students which means they were intimately familiar with that building and campus.  The point is this, they generally do some type of planning that involves the specific location to be targeted in preparation for the attack. 

• Suicide.  Active shooters are cowards.  They seek to victimize the most helpless to fuel their psychopathic driven rage.  They plan to die as part of the attack and most commit suicide just before or as they are being encountered by the police.  

• Mentally Ill.  Active shooters are crazy.  I know this seems elementary and is something we all assume but this is a very important aspect of these incidents.  Whether they were born crazy, became crazy over time, or just plain snapped one day, they are all still nuts and completely unpredictable.  So to my point about this, you can’t predict or control crazy but you can prepare for it.

Whether it’s your home, your business, your church, your child’s school, or any public place, HAVE A PLAN.  No matter where you go, ALWAYS identify at least two exits as a matter of habit.  Talk to your family about what exactly your plan is so that there is no having to think about it during any kind of major incident.  When under intense stress, we lose our ability to think rationally.  However, prior planning embeds itself in your brain so that you are able to recall it under stress.  In any critical incident, some will fall victim, those who have prepared will fall to their training.

To learn more about planning and training for a critical incident or strengthening the security presence for your home, church, school, or business, please visit our website or give us a call at 615-236-6484.  We are passionate about helping people and organizations achieve real security.