by Joy Dike, PhD

Fort Knox. I'm sure the name conjures images of all sorts of heavily fortified deterrent devices. The reality? 

• Fortress-like
• Electric fences
• Heavily armed guards
• Alarms
• Video cameras
• Granite-lined vault
• Torch-resistant and drill-resistant walls
• Combination locks
• 22 ton blast door
• Mine field
• Barbed razor wire
• No visitors allowed

Fort Knox rightly deserves its reputation as a heavily fortified site!  

Why are we talking about Fort Knox today? Sometimes we go in to a risk assessment and our client worries that we want to turn their school or campus or building into Fort Knox. They're worried that we're going to recommend fortified fences, cameras in every crevice of the campus, alarms on every single door, a visitor management policy that prohibits all visitors, electronic access control measures on every single ingress/egress point, and armed guards at every entrance and roving the campus.

Listen, we do believe in the importance of physical security measures such as fences, alarms, cameras, access control, and guards. But unless your culture and policies reflect a commitment to safety, you could be as heavily fortified as Fort Knox and still be vulnerable. You could have card readers at every single door in the facility, but if people routinely leave doors ajar, the technology has done you no good. You could have CCTV cameras on every inch of the campus, but if no one is watching the displays in real time, the technology has not improved your security. You could have a visitor management policy that checks all identification with registered sex offenders, but if you  have areas of the campus that are wide open (i.e., no fences) and people can simply walk on to campus without going through a security check point, then your technology has not made the campus a safer place.

Technology is not a crutch. Without instilling proper values and policies to create a culture of safety, physical security measures can only go so far in protecting your people. 

by Joy Dike, PhD

Having and practicing a lockdown procedure at your school is something we ceaselessly advocate for here at Invictus Consulting. We believe that drilling your plan is just as important as having a plan. We've talked about this multiple times before on this blog - look here and here and here and here and here for further discussions of this topic.

What I want to talk about today is a scenario in which your school needs to go in to lockdown because of something happening nearby. Earlier this month in Katy, Texas a disgruntled former employee walked into the front door of his former place of work, yelled something about his life being ruined, aimed his shotgun, shot at multiple people (killing one of them), and then took his own life. This man had been fired from the company recently and was out to get revenge. We could discuss this situation in the context of workplace violence and warning signs or situations that may cause an employee to commit an act of violence, but the focus of this blog post is on the nearby schools. A high school, a junior high school, and an elementary school are located directly across the street from the business where the shooting occurred. These schools (Morton Ranch High School, Morton Ranch Junior High, and Franz Elementary) went into immediate lockdown. 

There are a few issues to think about here. (Before we go any further, please understand that this commentary is in no way reflective of the Katy ISD Police or schools and how they conducted themselves. The active shooter situation and subsequent school lockdowns in Katy, Texas are merely serving as the jumping off point for a thought exercise here.):

• Why didn't the other nearby schools go in to lockdown as well? A map of the area seems to indicate that there are at least three other schools within a mile of the business where the shooting occurred and another four schools less than three miles from the shooting. That's a total of 10 schools within a 3 mile radius of this incident. It seems that the local school district department put the first three schools on lockdown, but if you're a parent or educator or employee at one of the other nearby schools, wouldn't you want to keep your students safe as well? A lockdown plan (in addition to being drilled regularly), should stipulate what circumstances qualify for initiation of the lockdown procedure.
• At least three nearby schools did go into lockdown mode even though nothing violent happened at these schools; they were put on lockdown because of a nearby incident. If you are an administrator or educator, you need to realize and understand that incidents at other locations can affect you, even if the incident is not on your campus. Many administrators and educators that we work with think that nothing bad will ever happen at their school. Whether or not that is a reality, the fact is that bad things may happen near your school, and this should be reason enough to write and drill a lockdown procedure.
• The three schools put on lockdown were ordered to do so by the local school district police department. We've met with a lot of school administrators who feel that they are perfectly well prepared for a lockdown or active shooter event because the local police department has a SWAT team. While a trained SWAT team may be effective in neutralizing an active shooter, are you going to rely on that SWAT team to set up your mass notification system? Audit your security protocols? Audit your camera and alarm coverage? No, of course you're not - its not the job of the SWAT team to write an evacuation plan for you or to make sure your mass notification system is in place and functioning properly. The job of the SWAT team is to neutralize the threat. The point here is that having a local police department and/or SWAT team is not enough - you need to have a proper security audit performed for your school and a proper lockdown procedure written and drilled. 

We are always sorry to hear about active shooter events, and our condolences go out to the family of the employee killed by the active shooter. However, we do strive to learn from active shooter incidents, and this particular incident has the ability to teach us a few things about school lockdown procedures. 

by Joy Dike, PhD

We talk about workplace violence frequently here at Invictus Consulting, but we feel pretty strongly about the topic and will continue to talk about it until its no longer a problem. We've written a white paper on the topic if you'd like to check it out. 

by Joy Dike, PhD

Do you ever feel like you're in an episode of The Simpsons when it comes to conducting drills at your place of business or school?

People just don't seem to take these things seriously - people hiding in the bathroom during a fire drill, administration singing off that a drill has been done when it hasn't, or a drill being conducted at 3am on a Sunday when no one is in the building or on campus. There are too many ways to disregard the serious nature of emergency drills.

The fact is, though, that DRILLS SAVE LIVES. It is well documented that in times of severe stress your body goes in to auditory exclusion (your hearing worsens severely), you get tunnel vision (you lose vision on the periphery), you lose fine motor skills, and your thought process declines. By drilling and practicing what to do in the event of an emergency - whether its fire, tornado, active shooter, etc. - you are training your body and mind to perform the correct tasks when the time comes.

Imagine you're an elementary school teacher. You've taught in the same classroom for years. You've looked at the same fire evacuation plan on the back of your classroom door for years but never actually walked the path and practiced an evacuation. An actual fire occurs and all of a sudden your body goes into panic mode - you get auditory exclusion, tunnel vision, and decreased motor skills; now you literally can not follow the directions on the fire evacuation plan. Your students are looking at you to lead them, and you are frozen in panic, quite literally unable to think clearly. This is where drill save lives - if this teacher had practiced evacuating the classroom multiple times, over and over, month after month, year after year, her muscle memory would have allowed her to lead the children on the correct path to safety (even with auditory exclusion and tunnel vision). 

Please, take emergency drills seriously. They are not a waste of time; they are not planned as a way to make your day more difficult; they are not irrelevant. Practicing what you would do in an emergency could save your life.

With that said, let's end this very serious issue on a lighter note:

by Joy Dike, PhD

Here at Invictus Consulting we help a lot of schools and businesses improve their Emergency Action Plan. One part of an Emergency Action Plan is where to congregate if your campus, building, or property needs to be evacuated. Some people like to call this a "muster station," which simply means a pre-determined location to assemble people - students, employees, visitors, etc.

The question that should be asked with a muster station is: What are you going to do once everyone is there? This is a particularly crucial question for schools. If you've evacuated all students, faculty, and staff to a muster location, what do you do once everyone is there? Can parents just drive up and grab their kids? How do you even alert parents that their children are at a muster station rather than at the school?  How are you going to account for all persons? Will you keep students grouped by grade? By last name? Let them all mill around randomly? What about special needs students? Injured students? Can students have their cell phones? 

This is where a Reunification Plan is important. A Reunification Plan will give you policies, procedures, and concrete steps to take when faced with an evacuation and the need to reunify students with their parents. Like any other emergency plan, a Reunification Plan should be drilled regularly by teachers and staff so that they understand their roles and responsibilities.

Happy Star Wars day everyone - May the fourth be with you!
In honor of our favorite trilogy, we'd like to share a stormtrooper / security parallel. 

We sometimes come across clients who have the mindset that if their security risks are written down on paper, they are somehow more liable were disaster to strike. 

We liken this to an ostrich with its head in the sand - if I can't see the problem it must not exist!

This is an illogical mindset, and it can do your organization more harm than good. Having a risk assessment done for your organization, campus, building, etc. does not increase your chances of disaster. Do you think a tornado cares if you've written an emergency plan? You write the emergency plan for tornadoes to be proactive, not to outsmart the tornado. The same holds for an active shooter. You do a risk assessment and write an emergency action plan to be proactive and to be ready in case such a tragedy were to occur. 

Some people feel that having a risk assessment done and writing and emergency action plan for an active shooter somehow AIDS AND ABETS an active shooter. Listen, you are NOT outsmarting an active shooter by NOT writing an emergency action plan - that is just flawed logic.

Don't stick your head in the sand and cover your eyes and ears and pretend like your school, church, campus, building, organization is free from threats. Be proactive and be smart and be ready.

We're super excited about May the Fourth (i.e., Star Wars day) over here. Here's a quick preview of tomorrow's Star Wars themed blog:

​Are you a trendsetter? 

Stand out from the crowd and be proactive about your security management. 

Sad boring stormtroopers just stand back and let chaos happen. Awesome trendsetter stormtrooper is proactive. He's got swagger, and he's got a plan.

​Come back tomorrow on May the 4th to learn more!