by Joy Dike, PhD

Earlier this week the UCLA campus went on lockdown. An active shooter who murdered a professor and then committed suicide prompted the lockdown. Early news reports of how students and faculty handled the incident seem to indicate a well-handled situation. From our point of view as risk and security consultants, two things stand out about the UCLA lockdown:

• their mass notification system worked as intended
• faculty and students were able to shelter-in-place effectively

Mass notification is a term used to describe a system or platform that can deliver a message to a group of people (e.g., all faculty and students, all employees). Mass notification systems are typically employed to deliver a one-way message (i.e., recipients cannot respond to the message) via text message or email or both. Mass notification may be used to initiate lockdown, alert people to a danger like an active shooter, or alert people to hazardous weather conditions.

The early indications from UCLA point to a mass notification system that alerted faculty and students to shelter in place and stay away from campus if they were not yet on campus. This is why mass notification is such an important facet of an Emergency Action Plan - people need to know to stay where they are and barricade themselves; people need to know to stay away from the campus/building/location if they aren't there yet; people need to know what is happening to reduce panic and confusion. Most individuals in our society (barring elementary school students) have smart phones on or near their person at most times - a mass notification system that sends text message alerts is a smart and effective way to alert a large number of people to possible dangers. 

News reports also point to the fact that faculty and students were aware of how to shelter-in-place. In the context of a lockdown scenario, shelter-in-place means taking refuge in a small, interior room with few or no windows. Once inside the room, you should lock the doors, close and lock all windows, close shades and blinds, barricade the door, and move to a place in the room where you cannot be seen. Barricading the door and moving to a place you cannot be seen is particularly important in the case of an active shooter. In the case of schools, this usually means staying in the classroom you're already in and locking doors, barricading the door, and hiding; this seems to be how students and faculty at UCLA conducted themselves (those that were already in classrooms), even getting creative with outward opening doors. 

Drilling a lockdown scenario is important; we can't emphasize this enough. The more you practice these types of situations with your people - whether they're students, staff, or employees - the better equipped your people will be when a situation arises. Panic mode has a tendency to set in during an emergency; people may forget to lock the doors or close window blinds, so the more these things are practiced, the better people's response will be in a live event. 

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

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.

by Joy Dike, PhD

I recently read one of the most apt metaphors for why we should prepare for the possibility of terrorist threats in our nation's school. Written in the Foreword to Innocent Targets: When Terrorism Comes to School,  Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, U.S. Army (Ret.) compares preparing for a fire with preparing for a terrorist attack at a school. It's worth repeating a few paragraphs verbatim:

"Our children are dozens of times more likely to be killed by violence than fire, and thousands of times more likely to be seriously injured by violence as compared to fire. And yet, in any school you can look around and see fire sprinklers, smoke alarms, fire exits, and fire extinguishers. If we can spend all that money and time preparing for fire (and we should, since every life is precious), shouldn't we spend time and money preparing for the thing that is far more likely to kill or injure a child? 

The most negligent, unprofessional, obscene words anyone can ever say are, 'It will never happen here.' Imagine the firefighter saying, 'There will never be a fire in this building, and we don't need those fire extinguishers.'

When someone says, 'Do you really think there will be a terrorist act or a school shooting here?' I just point to the fire exit and say, 'Do you really think there will be a fire here? Statistically speaking, it is very unlikely that there would ever be a fire here. But we would be morally, criminally negligent if we did not prepare for the possibility. And the same is far, far more true of school violence.'" (pp.xviii-xix)


I really like this analogy because it speaks so clearly to the do-nothing strategy so many schools employ about a terrorist attack - school administrators often have the mindset that a terrorist attack or school shooting could never possibly happen on their campus. It's a problem for other people in other countries. Or at least other cities. "I don't have to worry about this problem in my community" is a mindset we find in far too many schools.

We need to break ourselves of this mindset. The methods to mitigate the threat of a terror attack are the same methods to mitigate the threat of an active shooter, and it starts with admitting that the school needs to have a risk assessment done and put a plan in place for various types of emergencies, not just fire emergencies. 

by Joy Dike, PhD 

Is there an emergency notification list clearly displayed in your place of work?

If an emergency were to occur, who would you call?

If there were suspicious behavior occurring, what would you do? Who would you contact?

If there were damaged equipment that made your workplace unsafe, who would you contact?

If there were risks to you safety, what would you do? Is there a clear chain of command for reporting risks? 

Most likely there is a fire evacuation map located somewhere prominent in your place of work. There should also be a list of people to call in case of an emergency; this list should be posted somewhere easily seen, and this list should be clear as to whom to contact under various emergency circumstances. A solid emergency notification list might include:

• 911
• Local Police
• Local Sheriff
• Local Fire & EMS
• Nearest ER
• Energy/Electricity Supplier
• Natural Gas Supplier
• Water Supplier
• Department Head/Supervisor

These are the basics and starting points for a solid emergency notification list. Different industries will need to add other contacts like OSHA, EPA, District Principal, School Principal, maintenance, etc.

If your place of work doesn't have a list like this, speak up and ask for one. It's important!