Soft Targets Attract Active Shooter Events

Co-Posted at Mitigation Journal

Active shooters pose active threats

The topic of an active shooter event has tragically made headlines once again. Active shooter situations in a soft target location - a mall, school, hospital/health care environment, or sporting event would be disastrous. We have to acknowledge the fact that these locations are indeed soft targets - they lack the infrastructure to deter an attack and, as current events and case study reminds us, are attractive targets. Further, with all the attention and money spent on chem/bio/rad preparedness, I belive that the active shooter situation has been left behind.

Given this, I've decided to re-post Mitigation Journal podcast #187 (an interview with Net Talon) on active shooter situations, as well as excerpts from prior blog posts on the topic.

Click on the player below to listen to the Net Talon interview!

We're all about situational awareness. Numerous articles and sources have talked about the use of civilians as forward observers...that is, those who are engaged in a situation being part of the solution be providing first-hand data to responders. The best example of this is the cell phone videos that make it to mainstream media; those videos taken by civilians who are actually there and perhaps in harms way. Even more recently we've discussed how many 9-1-1 dispatch centers were now accepting emergency calls via text messaging. Suffice to say, those in the midst of a situation have technology available to get important data out to responders.

I had an opportunity to have Donald Jones, Director of Corporate Development, and Ronald DuBois, Director of Administration and Finance at Net Talon join me on Mitigation Journal Podcast edition 187 for an in-depth look at Net Talon and the Virtual Command technology. What you'll hear on Mitigation Journal Podcast this week is perhaps the most invigorating news on the topic of threat mitigation I've heard in a long time.

Please visit Net Talon on at www.nettalon.com. While you're there, be sure to watch their active shooter demonstration.

Are You Ready for an Active Shooter?

Co-posted on Mitigation Journal

Ready or not, soft targets are at risk

Active shooter situation may be the most difficult to domestic terrorism situation to deal with. Many of the active shooter situations take place in a work environment and may have no warning. Firearms of all varieties have been noted in active shooter case studies from the United States. According to the Department of Homeland Security

"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..."

These events are unpredictable in nature and timing, but the outcomes and be generically predicted.  If we follow the basic principles of Life Safety, Incident Stabilization, and Property Conservation, we'll be able to keep personnel safety and response priorities in balance.We'l focus on Life Safety and Incident Stabilization in this post.

Life Safety. In active shooter situations life safety means protection of responders, elimination of freelancing, and accountability. While the first step in life safety is pre-incident planning, the root of successful is understanding the response priorities of each responder discipline. In active shooter situations the rapid deployment of law enforcement is paramount to life safety and incident stabilization. The response priorities of law enforcement in active shooter situations is going to be different from those of fire and EMS responders. While fire and EMS responders may be focused on evacuation of live persons or treatment of wounded, law enforcement may have to delay action on the part of other responders to secure the scene and progress toward the actual suspect. The urge to rapidly gain access to wounded persons must be suppressed until law enforcement has deemed the situation safe. To help understand law enforcement perspectives on these situations, I recommend this article from PoliceOne.com

Incident stabilization. First arriving units may encounter persons leaving the scene or may be inundated with wounded. A slow approach with good positioning well away from building egress points will be the best first-in location. EMS should use the delay in patient contact to establish patient collection points and staging areas within the geographical confines of the situation. Keep in mind that wounded persons may have left the scene prior to your arrival and gone into nearby buildings or neighborhoods...you may receive calls to your dispatch center from multiple locations outside the shooter area. Deployment of resources on the perimeter will help speed response to these areas.

The Department of Homeland security has issued a list of good practices for persons in an active shooter situation:

• Be aware of your environment and any possible dangers
• Take note of the two nearest exits in any facility you visit
• If you are in an office, stay there and secure the door
• If you are in a hallway, get into a room and secure the door
• As a last resort, attempt to take the active shooter down. When the shooter is at close range and you cannot flee, your chance of survival is much greater if you try to incapacitate him/her.

Also, according to DHS, there are thee main steps people should take;
Evacuate if there is a clear path of egress
Hide Out if evacuation is not possible
Take action against the shooter only as a last resort when your life is directly in danger.

New Protocols and You

MLREMS Publishes 2012 Protocols

The Monroe-Livingston Regioal EMS (MLREMS) Standards of Care have been published by our local Program Agency. There are significant changes being addressed with an equally significant training initiative. The training for this update incorporates on-line video and testing. 

The training materials and protocols can be found at www.mlrems.org.

All providers in the MLREMS system must begin using the 2012 standards by April 30, 2010. They are, however, live now - meaning once the training is completed, they may be used. 

Downloads page for MLREMS documents

Populous Demandous

 ProRepsonder re-launch by popular demand

ProRepsonder was created to deliver content relevant for the traditional response groups. News, commentary, and training information are at the core of this endeavor.

Within just a few postings, ProRresponder built a loyal reader base since November, 2010.  I've been amazed at the number of visits and how they continue to grow. The trickle of emails has turned into a steady flow of requests asking if we could please continue reporting and training through this forum. Until now, I've had to tell these folks that, as much as I'd like to keep ProRepsonder going, our other projects - Mitigation Journal and Occasional Vagabond - reach thousands each month and demand quite a bit of time. We simply don't have the hours in the day. Well, that's all changing.

Many Mitigation Journal followers are active in field work of some type - emergency management, fire service, and prehospital care and have asked that we focus more on EMS. We're listening and I'm happy to say that we are going to continue creating content here on ProRepsonder. Our focus will remain traditional response groups with a special eye toward Emergency Medical Service in Rochester, NY.

In the coming days we'll be posting original content weekly in the form of text content and training material. There will be local news with my commentary added, too. Guest posts will also be welcome.

So bookmark us, sit back, and enjoy the updated content and changes to the site. We look forward to being there with you.

 I invite your participation as we continue to grow this site. Please feel free to email me or call 585-672-7844. You can follow me on Facebook (search rick russotti) and on Twitter @rickrussotti. I also hope you'll continue with the all-hazards approach to response by following Mitigation Journal.