School safety, security, and violence prevention resource

When was it?  Maybe three weeks when I scribed a sadly prophetic post (here) titled “Schools Opening.  Time Again To Consider the Dread Active Shooter.”  I write this, not to take credit for being a seer of future events.  Any nimrod who can skim a newspaper or watch a news program could predict that some sort of rage-shooting would go down in a mall, workplace, movie theater, church, elementary, high school or college campus.

Well, today, Thursday, October 1, in a cozy, rural community, called close-knit by CNN reporters, another misfittted, misguided, and doubtless disturbed man calmly strolled onto the sole college campus in Roseburg, Oregon.  He ambled into one of the buildings without being observed, confronted, nor challenged by campus security or any student despite the fact that on his person was a rifle (shotgun?  hunting rifle?  assault weapon?  I don’t yet know) and three handguns, along with the always handy ammunition clips and/or magazines.  Witnesses say that the miscreant pulled a handgun and shot a professor in the face at point blank range.  The killer then “interviewed” the students – after shooting several of the students – asking if they were Christians.  When he or she replied that he/she was indeed Christian – the shooter said, “Good, now you are about to meet your God in a minute,” and boom, bang, he coldly shot them down.

Basically, the common reaction I gathered from the police chief and others who were interviewed was raw shock.  After all, Roseburg, from what I know, is a community populated and gelled-together with people who settled here partially because they were tired of living in fear and anxiety because of crime and violence in areas from whence they came.  If I heard it once, I heard it a dozen times:   “Things like this cannot possibly happen here…”  Which, when you consider it, is pretty foolish when you understand that all schools are Soft Targets, and until school make themselves into Hard Targets (like airports), lunatics like this loser rage-shooter will continue to hit them!

I cannot help but wonder for the umpteenth time, when will we learn:

• Learn that things like this do happen here, there, anywhere?
• Learn that training and readiness for events like this must be undertaken.
• Learn that Security Personnel must be hired, trained and even armed. 
• Learn that we all must learn to be mentally and emotionally prepared for active shooter events.

Until my next post, stay safe.

Hammer

Last word:  I have trained scores of university security personnel, and, for the most part, they are unarmed (no guns, no tazers, no impact weapons, and worse, are restricted by college administrators from even touching a disruptive student, let alone a determined and insane active shooter.

 

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