THE FATAL FOURTEEN

It’s been awhile since I posted, but I’ve been doing beau coup (as in, “lots and lots of”) training(s), including, incidentally, a presentation on Stopping the Active (Rampage) Shooter in Your Workplace.  If you’ve followed my posts here, you might recall that I have written several times on this terrible phenomenon.  You might also recall that I’ve studied hard on this deadly modern tragedy and how, wistfully, I have predicted there were more and more of these to come.

Not that I am anything approaching a prophet.  The trend is clear and, frankly, what I see in my research and as a result of dozens of interviews, if anything, indicates that things will get worse before it ever gets better.  If, of course, it ever will.

RAMPAGE SLAUGHTER TRENDS

  • Since 2009 Rampage Slaughters or Massacres have quadrupled.  Quadrupled!
  • In well over 50% of these massacres, the slaughter is over before police arrive!
  • The national average is 14-minutes for police to arrive on the scene.
  • In almost every active shooter event, EMS (Emergency Medical Services) can not enter the (crime) scene until the scene is declared cold (as opposed to “hot,” or still active, or unsafe).  This means that the injured, wounded and near-dead must go without life-preserving treatment or care for long, agonizing minutes, perhaps hours, until responding law enforcement declared the scene “safe.”  What I advocate is that schools develop protocols on emergency procedures for caring for wounded until EMS can arrive!
  • Since 2009 we have seen more and more of what experts call Hybrid Targeted Violence (HTV).  These miscreants are using multiple weapons, fire as both weapons and as distractions, molotov cocktails and other improved explosive devices, knives, etc.

Over 88% of workplace violence could have been stopped or mitigated if employees, parents, spouses, other citizens and staff would have reported suspicious actions, behavior, words, and perhaps mental health related issues to the proper authorities.  Rampage Shootings in our schools are no different.  As a matter of fact, just this month (May, 2014), a woman who contacted police after observing a 19-year old man “acting suspiciously.”  Police intervened and found the man with “tons and tons” of ammunition, bombs, firearms and a manifesto outlining how he planned to slaughter every student at a local junior high.

ON MITIGATING THOSE 14-MINUTES

It is imperative, therefore, that everyone who could possibly be in or near the potential scene (of the shooting event) prepare to mitigate those 14-minutes.  Why?  What you do in those 14-minutes can make the difference between survival and a grisly death.  That simple.  We need everyone to take this possibility seriously.  Oh, I am sure you take the possibility of you, your teacher, your resource officer, your child, being shot, blown up, burned in a fire or stabbed seriously, but you must act and act now!  

  • Start Preparing.  Understand and believe “It Can Happen Here.”
  • Start Planning individually.  Mentally fortify yourself and develop an Escape & Evasion Plan.
  • Practice.  I not only believe, I know that the best and maybe only way students and staff  can successfully survive (Escape & Evade) a legitimate rage-killer is to train as a group, using realistic scenarios.  I have posted about this before, calling this practice Stress Inoculation Training.

In the next post, more on stopping the active shooter.  Until then, stay safe.

Hammer

 

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