Geezuss. Since I last posted about the one-year anniversary of Sandy Hook, there have already been at least one deadly school shooting and several massacres or near massacres at a shopping mall or three. Will it ever end? No. Not in the foreseeable future. We don’t have space here for me to theorize about why this is happening and why it will not go away, at least in my lifetime. Okay. In truth, we do have space but I think it might be much more critical for me to talk about is what we can do about it.
CHOKE AND THROTTLE THE NEXT SHOOTER BEFORE HE CAN CRASH THROUGH THE FRONT GATE
Surely, if you’ve followed some of my posts, you may already be a step ahead of me. You might already know the way I think. For instance:
- Dramatically change the way we train teachers, security, school administrators, even responding police.
- Evidence shows that, at Sandy Hook, local police were trained for single-officer deployment.
- While Fire Drills are continuously trained, rare is the school that holds Dynamic-Simulation or Realistic Scenario Training(s)!
- My research & experience shows that teachers and students who participate in realistic scenario training draw the same benefit as experiencing a real Active Shooter Scenario and Surviving!
- Empower all school staff to announce a lock-down.
- Maybe more importantly, there is no evidence that the tactical option of Evacuation was ever discussed and/or trained for.
- The most recent Active Shooter Response Protocol is Run, Hide, or Fight. Students, I suggest, should be trained repeatedly on how to escape the shooter, but, failing that, to effectively hide, and, as a last resort, I train them how to effectively fight the miscreant as he walks through the Door!
- Lockdowns work. Don’t get me wrong. But only under the “right” conditions. Under the “wrong” conditions, however, children who lock-down and try to hide have been easily executed where they hide.
- At Sandy Hook a Lock-Down was never announced!!! The principal and the school psychologist were not in their office(s) when The Shooter shot his way into the school.
- No one else has the authority to announce a Lock Down besides the principal.
- The doors to the first two classrooms were unlocked! Think of it, folks. The shooter was able to stroll, without the slightest hint of resistance, into those two classrooms and mindlessly slaughter 20-some beautiful and innocent children!
- Even if a Lock Down was called for, chances are, this mental-case with a vise-like fixation on killing as many “targets” as he could, would likely have shot his way into these classrooms and massacred everyone.
- Police responders did the best they could, but, still, it took nine minutes for them to arrive on the scene after being alerted by cell phone.
- The average response time in these situations is something like 14-minutes, so the Sandy Hook response was ahead of the curve, but
- The slaughter was over by the time they arrived (police). Lanza took his own life as police moved toward the building.
CONCLUSION
Simply that mentally-ill boys and men with high-powered firearms will continue this madness until we stop them. Why? Because They Can! It may take a while, but we need to make this slaughter hard-to-do! How? Parents, teachers, fellow students, law enforcement, family physicians and psychologists need to be on the alert for Red Flags. More, they need to report what they see, hear and even sense to the proper authorities.
More Suggestions in the next post. In the meantime, stay safe.
Hammer