by Joy Dike, PhD

​Children spend almost a third of their day at school on a school day. Add in sports and extra-curriculars for the older grades, and some students spend more than half of their waking hours at school on a school day. With schools being the primary place children spend their time, isn’t it crucial that these are safe places where parents, students, faculty, and staff feel secure and are prepared for possible emergencies?
 
Any child in school, right down to little ones in preschool, will have drilled a fire evacuation plan at some point in the school year. Fire evacuation plans are vital, but a school’s emergency plans should not stop there. The unfortunate fact is that youth violence and school violence are real features of today’s world. While active shooter events at schools like Sandy Hook, Columbine, Umpqua Community College, and Virginia Tech are routinely sensationalized by the new media, the truth is that school associated violent deaths are rare. With that said, school violence that includes things like threats, attacks, fighting, bullying, and weapons on campus is a serious issue that schools need to address and mitigate. And while school associated violent deaths are rare, it behooves school administrators to have an Emergency Action Plan in place for the unthinkable scenario that an active shooter does enter the school or campus. Schools should have an Emergency Action Plan that includes lockdown procedures, evacuation procedures, off-site mustering procedures, and emergency names and numbers. Most importantly, an Emergency Action Plan should be drilled regularly.

If you are a parent of a child in private school, ask your school's administration if there is an Emergency Action Plan in place. If your child is in a public school, you too have the right make your voice heard and advocate for a safer school. Don't assume an Emergency Action Plan is in place - ask about it and advocate for it on behalf of your children and their teachers.

We can't stress this enough - a plan is only as good as the level of practice and understanding your employees have of it.

We have assessed many businesses and schools that have impressive Emergency Action Plans complete with an active shooter plan, off site muster locations*, and intelligent mass notification procedures. However, our dialogue with teachers or employees often uncovers the fact that they have no idea what to do in the event of an emergency or active shooter, they've never drilled the Emergency Action Plan, and they have never actually seen the full Emergency Action Plan document. All the muster stations in the world won't help if the people meant to run the muster stations don't know it's their job!

Consider this scenario: there is a bomb threat at your school and, according to your Emergency Action Plan, Ms. Smith is tasked with getting all fourth graders to the offsite muster station. Ms. Smith, however, has never seen the Emergency Action Plan and has no idea that she has a special role. She doesn't even know that there are offsite muster locations. Is this Emergency Action Plan any good? Again, a security plan is only as good as the level of practice and understanding the employees have of the plan.

If you have an Emergency Action Plan, you need to make sure your employees:

• know about the plan 
• understand the plan
• know their specific role in the plan
• PRACTICE the plan 

by Joy Dike, PhD

As security professionals and active shooter experts, we at Invictus Consulting are often asked our opinion of situations that are very recent or currently unfolding. Case in point, we were asked to comment on the recent shooting at the KIA plant in West Point, Georgia earlier in the week. KIA PLANT SHOOTING 

We do not comment on situations or pick apart action plans of “breaking” events. Rather we allow the situation to resolve, law enforcement to conduct their investigations and then wait for all the facts of the situation to come out before commenting on that specific incident. This at times causes news producers and journalists a little heartburn as they want to fill airtime with anything related to the event…sometimes facts “be damned.”  We are always happy to provide expert insight into the situation by educating the viewer/listener in trends in work place (or school place) violence, the importance of and steps one should take to create an emergency action plan, characteristics of these perpetrators…you know the boring factual based important stuff.

Following is a great article by Scriven King at www.thesecuritydialogue.org   We love to give credit when credit is due and this guy nailed it on the head! Wild speculation and lack of facts do provide fodder for “info-tainment” but as security professionals our industry should be held to a very high standard. After all, we are only trying to protect human lives.

Here is the article…it is well worth reading! 
Scriven King Article

Want to know how you can help prevent active shooter or work/school place violence? Attached is a great article about several mass killings that have taken place in the U.S. and how in every instance they were many warning signs that fell on deaf ears. In most cases these events are even broadcast ahead of time via social media. We all fail to listen to those that display the signs. It is easy to write off behaviors as exaggerations or "active imaginations."

By reporting and intervening early, individuals capable of these actions could be thwarted. We at Invictus Consulting have been advising on paying close attention to certain behaviors or actions as part of your Emergency Planning. A proper plan is proactive, not just a step by step of what to do after the event happens.

As Risk Management Consultants and Active Shooter Experts, we would have loved to have written this article ourselves. We are also smart enough to know to give credit where it is due: The following piece by Mark Manson perfectly articulate in trying to get you to change your understanding of these incidents. Perhaps that will help prevent others.

Mark Manson - How we miss the point on School Shootings

Sometimes government bureaucracy helps others it hinders. Case in point is the following article about a district on Ohio. What happened? Concerned parents wanted to make their schools safer to help protect against the unthinkable, an active shooter situation.

Article HERE

After having received training from the county sheriff’s office and fire district about active shooters, and following FBI and Homeland Security guidelines about utilizing barricades to thwart active shooters, the parents raised private funds to procure $30,000 worth of door barricades. This would outfit each classroom with a device that the teacher could use to barricade the students in the room to protect them. This cost the school district nothing, as all monies for it was raised by the parents in the community through donations and corporate help.

The school board loves it. The police endorse it. The fire department endorses it. All should be great, right? Wrong. The local building code department says these temporary barricades violate Ohio building code. Sometimes government cannot get out of its own way.

This is not to criticize the people at the building code enforcement agency, they are doing what tax payers want them to do which is enforce building code. The critique is that in an environment when threats are changing and adapting, protection can be hampered by law. Is many states emergency action plans are going to be required by law. These plans will absolutely require the ability to barricade doors when necessary. It does not require much imagination to see how it will be possible to have one law that says you must do one thing, while having a code or law on the books stating that that specific action is outlawed.

Know what your local or state requirements and/or objections are to your emergency plan? We do. 

Invictus Consulting constantly deals with these type of implementation situations and can guide you through the process.  Contact us for assistance.

Want to know where most active shooter incidents happen? According to the FBI's latest study which measured the active shooter incidents in the USA between 2000 and 2013 we know the following:

• Out of all the incidents 45.6% occurred in areas of commerce. These include businesses open to pedestrian traffic, closed to pedestrian traffic and malls.
  

• Educational environments were the second largest segment with 24.4% of the incidents.
  

Startling facts for those in business and educational environments.  Need an active shooter emergency response plan?  We at Invictus Consulting LLC specialize in assessing your site and developing a specific plan for your facility with your organizations culture in mind.  Contact us to learn more.