Question For Jerry

[RyanSixer]

I figured other people might benefit from this answer.

Hey, I just got through the powerpoint about the Active Shooter. Thanks for sending it.

I was wondering; if the shooter/threat is an employee, and you go over the plans for escaping an emergency like this with the entire staff, wouldn't the shooter know the way people would be exiting, where they'd be hiding, how to stay safe, etc, and use this to their 'advantage?'

I mean, there's no way to say, "Alright, we're having a safety meeting at three o'clock, everybody's welcome to come... Except Jim over there; he's suspicious."

What would the right way for a business to handle this situation be?

Thanks for your work in the DHS, my friend.

- Ryan

 

[Glocktogo]

What everyone who requested the presentation didn't receive is the Tactical Response Plan. That's the plan where management and law enforcement are cognizant of what mitigation measures will be taken by the workplace in the event of an active shooter. We don't share that with the entire workforce, even in my environment where everyone has been vetted with a security threat assessment.

The evacuation plans are generic by nature, because you will not always know the initial point of attack and direction of travel until it happens. Hopefully, you'll have multiple avenues of escape or evasion, so the shooter(s) can't cover them all. The Aurora shooter obviously chose his attack plans well. He had everyone trapped in a location where they would have to funnel into a kill zone in order to escape. The layout of a movie theater didn't allow for use of hard cover, just concealment behind the rows of chairs. It was a brilliant plan, executed in a mediocre fashion. I say that because the actual death toll would've been much higher if he actually knew how to employ his weapons well and avoided the malfunction prone drum magazine. He also didn't follow through apparently, because reports indicate that he didn't expend all his ammunition.

In the full Active Shooter presentation, I spend quite a bit of time on how to assess your environment on a daily basis. I began looking at the world around me differently back in the 80's. I spent quite a bit of time in the Corps over in Europe, North Africa and the Persian Gulf. Terrorism was in it's heyday back then, with bombings at clubs, bars and restaurants where US service members tended to hang out being a favorite method of attack. Another favorite was kidnappings for political ransom. Threat vectors back in those days were as much leftist and separatist groups as Islamic, if not more so. Groups like the IRA, Red Brigades, Basque ETA, Red Army Faction, Dev Sol, assorted Algerian and Tunisian groups and your standard assortment of middle east terrorist organizations of the day, the PLO, Hezbollah and Hamas. Wherever you went, you had your head on a swivel. You learned to be alert to everything and everyone in your environment.

OPSEC and principles of personal security are something I just live by. It's not even a conscious effort until a blip appears on the radar screen. Having lots of training and spending time in high threat environments will alter your thought process. Over the years I've trained my wife in them and her actions in public compliment my own (except when she let's her temper get the best of her). When I enter a facility, I assess the exits, choke points, fire extinguishers and sprinkler systems, door locks, lighting controls, windows, etc. it's amazing to me how many people will work in a building day after day for years and never even notice these simple things. In any emergency, familiarity with those simple items may be the difference between being a victim and being a survivor.

It's the same for people. I assess everyone who enters a space I occupy. I assume nothing. Be polite, be professional, have a plan to kill everyone you meet. Yes, even when watching a movie. When my wife and I first started dating, she thought I was ignoring her when we went out. I had to explain to her that I was paying attention to what she said, but I was watching everyone else. She wasn't a threat, but they might be.

Another thing I spend time on is how to develop a hasty counter-attack plan and implement it. If you can't break contact and have to "hole up", you should be prepared to confront the attacker if you have the will and the heart to do it. Statistics bear out that your average active shooter will either break contact or self-terminate when resistance is met. These are after all, cowards looking for easy targets. Expressing their dominance in a world that's denied them any form of it is easily as important as the headlines they create.

This is a subject I can spend hours on. Feel free to ask whatever questions you may have.

 

[jmtgsx]

Thanks for that, Jerry. You are an asset to the forum.

 

[RyanSixer]

Thanks for the explanation, Jerry!