Active shooter training in community could mean fighting back
Virginia Tech. Columbine. Newtown. All could be considered shorthand for mass school shootings that sent shockwaves through the United States.
Schools and offices, in their wake, have widely adopted a fairly typical lockdown procedure: sound the alarm, call the police and wait behind locked doors. But some security experts believe this approach is insufficient and are offering a different response — including how to fight back against a gunman.
Now, local law enforcement is adopting a fight-back training program to defend against armed attackers. Dubbed the ALICE program, which stands for: alert, lockdown, inform, counter and evacuate, the training is being viewed by some as a viable option to decrease the number of fatalities in dangerous attacks.
Beyond Lockdown and Hiding
The University of South Dakota opted for the “Run, Hide, Fight” concept two years ago to respond to threats on campus. But Lt. Jef Rice said the University Police Department plans to send a few officers to train with the ALICE program later this year.
The two plans are similar in nature, but the transition to ALICE by the UPD is to provide the same information currently being taught by the Vermillion Police Department, which adopted the training program last summer.
[notification type=”information” title=”ALICE’s Origin”]The program was originally created in 2001 by Greg Crane, a police officer in Texas whose wife was the principal of an area elementary school. He developed the training in part to provide professionals, such as his wife, more complete options to consider when facing an attacker. ALICE is the first active shooter program in the United States.[/notification]
Another reason for the change — history. Rice said the two incidents he and other law enforcement have learned from the most is the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado and the 2007 shooting at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
“We learned from Columbine that we can’t wait for SWAT,” Rice said. “This is a dynamic situation… We need to train every officer so they can be that officer who can go in and be instant SWAT, for lack of a better word.”
It was not until the Virginia Tech massacre that law enforcement began to consider training students and staff to better protect themselves— including fighting back.
But this is not a new idea, said Sgt. Ben Nelsen, who teaches ALICE training for the VPD. Nelsen uses statistics in his presentation that are compiled by the New York Police Department and incorporates all of the active shooting events from 1966 until 2012.
The U.S. had 271 active shooting events occur in that 46-year period at locations that include schools, churches, office buildings and malls. Nelsen uses this information to train community members — primarily local school administrators and city government employees — about their options in an active killer situation.
“When I start the program, I tell them it isn’t a pleasant topic,” Nelsen said. “But we have to talk about history. What kind of active shooters have happened in the past? What kinds of locations does this happen in? We then move into ALICE and how it can help them.”
Nelsen said a major proponent of ALICE training is to teach how to throw off a shooter’s OODA loop, which is the time they use to “observe, orient, decide and act.”
Trained police officers miss roughly three-quarters of their shots fired in the line of duty. In contrast, school shooters almost hit at that high of a rate, reported the NYPD.
Gunman Seung-Hui Cho at Virginia Tech was over a 100-to-1 numerical disadvantage but still killed 32 people and injured 17 more in two separate attacks before committing suicide. A gunman is able to hit so many people, Nelsen said, partly because staff and students are just too easy to shoot.
If a person cannot pull the trigger because of a distraction, this can buy time to escape or defend yourself, he said.
“If you rush this guy with a gun, of course this is not the safest thing in the world,” he said. “This is an awful situation, but your odds of surviving are better if you fight.”
‘More Listening and Watching’
Two incidents at the Vermillion Public Library years ago, one involving a knife and the other a shotgun, were reason enough for Library Director Jane Larson and her staff to be trained with the ALICE program.
Nelsen spoke with library staff and evaluated the building last year for safety risks. The library made some major adjustments, including getting approval for a $15,000 proposal to fine-tune security measures.
The proposal was approved by the library’s foundation in early January. Changes will not occur for another five to six weeks but will include the installation of 15-17 cameras and monitor, peepholes, new locks and an improved security system.
The added security measures will hopefully discourage bad behavior, Larson said. Recently, she said there have been incidents of rowdy kids bullying others in the library, as well as vandalism to the building.
The training has encouraged staff to do ‘more listening and watching’ of who comes through the library doors, what they act like and what they have with them.
“It’s about keeping track of your patrons and being more aware of what’s going on,” Larson said. “Staff now fill out incident reports if something happens and who was involved. We keep this information on-hand in case it happens again.”
Senior Cassondra Keller is student teaching in the Vermillion School District, and she works in a special education classroom. She said she interacts with a current student who is on the autism spectrum and can be thrown into a tantrum if there is a disruption to their day.
Keller said because of the active shooter training, teachers have made a task analysis for this person in the form of a social story. Every so often, they read this story with the student that has pictures which correlate with the story so they know what do in this situation.
“We all pray that something like this will never happen in our school district, but no one can ever be too safe when it comes to the safety of children,” Keller said. “The Vermillion High School has an excellent security system put in place, so you can only enter through the front doors. There are cameras monitoring almost all the hallways, and there is a school liason at all times of the school day.”
UPD has trained numerous groups at the university in the past few years about active shooter response, including custodial workers, individual departments and housing staff such as community advisors.
Rice said the focus of UPD is to inform faculty and staff who are likely to be in charge if a shooting happens on campus. There are no plans to train the entire student body in the near future.
Some Vermillion School District administrators understand the ALICE program, but a training session for faculty and staff is set for Feb. 11.
School Resource Officer Paul Pederson of the Clay County Sheriff’s Office, who works with the school district, said he understands apprehension about the “counter” element of ALICE training.
But Pederson, a father of two K-12 students, said it is not about “hunting for the bad guy.” If a class barricades itself in a room, and an attacker comes through the door, he said there has to be a point where they use whatever tools are available to protect themselves.
“It isn’t about going out to be a hero. It’s about stopping the threat,” Pederson said. “If that threat comes to us, we are going to fight back. We are not going to sit in the corner and cower.”
Lockdown procedure at schools is also making its way through the state legislature. Senate bill 89 would require school districts to develop safety plans and conduct of lockdown drills. It was unanimously approved Jan. 29 by members of the Senate Education committee and moved on to the Senate floor.
The ‘Counter’ Approach
The question currently buzzing around the ALICE program is how young is too young when it comes to countering an active shooter. The program’s official website reads that this measure should be a “last resort,” but some experts have questioned this alternative at its core.
National and international scrutiny arose earlier this year after an Alabama middle school sent a letter home to parents asking them to send canned food for students to throw at armed gunmen. The ALICE Training Institute distanced itself from the controversy and said they have never trained at the school prior to the letter being sent.
Nelsen said elementary-age students are too young to be taught countering techniques. He typically does not advise middle schoolers either, but said he leaves it up to teachers and administrators to make this decision.
“Fighting is your last choice,” Nelsen said.”Do not go and hunt down the bad guy.”
Force is not always needed to stop an active shooter. In 2013, Michael Brandon Hill, a 20-year-old with a history of mental illness entered an elementary school in Decatur, Georgia, with an AK-47 and nearly 500 rounds of ammunition. He was confronted by Antoinette Tuff, a bookkeeper who convinced Hill to surrender before anyone was hurt.
Nelsen said this outcome is rare. The NYPD reports that 83 percent of the time, active shooters commit suicide or are killed by police. Of those taken alive, Nelsen said reports have surfaced that many were heard saying they wish they had killed more people before their arrest.
“I wish that were more of a viable possibility to talk someone down, but I don’t suggest it,” Nelsen said. “Most of these shooters mean to do tremendous harm by any cost.”
[notification type=”information” title=”For more about the ALICE program in Vermillion”]For more information or to request an ALICE presentation, contact Sgt. Ben Nelsen at [email protected], or at 605-677-7070.[/notification]
(Photo: Deputy Paul Pederson of the Clay County Sheriff’s Office is a school resource officer at the Vermillion High School. Megan Card / The Volante)
