HANDLING THE ACTIVE SHOOTER THREAT

• Published in: Law & Order Vol. 64; no. 9; p. 56
• Main Author: Slahor, Stephenie
• Format: Trade Publication Article
• Language: English
• Published: Wilmette Hendon Publishing Company 01.09.2016
• Subjects: Feedback (Response); Law enforcement; Physical Education; Planning; Police; Stakeholders; Students with Disabilities
• ISSN: 0023-9194

[...]speed often means the first officers and supervisors on the scene must be ready to make appropriate decisions, despite initial or continuing confusion or even revulsion that could lead to overreaction, or unsatisfactory or unsuitable reaction. [...]preparation and response protocols must include a thorough review of, and perhaps revisions, to the current training officers receive for active shooter response. Delays in the process of decision-making, or waiting for a decision-maker to arrive might prove disastrous to some situations.\n With the school as one of the community's 'stakeholders,' plans and procedures must be discussed and considered including the obvious, but perhaps easily overlooked, procedures of having written directions on all phones about how to contact 911, the school office and another room, and having not just administrators but everyone involved-teachers, aides, volunteers, cooks, custodians, gardeners, or anyone else regularly on the campus who must know the emergency procedures. Since social media is so much a part of older students' lives, they must learn to report threats, even those made in jest or as mock threats, but educators must learn how to review such information, and consider the decisions needed for taking appropriate action.