Be Ready for School Shooters and School Takeovers

[nlcrsn]

The massacre at Virginia Tech is a portent of things to come.
May 09, 2007
All of the experts agree that America will experience more “active shooter” situations in schools in the near future. Anti-terrorist strategists will also tell you that Muslim terrorists are planning to take over American schools then rape and slaughter our innocent children.
Despite what you may hear from people who don’t believe the bad guys plan to destroy us, this is not paranoid obsession. Osama bin Laden himself has told us that our schools are next on the target list, and al-Qaida forces can be seen preparing for school massacres in their training videos. Worse, Muslim terrorists have a track record, and they tend to repeat assaults that work. They have successfully attacked schools in Israel, Turkey, Russia, and other countries, killing hundreds of children and teachers.
To counter this threat and the threat of vicious lone gunmen like the Virginia Tech shooter Cho Seung-Hui, law enforcement and military experts are pushing for the training of first responders in realistic active shooter scenarios.
This training should be undertaken by every department, regardless of size or location. Don’t think that it can’t happen in your community. If there is a school or college in your jurisdiction, then you have the potential for a school shooter or, God forbid, a terrorist attack.
Ask yourself this question: Who is going to be there if it happens in my sector? On my watch? Who will protect my kids? My brothers? My sisters? The answer is you, and you need to be ready to do the job.
And most American patrol officers, even many tactical teams, are not ready.
Yes, every department is talking about training for a Columbine, VTU, or Beslan, but few have actually prepared. Or if they have prepared, they have only prepared the SWAT team.
It takes time to assemble a SWAT team and get them to the scene of an incident. If an active shooter or a terrorist group attacks your local school, quick action by patrol officers may be the only thing that prevents mass murder.

On-Duty Preparation and Planning
What can you, an ordinary first responder, do to prepare a response to a school shooting or hostage situation at one of your local schools? Plenty. And you don’t have to wait for officially sanctioned training.
Take the initiative; contact the principals and any school security personnel yourself. Let them know who you are. Talk about what you and the school staff might do if such an incident did occur. Don’t scare them. Don’t talk about a massive assault by jihad-bent terrorists. Talk to them about your concerns regarding school shooters. They will think you’re nuts if you talk terrorists, but they will welcome your concern if you talk Columbine. Just remember, you need to worry about both.
Make up a plan. You can perfect it later, but get something together and start communication. Tell them that your goal is to develop a holding action strategy to buy time for SWAT to arrive. Best case scenario, that’s your plan. Worst case, you and some other patrol officers may have to go in as a group and try to stop the slaughter. (Specific tactics for use against active shooters will be discussed in an upcoming article on this site.)
Get maps and diagrams of the school and carry them with you in your patrol bag or box. Talk to the officers from adjoining areas who might respond to back you up. Talk about what you might have to do together before SWAT can arrive.
OK. This next step may sound creepy to you. But imagine yourself as one of the bad guys. Scout the school like a terrorist would if he or she were probing its vulnerabilities. Look for alternative points of entry. Find the possible high ground positions for oversight by a shooter with a long rifle. Ask yourself, where would I place the improvised explosive devices?
Ammo will be critical in any active shooter response. Make up your own personal re-supply bag. This bag should contain extra magazines and ammunition for your pistol, shotgun, and rifle. It should be easy to carry and readily available in your patrol box or war bag.
Besides the bullets, your bag should contain some batteries for your flashlight, compact binoculars, and bandages. I would also put in some QuikClot or something equivalent. I am sure you can come up with other necessities.

Prepare to Respond Off Duty
Carry a pistol off duty and be proficient with it. If you have one, also put a rifle or shotgun in the trunk of your car with an off-duty go bag full of ammo and spare mags for all of your weapons. Your go bag should also contain a flashlight and spare batteries.
If you are a parent, visit your kid’s school often. Meet the staff and make sure they remember you. Ask about active shooter training.
Find out if they expect to lock down or evacuate the campus. Maybe someone knows the local area patrol officer. Have them introduce you to the patrol officer and take him to lunch or a cup of coffee. Make sure he will recognize and remember you even in plain clothes. Win him over. Give him confidence in relying on you in such a situation. Talk about what you would do if a school shooter or terrorist came to your school tomorrow morning. Discuss the “what ifs.”

Teach Your Kids What to Do
Before the days of ATMs, I would rehearse with my toddler children regarding what to do if Daddy saw a bank robbery in progress. I taught them to lie on the floorboards of our vehicle as Daddy moved in the parking lot in a big circle away from the car. I taught them to stay down, no matter what, until I came back and gave the all clear.
We also rehearsed other situations where I taught them to hide or run to safety. We had code words for different situations. I taught them early how to break free from someone’s grip, and later how to use ordinary things as weapons in emergencies.
I’m sure that my friends and neighbors wondered about my “paranoia,” but I always felt that my children had a better chance of survival because of our rehearsal of what to do in emergencies. Today all of my children can shoot and fight and are well adjusted grown-ups and parents.
Think about talking to your children (or your young brothers and sisters) about personal safety and what to do when shots are being fired in their schoolyard. You don’t want to scare them, but that talk could save their lives.
Now maybe you are thinking that this kind of thing could never happen in my town, or ever happen to me. That’s denial and it kills people. You need to make school shooter response a priority both on- and off-duty.
author: Richard Valdemar | posted @ Wednesday, May 09, 2007 12:13 PM

[Philadelphia]

I'm not a cop but I honestly believe every American has a duty to be prepared to resist an enemy on our soil. The whole "well regulated militia" thing isn't just some ancient catch phrase. I'm not saying create some paramilitary group, but just as individuals be ready and able to fight if it ever gets to that.

Everyone who owns a gun should take it upon themselves to get trained up and be able to, at a bare minimum, pass the same qualification test as their police and practice enough to remain proficient. From a tactics standpoint, get some FoF training and practice enough that you're confident about what you can (and can't) do.

It might sound a little nuts to some, but if the bad people who want to do harm know there are plenty of us prepared to defend, the more likely it is that we'll not have to.

[reels18]

It doesn't sound nuts at all. We know what is coming, and it would be criminal of us not to prepare ourselves.

[PA Rifleman]

It already happened in Russia. Google "Beslan school shooting". It's only a matter of time. Then nurseries, churches, old folks homes, hospitals. Anywhere weak & defenseless, never police stations or military bases.

Cowards.

[clarion44]

Boy I'm glad I work in a defenseless hospital. The security guards carry a flashlight and maybe a can of mace??... not sure. Oh yea, there's only one to cover two campuses about 4 miles apart. I feel safe coming into work.... I still have my EDC knife on me though.

[GunLawyer001]

The only reason that any particular school hasn't been successfully attacked is the lack of an attempt. Schools are easy to get into if you have a brick or a hammer, they are statutorily defenseless, and they are filled with weak, pathetic people. Plus, there's students.

Guaranteed body counts, guaranteed headlines.

We as a society put more effort into protecting the chained pens at banks than we do trying to keep kids genuinely safe. The PC crowd has done the most damage, by mandating that the few people in any school who have any guts have no effective means to repel armed attackers. I can't imagine any scenario where 3 armed men would be unable to enter any school and kill hundreds of children; who's going to stop them? A principal waving detention slips? A gym teacher throwing softballs? A school board member with a copy of the Zero Tolerance policy?

Has anyone ever tested those absurd "preparedness drills" where they teach the kids how to hide under their desks when the terrorists strike (oh, nobody would ever think to look for them THERE)? It would be cheap and easy, send in a couple guys with paintball guns, implement the contingency response plans, and see how many kids get inked before the police even show up and start setting the perimeter and ordering donuts and making sure they know who to blame for the deaths.

Locking down a school will have no effect other than to ensure a full quota of victims, because the smart kids will be prevented from leaving the killing zone. Schools are not fortresses, they are not secure, so what possible purpose is served by looping chains across the crash bars of the glass doors and forcing the kids to stay in their dense pack configuration, for ease of methodical shooting?

[vic2367]

agree with gunlawyer ,,lockdown is just a fancy word someone in the police dept made up and fed too the media who in turn feed it too us as a feel good tactic,,lockdown would just create more deaths in the school...just my opinion

[Philadelphia]

The only reason that any particular school hasn't been successfully attacked is the lack of an attempt. Schools are easy to get into if you have a brick or a hammer, they are statutorily defenseless, and they are filled with weak, pathetic people. Plus, there's students.

Guaranteed body counts, guaranteed headlines.

We as a society put more effort into protecting the chained pens at banks than we do trying to keep kids genuinely safe. The PC crowd has done the most damage, by mandating that the few people in any school who have any guts have no effective means to repel armed attackers. I can't imagine any scenario where 3 armed men would be unable to enter any school and kill hundreds of children; who's going to stop them? A principal waving detention slips? A gym teacher throwing softballs? A school board member with a copy of the Zero Tolerance policy?

Has anyone ever tested those absurd "preparedness drills" where they teach the kids how to hide under their desks when the terrorists strike (oh, nobody would ever think to look for them THERE)? It would be cheap and easy, send in a couple guys with paintball guns, implement the contingency response plans, and see how many kids get inked before the police even show up and start setting the perimeter and ordering donuts and making sure they know who to blame for the deaths.

Locking down a school will have no effect other than to ensure a full quota of victims, because the smart kids will be prevented from leaving the killing zone. Schools are not fortresses, they are not secure, so what possible purpose is served by looping chains across the crash bars of the glass doors and forcing the kids to stay in their dense pack configuration, for ease of methodical shooting?

They've long been training SWAT teams to handle school shooter situations. What most parents refuse to recognize and internalize is that it takes several minutes for the team to arrive, plus a typical school is a big place and the only way the team can really be quickly guided to where the shooter is is to identify the location of the sound of children in the process of being killed.

I agree that the concept of "lock down" is one of the most foolish and more useless strategies imaginable. It sounds really good to the soccer mom set though. School shooter scenarios are rare enough in the big picture that useless strategies that placate the masses are viewed as enough.

If the soccer mom set stopped to think about whether all the notification strategies ("alert, alert, the sound of gunfire you hear means you are, in fact, being killed") and "lock down" actually did anything to prevent children from being killed when this stuff happens, we'd have different policies in schools.

In my mind, an important step would be finding a way to stop the media from sensationalizing it all. I think that would remove a lot of the motivation the nutcases have for doing it -- to go out in a blaze of many days of intense media coverage. The events need to be covered, but the shooter need not be made a perverse form of celebrity in order to report the events.

[reels18]

Terrorists must pick and choose their targets carefully. If they attempt anything in the inner city schools, they may find themselves out manned and under gunned, by the students.

[Dredly]

I was watching Las Vegas SWAT the other day on Military Channel and they were training for an "Active Shooter" incident in a school w/ over 150 students and teachers as "Actors"

"Active Shooter" - PC term for a fuck up whose sole purpose is killing as many people as possible with no intention of ransom or personal benefit

One of the big things they stressed was NOT waiting for SWAT but rushing in immediately and engaging the threat without hesitation which is a huge shift in thinking for police as they normally focus on securing the perimeter and sending in their heavy hitters.

Whats amazing is the amount of carnage that can occur in a matter of seconds or minutes. The only solution to stop active shooters is arm the people that are already there. Allow teachers to carry weapons in all grades, make them qualify but encourage them to carry weapons. Make the school rent a cops actually matter and make them carry guns that they are qualified to shoot. A flashlight isn't going to help. Have full time SWAT trained officers at schools...

The solutions are very easy and very realistic, but they won't happen until another shooting happens closer to home and then it will be "oh my god I thought we were prepared"