There are a number of trainings available, including the Run, Hide, Fight video and ALICE (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate) training; there’s the mental health issue; the gun issue; there are myriad solutions — buzzers, cameras, locks, bulletproof desk tops — and we discuss some of these and their relative merits in Active Shooter Mirage (renamed Are Schools Focusing Too Much on the Active Shooter Scenario? for online publication).
It seems school districts are grasping at straws, trying to come up with a fix, including investing millions in some cases on security measures like cameras, which by themselves won’t stop a gunman bent on destruction.
Some are using the Run, Hide, Fight video because it’s endorsed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Education. That’s understandable. Educators aren’t experts on public safety issues and although campus shootings are still uncommon events, there’s a hysteria surrounding them and no school district wants to be the next Sandy Hook.
While interviewing sources for Active Shooter Mirage, the subject of supervision came up repeatedly. Teachers and school administrators have their hands full, I’m sure, but there has to be a way of connecting the dots between a student who is troubled and the student who takes the next step and decides to shoot up his classmates or commit another violent act.
Cost is a real issue in many of these districts, but it seems to me that a school resource officer, one trained in how to handle multiple situations, perhaps a retired law enforcement officer, would be invaluable on campus.
In a quote that ran in a previous issue of this magazine, Bill Lowe, associate professor of emergency management and terrorism at Jacksonville State University in Alabama, said, “If you can justify having a librarian in the school then how do you not have someone responsible for intruder protection, fire protection — someone trained to deal with emergencies?”
He suggested this person be a multi-dimensional first responder who might work for a school district for nine months and for the local police or sheriff’s office the rest of the time. The officer’s salary would be shared.
There are many other situations that occur far more frequently on campus than shootings, such as bullying, suicides and other violent incidents that would justify, by themselves, a police presence. This officer or officers wouldn’t just be someone with a gun but someone to provide supervision and help connect those dots between the troubled kid and the act of violence. In the worst case, an officer already on the grounds could limit the damage if gunfire should erupt, as was the case in one of the most recent shootings that occurred at Reynolds High School in Troutdale, Ore., on June 10, when two school resource officers responded within a minute and probably saved lives, although one student was killed.
There are no real solutions to the active shooter scenario, but having a police presence on campus, combined with some other prudent measures discussed in Active Shooter Mirage, is a no-brainer.
