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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The Sky is NOT Falling - School Fatalities

A Serious Look at School Fatalities

According to a study released in 2012, wolves are the number one cause of death in the United States.  After the Reynolds HS shooting, a group called Everytown for Gun Safety posted a map showing 74 school shootings since the Sandy Hook massacre.  What do these two events have in common?  They are not true.

The fictitious Wolf Study was cited in a rather humorous article in The Onion, a website of parodies and satirical stories.  Though the article involves made-up facts, it rings true in several ways as borne out by research in the field of what is known as terror management theory TMT.  TMT research indicates that people often become convinced that they are more likely to experience catastrophic but extremely rare events than factual risk evaluation indicates.  For example, though most passengers on commercial aircraft survive aviation crashes, most people believe they will be killed if they are on a plane that crashes.  TMT also explains why many people fear events that are bizarre and unusual even more than events that pose much greater actual risk because they as far more common and even deadly. 

Besides delivering humor, this story highlighted how wildly inaccurate statistical data is often used to generate increased and sometimes unrealistic levels of fear among the public.

The second study was of great concern because it used a flawed process to identify school shootings.  Shortly after it's release, The Blaze and CNN took a closer look at the figures.  The 74 alleged school shootings were reduced to 15 which included university shooting incident.  While 15 incidents is still tragic, this data provides a much more accurate indication of risk in a nation of more than 300 million people and 55 million K12 students.  It is important to keep in mind that while many people automatically think of any “school shooting” in terms of active shooter events, the majority of these fifteen tragedies are not active shooter incidents but are in fact, far more typical of the types of shootings that have claimed many more lives than active shooter incidents.  Though they are truly catastrophic and shocking events, active shooter incidents are not the leading cause of violent death at school.

Early in 2014, Safe Havens International commissioned me to do a study on the leading causes of death in K12 schools in the US.  On April 16, 2014, this study was released as part of a project for the Maine Department of Education.  It was called Relative Risks of Death in US K12 Schools.

The study centers around a very important question. Are active shooter incidents being addressed at the expense of the all­‐hazards approach? This question is a crucial one because preventable school fatalities may be occurring if resource allocation does not match the actual safety risks for K12 schools.

This was an observational study of open-source material.  Events were identified using the Department of Homeland Security definition of an Active Shooter, “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 firearms(s) and there is no pattern or method to their selection of victims.”

The Top Five Causes of Death in Schools from 1998-2012:
1) School Transportation-Related Crashes (525)
2) School Homicides (489)
3) School Suicides (129)
4) Active Shooter Incidents (62)
5) Interpersonal Disputes (61)

The following were findings from the study:
1) Active Shooter Incidents are not the leading threat for fatal incidents schools face.
2) Active Shooter Incidents in schools (K12) are not happening more frequently.
3) Active Shooter Incidents should not be the primary focus for a school's prevention, mitigation and emergency preparedness efforts.
4) More focus needs to be given to school transportation-related safety.
5) More focus needs to be given to school homicides and school suicides.

Schools are better served using a risk assessment-based approach to school safety, as part of the All-Hazards emergency planning model.  School fatalities are a serious issue, one that is better served through proper data analysis and research.   My colleagues and I have spent considerable time and energy developing some of the most advanced training resources to address active shooter events available including the IS-360 training program which was part of the 2013 White House School Safety Initiative and recently released web courses.  At the same time, the research indicates that we should also address the less publicized situations that claim more lives than active shooter incidents as well.

 Oh, and keep an eye out for the wolves.

School Safety Training - What's the Research?

School Safety Training

Since the Sandy Hook massacre, there has been a figurative explosion in the amount of school safety training provided to schools.  On the surface, this would appear to be a good thing, but is it really?  Many of the training "programs" are not based on research, provide no continuity of training, are not criterion-based, and there is confusions as to who is actually being trained.  For the sake of brevity, one of these issues will be addressed at a time.

There is considerable information out there on how the human mind is affected by high -stress information.  LTC Dave Grossman has written extensively on the subject, as has Loren Christensen, Kenneth Murray, and others.  Dr. Gary Klein has done considerable research on how decisions are made under stress, Dr. Dewey Cornell has done considerable research on youth crime and school safety.  Yet, very few programs being used today rely on any of them to back what they do.

Dr. Cornell said, "Some people leap to dubious ideas, like bulletproof backpacks and arming teachers, when in fact our energy and resources are better spent dealing with less sensational everyday problems like bullying, or mental health issues like depression."  Yet the focus since Sandy Hook have been on "proactive responses" to Active Shooter Situations.  This, despite the fact that from 1998 to 2012, there were 22 Active Shooter Incidents in K12 schools, with 62 deaths in those incidents. 

While one death is a tragedy, schools have finite resources to apply to all the dangers they face.  In that same time frame, many more students died in school transportation-related crashes (525).  Many more students died by homicide (339) or by suicide (129), than by Active Shooter (62) (Satterly, 2014).  Yet millions of dollars have been spent to prepare for Active Shooter Incidents, and little for suicide and crime prevention in schools, or in better training for school bus drivers.

Anytime a school proposes a new program, the question should be asked, "What research supports this program?"  If they can't provide solid, peer-reviewed research that back what they do, then the school can do better.

Next: Continuity of Training.

School Lockdown is an Option

School Lockdown

"Lockdown only" protocols are ineffective, "lockdown failed Sandy Hook", lockdown led to a 92% failure rate at Sandy Hook.  These are some of the comments found on the Internet in regards to school lockdowns.

A "straw man argument" is when a person creates a weak position for an opponent, in order to falsely strengthen their own.  The "lockdown only protocols are ineffective" argument is just such an argument.  While many schools have Active Shooter Protocols that feature lockdown, I have met few educators who practice "lockdown only."  Good school safety officers teach school staff to constantly assess a situation and make decisions accordingly.  Thus, even if the Active Shooter Protocol says 'lockdown', they may decide the best alternative is to evacuate.  It should be pointed out that "Run, Hide, Fight" advocates state, "There are no right responses," and that their protocol is as bereft of detail for staff as a "lockdown only" protocol.

An actual claim has been made that "lockdown failed Sandy Hook."  This claim does not hold up to the facts.  Principal Hochsprung and school psychologist Mary Sherlach left a conference room with Natalie Hammond to go see what was going on in the hallway.  When they got out into the hallway, they told the others in the room, "Shooter! Stay put!" (Reuters, 2012) What was she telling them to do?  Lockdown.  Natalie Hammond was wounded, but crawled into the conference room and lay in front of the door to secure it.    The number of people who were killed in the conference room?  Zero. 

Kaitlin Roig was a teacher in the first classroom in the hallway.  She had 14 students.  Her door was shut, with a black paper over the window.  When she heard the shots, she herded her children into the bathroom, locking the door behind her.  The number of people killed in her room?  Zero.

Lauren Rousseau was a substitute teacher in a first grade classroom.  She had a special needs assistant and sixteen students with her.  She did not have keys to the room, but was in the process of getting her children into the restroom.  Two teachers and fifteen children were killed, with one survivor, who played dead in a corner of the restroom.

Victoria Soto was a first grade teacher.  She was not able to lock her door.  In fact, the keys were found close to her body.  However, 11 children were able to survive, nine by running out of the classroom, and two by hiding.

Noone was killed inside of a locked room.  If lockdown was not applied, it cannot fail.

I am very confused as to the '92% lockdown failure rate' at Sandy Hook.  To me, lockdown fails when it fails to keep a shooter out of the room.  I am aware of only one instance, in the Red Lake shooting, in which a locked door failed to keep out a shooter.  No such instance happened at Sandy Hook.

Lockdowns are a valuable safety tool, ironically dating back to the first recorded use in a school in Danbury, CT in 1900.  A jilted suitor went to the schoolhouse to talk to his former girlfriend.  She got her kids inside and locked the door, whereupon he killed himself.

Schools and first responders should continue to work together to make their students and staff safer.  Lockdowns should be a part of the toolbox schools can use.

Data Shows Violent School Deaths are Rare

Violent School Deaths

After the Troutdale, OR shooting a group founded by Michael Bloomberg called Everytown for Gun Safety posted a map of 74 school shootings since Sandy Hook.  Since then the data used to make that map has been found to be seriously flawed.  In fact, a Bureau of Justice report shows that violence in schools is on the decline.

When looking specifically at school-associated violent deaths, the Pew Research Center found that they are in the decline, with the exception of the 26 people killed at Sandy Hook.  From the Pew Research report, "Such incidents are as rare as they are tragic. In 2010-11, for instance, 11 children and youths (ages 5 to 18) were murdered at school, less than 1% of the 1,336 total homicides among that age group that year; suicides at school were even rarer."

Analysis

The Pew Research report does acknowledge there is difficulty in getting accurate and timely numbers, but it would seem from this research and the report Relative Risks of Death in U.S. K12 Schools, that there is an effort to inflate the dangers in schools.  This may be done unintentionally or with an agenda in mind, but school leaders need to get back to using a critical eye to evaluate any changes in approaches used by their schools.

Michael Dorn and Chris Dorn of Safe Havens International, have authored a training course through SafeSchools Training, Active Shooter for Administrators.  Courses like this one are based on research and valid evidence, and will prove much more useful than programs that are not research or evidence-based.

Actice Shooter Incidents are low-probabillity, high impact events.  While they should factor into a school's emergency planning, schools should not make such planning out of alignment with the other emergencies for which they prepare.