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

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.

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

We talk a lot about active shooters, mass shootings, and workplace violence here on the Invictus Consulting blog. Here we go again...

Recently a man walked into a leasing office at an apartment complex In Tallahassee and opened fire. What we know so far is that this man was acting out in retaliation for his wife having been fired from her job at the apartment complex earlier that day. He shot an employee of the apartment complex 6 times (not fatally) and then went back outside and casually waited for the police to come, looking, "like a man who had accomplished his goal."

Let's look at this case in the context of active shooter, mass shootings, and workplace violence. Is this man an active shooter? Is this an an instance of a mass shooting? Is this a case of workplace violence?

Remember that the agreed-upon definition (by the White House, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, the Department of Education, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency) of an active shooter is "an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated area; in most cases, active shooters use firearm(s) and there is no pattern or method to their selection." 

Is he an active shooter? Was he:

• attempting to kill people
• by shooting them
• in a populated area
• with no particular rhyme or reason for who he aims at 

The four major parts of the definition of an active shooter may fit in this case, IF we learn that the mindset of the perpetrator was to kill people indiscriminately. This information hasn't come to light yet. The first question is whether he intended to actually kill people. The other question is whether he was shooting randomly or if had chosen targets. This information also hasn't come to light, but the fact that he went to the leasing office (rather than the nearby apartment complex gym, pool, or computer room) may indicate that his targets were employees of the apartment complex rather than random individuals (or renters) at the apartment complex. Without knowing his mindset, we can't fully commit to calling this an active shooter case.

Was it a mass shooting? While there is little consensus on what defines a mass shooting (see this blog post and this white paper on active shooter statistics for a more detailed explanation of this topic), all definitions assume at least 3 people are shot. This instance, then, would not be classified as a mass shooting. 

Is this a case of workplace violence? There are four types of workplace violence offenders:

• Type I - The offender has no relationship with either the victims or the establishment. (This is random violence, often attempted robbery.)
• Type II - The offender currently receives services (e.g., retail, health) from the facility where they commit violence. (This often manifests as violence towards nurses or healthcare workers by their patients.)
• Type III - The offender is a current or former employee acting out against current or former place of employment. (If the woman who had been fired from the apartment complex had done the shooting [rather than her husband], the Tallahassee case would be Type III workplace violence.)
• Type IV - The offender has a relationship with an employee and domestic issues spill over into the workplace. (This often manifests as domestic disputes or domestic violence carrying over into the workplace of one or the other of the domestic partners.)

In the Tallahassee case, we can certainly classify the violence as Type IV workplace violence. This man had a relationship with an employee (his wife), and he committed violence at her workplace. Even though the wife was not present for the violence and her husband was not acting violently toward her, he still committed violence at a place of work where he had a relationship with an employee. 

Now that we've determined that this is not a mass shooting, is potentially not an active shooter situation, but is definitely a case of workplace violence, do you feel relieved? Safer? More scared? Glad that one less active shooter case has NOT happened in the United States? 

The reality is that workplace violence - whether it is a case of domestic violence, harassment, emotional abuse, threats, or an actual armed gunman - poses a greater threat to the daily safety of workers than do active shooters. Workplace violence occurs every day in places all over the country, and someone does not need to be wielding a gun to be classified as engaging in workplace violence; most instances of workplace violence do not involve guns at all. We've said it before, and we will say it again until workplaces are truly safe, but you need to have a workplace violence policy (i.e., a zero-tolerance policy), you need to make sure employees know about and follow the policy, and you need to make sure that your employees feel safe at work.

by Joy Dike, PhD

As consultants, we have the privilege to present our risk assessment findings and recommendations to the decision makers in an organization - CEOs, CFOs, Executive Directors, heads of security, general managers, engineers, IT directors, school Headmasters, and more. More often than not, these are the people who have actively sought out having a risk assessment performed for their institution and are keen on improving security.

With that said, there are times when our findings and recommendations fall on deaf ears. Sometimes the decision makers are offended by our findings or don't believe us. ("We do TOO have radio communication between the lobby and 10th floor!") Sometimes they don't understand the terminology. ("Each of the locations surveyed that have visitor traffic should employ visitor management systems managed by the same SMS systems database allowing for universal reporting.") Sometimes they're frightened by the findings. ("You mean anyone can just hop over that broken fence and have access to the school campus?!") And sometimes they're overwhelmed by how detailed the assessment it. ("You mean that we have 531 active users in the access control database? But we only have 75 employees!")

While our risk assessments are always done in an unbiased and objective manner, we understand that hearing about your organization's or institution's risks and threats is sometimes hard to acknowledge. This is why at Invictus Consulting we make sure that each debrief meeting isn't complete until the decision makers thoroughly understand both the findings and the recommendations.

by Joy Dike, PhD

​A zero-tolerance policy towards workplace violence starts with having employees report violent or threatening behavior. Without this first step, no policy will be truly effective against workplace violence. 

How can you create an environment where employees will feel comfortable reporting threats?

1. Encourage employees to report violent or threatening behavior

This means creating an environment where employees feel comfortable reporting issues to their supervisors or up the management chain and don't feel alienated from management.

2. Make sure employees know where and how to report violent or threatening behavior

This means having a clear and specific method for employees to report issues. It may mean reporting through:

• normal management channels (if they are comfortable with their supervisors and/or the issue doesn't involve someone up the management chain)
• a designated office (if they're not comfortable going to a direct supervisor)
• a designated person 
• a suggestion box (in case the reporter wants to remain anonymous)
• a hotline number 

Within any or all of these channels, there needs to be a  clear and defined method of reporting. That may mean something as simple as a conversation or a form filled out. Whatever the method, document it.

3. Publicize the policy

A solid policy and method of reporting issues isn't effective if employees don't know about it. Publicizing your workplace violence policy could be as simple as: 

• posting it on a bulletin board
• including it in an employee newsletter
• including a notice distributed with paychecks

4. Make sure your employees know that you will take their report seriously

Your employees need to know that their concerns will be heard and that someone will follow up on the issue. A procedure whereby employees will be notified about how their report was addressed will go a long way towards building confidence in the system.


The first step in creating a zero-tolerance policy towards workplace violence is creating an atmosphere in which your employees feel comfortable reporting issues and feel like their voices will be heard. Click here to download our white paper about workplace violence.

by Joy Dike, PhD

We come across a vast array of office cultures. The ones that give rise to the most problems are those that lack an environment of communication, but at the same time cultivate an environment of fear of rejection or reprisals for speaking up. If you find that that is your institution, then the following is for you:

The Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) has one overarching suggestion for reducing workplace violence hazards: "One of the best protections employers can offer their workers is to establish a zero-tolerance policy toward workplace violence. This policy should cover all workers, patients, clients, visitors, contractors, and anyone else who may come in contact with company personnel."

There are many aspects that go in to a zero-tolerance policy, but it all starts with making sure employees report and log violent and threatening behaviors by coworkers. How can you kill your zero-tolerance policy before it even gets off the ground?

1. Make sure your employees feel scared of their supervisors. Double down and make sure they're also too afraid to report violent or threatening behavior up the normal management channels. 

2. Make sure your employees are alienated from management. You don't want employees feeling comfortable enough with management to bring their concerns forward.

3. Make sure your employees have no idea how to report violent or threatening behavior. Better yet, don't even set a policy for reporting violent or threatening behavior. If there's no policy, you won't get any reports and your job is done!

4. Make sure your employees are clear that no action will be taken if they report violent or threatening behavior. Try a paper shredder at the bottom of the suggestion box. That way reports won't even be seen let alone investigated. 

In all seriousness, employees need to have a clear picture about how and when to report violent or threatening behavior. No workplace violence policy will be effective if people don't know how to report threats. Come back in the next few days to learn some steps towards implementing a solid and effective zero-tolerance workplace violence policy.