Tactical Thinking in Non-Tactical Environments

Tactical Thinking

This July, I will be presenting at the Campus Safety National Forum in Chicago (Follow them on Twitter @CampusSafetyEvents).  I will be presenting on Tactical Thinking in Non-Tactical Environments.  This presentation is anyone who works in a place of business that is not normally involved in making tactical decision.

Tactics refers to things people do in a crisis.  It's a way of doing things.  For example, when driving in snow and your car begins to slide, many drivers use the tactic of steering into the slide with the goal of preventing a crash.  This concept can be extended into non-crisis situations, but for the moment we'll stick to crisis situations.

There may be much discussion about tactics in schools, and often these discussions lose sight of the big picture.  Before Columbine, the tactics used by many police agencies involved establishing a perimeter and waiting for SWAT teams.  After Columbine police tactics shifted to a more aggressive role for police, using a team entry approach to active shooters.  Since the Sandy Hook massacre, there is more of an emphasis on single man entry, as experience has shown us that shooters will continue to shoot until they meet resistance.  At that point they often kill themselves, ending the incident.

Around the country, law enforcement officers are training schools in responding to Active Shooters.  I have much respect for law enforcement, and I count many of them among my friends.  However, I think they have lost sight of the big picture, which involves their target audience.  This is the people who work in in non-tactical environments.

Harris and Klebold in the Columbine cafeteria

 

 

 

 

 

Non-Tactical Environments

Non-tactical environments refers to work or living spaces that do not, as their primary focus, utilize combat tactics.  This specifically refers to K-12 facilities, institutes of higher learning, hospitals, and mundane work places.

As an Indiana School Safety Specialist, I focus on K-12 institutions, but the ideas here apply to any non-tactical environment, with adaptations specific to that work space. 

Educators, as a group, are different from other people.  They tend to be nurturing, supportive people to whom the idea of personal violence is abhorrent.  As such, they want to feel safe as much as the kids do.

Into this type of argument comes law enforcement officers with training that shocks and frightens educators.  They listen as the tactics are presented, and train in using them, but that training does not fundamentally alter who they are.  They will say, "This was really good training!  Everyone needs this!"  Yet when they go back to their classrooms, the daily demands of their non-tactical world soon overtake, then replace the tactical thinking with less terrifying, comfortable non-tactical thinking.

LTC Dave Grossman, in his On Sheep, Wolves and Sheepdogs analogy, describes the interaction between Sheep and Sheepdogs.  "The sheep generally do not like the sheepdog. He looks a lot like the wolf. He has fangs and the capacity for violence."  Yet we still go into schools and try to treat them like Sheepdogs, hoping they will become Sheepdogs.

Grossman writes, "They do not want to believe that there is evil in the world....The idea of someone coming to kill or harm their children is just too hard, so they choose the path of denial."

If we are to train educators correctly, we have to train them where they are.  We have to know our target audience and adjust to them.   We need to find a way to teach them to think tactically in non-tactical environments. 
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