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.

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!

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

The interview process is never used a source of blame or condemnation - it is a data collection tool used to uncover gaps in security. With that said, sometimes interviewees are nervous to answer questions truthfully, fearing that they will be reprimanded or seen as ratting out the administration. This is precisely one of the times at which being a woman in the world of security consulting is a virtue. So many security consulting firms are paramilitary in nature - the majority of their assessors are ex-military and ex-law enforcement men, which can be intimidating. Imagine being nervous about an interview in the first place and then sitting face-to-face with an intimidating man who looks like he just stepped out of a RoboCop movie who asks you who has access to the building. "ummmm.... I think people have to sign in and the doors have keycard access...." (Never mind admitting to this man that sometimes teachers leave doors propped open! Best leave that little confession out of the interview...)

As a woman in the security industry, I see the value in sometimes having a less intimidating person conduct interviews at schools. We want people to be completely open and honest (otherwise we aren't really uncovering gaps in security), and the reality is that women faculty and staff are apt to be more open and honest with a woman interviewer.  

Being a woman in the security industry is a topic we will continue to explore on this blog, so come back regularly to take a look at this subject with us.

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

"I'm so mad I could kill someone."

Have you ever heard someome say something like this at work? 

Listen, workplace violence is a serious issue, and threatening behavior in the workplace is not something to take lightly. The FBI indicates that there is no profile or litmus test that exists to demonstrate whether an employee might become violent. There are, however, some problem situations that may give rise to violence – personality conflicts between coworkers; mishandled termination or disciplinary action; weapons at the worksite; or drug or alcohol abuse at the worksite. Other risk factors are personal but spill over into the workplace – the breakup of a marriage or romantic relationship; family conflict; financial or legal problems; or emotional problems.
 
It is well documented that individuals rarely snap and engage in workplace violence without first exhibiting behaviors of concern. Knowing and reporting these behaviors of concern is just as important as understanding the problem situations and risk factors that often precede behaviors of concern. Such behaviors of concern could include depression, threats, menacing behavior, erratic behavior, aggressive outburst, offensive conversation, jokes referring to violence, increasing tardiness, increasing absenteeism, worsening relationships with coworkers, decreased productivity, homicidal comments, increasing belligerence, hypersensitivity to criticism, and verbal abuse. Of course any of these behaviors alone is not necessarily more suggestive of potential workplace violence, but many of these behaviors taken together should raise warning flags. 

Let's revisit the person who yelled, "I'm so mad I could kill someone!" Is this a threat that should be taken seriously? The answer really lies in the collective past behavior of the individual making the threat. Let's say this particular person has been increasingly tardy to work, has showed a marked decrease in productivity, and has regularly shown up to work disheveled. In this case, yes, this threat should be taken seriously. 

Having a risk management plan that incorporates workplace violence is an important part of keeping your employees, clients, and place of business safe. Make sure people understand what behavior your expect from them and how to detect erratic and threatening behavior.

by Joy Dike, PhD

Maybe you have solid policies and procedures in place for security. You may even have a dedicated security director and security staff onsite. In fact, you may even have daily communication from your security team. That gets you an A+ score in our books.

With what said, the question is how can you improve your security management?

In the legendary words of Spinal Tap, "Where can you go from there? What do you do if you need that extra push over the cliff? You put it up to eleven." 

Indeed. Let's work on ramping up your security plan to an 11. There's always room for improvement. 

How can you do this? The answer is by having an outside security consultant audit your plan, procedures, and policies on a regular basis. This may mean an annual audit, or it may mean an audit once every 3 years or every 5 years. Whatever your budget and schedule calls for, make a plan to have your program assessed on a consistent timetable.

Familiarity breeds complacency. Complacency breeds risk. Even if your security plan is A+ 10 out of 10, failing to evaluate the program regularly will lead to complacency, and eventually risk will creep back in. 

Pat yourself on the back for a job well done with solid security management, and then turn it up to 11 and have someone audit you.

by Joy Dike, PhD

To learn more about what it looks like to have a risk assessment done for a school, read this Education Sector Case Study.