Everyone should know how to deal with shooters
The recent shootings at the Fort Lauderdale, Fla., airport was another in the growing number of active shooter events. This event took place in the baggage terminal, where people do not have to go through the security checklists.
The first thing mentioned to deal with this situation was more armed security in the baggage terminal. More armed security officers is not often the best and safest method. It’s one thing to have a gun for personal protection in your home where there are usually only two or four people. But a security person shooting his handgun with hundreds of people nearby is definitely not the safest procedure. The same would hold true for churches, malls, restaurants, entertainment events, theaters, homes and schools.
What could a person nearby to a shooter have done at the Fort Lauderdale airport baggage terminal. You always have three options — Run, hide, fight. People away from the shooter could easily run to a safer place and hide. People near the shooter have no choice but to fight. If they do nothing, they have no chance. Anything beats nothing.
Now, the question is, how do you fight someone with a gun. The answer is distractions. Those bags that customers are picking up could be used as distractions. Throw baggage at the shooter and swarm him and take him down. That is not to say that no one will be hurt, but if one acts quickly and effectively, there will be minimal deaths and injuries. It’s not rocket science. It’s a matter of people working together. We are real first responders.
The same procedures would be used no matter where a potential threat might be. You have books in churches to distract, chairs and plates and utensils in restaurants, packages in malls, books in schools, household items in your homes, and you always have shoes, phones, purses, keys and any other items you possess at most times of the day. It has to be easily executed and effective for it to be a useful lifesaving procedure.
Massacres such as the killing of 30 college-level students at Virginia Tech would never have occurred if they would have used the distract-and-attack method. The same holds true for most other active-shooter events. Most of the people carrying out these shootings aren’t trained military or law enforcement people. They are sick, weak-minded people who want to hurt innocent people.
So how do we train the masses to deal with these life-threatening events? Just reading this article is a start for many people. But the best place to start is in our schools, where most every person attends for about 13 years. Every student from grades K-12 needs to be able to recognize a dangerous threat and have options to deal with them. The fighting portion of “run, hide, fight” might not apply as much to primary grades as to older students, but the distract-and-run-and-hide surely would.
Most school boards and administrators think the best way to improve safety is to hire an armed security guard. That would definitely be part of the safety puzzle, but not the only part. Your teachers and students are the targets. You have to train every student and adult in every building with options to have a chance to survive a critical incident. No one security guard can secure an entire building with 10-20 entrances and exits. Plus, they can’t use a weapon with so many students in the vicinity.
I presently have ongoing training with the Connellsville and Uniontown school districts. Myself and another former teacher, Don Witt, have had great success in training all staffs and students in grades 4-12 to “run, hide, fight.” Also we have trained the K-3 teachers on training their students by using realistic drills.
Denial is not a safety procedure that can be used any longer. Most of these students will someday have to deal with a critical incident in their lives, and simple and effective responses might prevent harm to themselves and their families.
Nothing is more important in our schools than the safety and security of our students.
Bob Renzi of Connellsville is an ALICE training instructor.