Some teachers and even students have been advised by at least one “options based” active shooter training program to keep canned goods to throw at a gunman during an attack. This advice is unsound, untested, dangerous and will likely be extremely difficult to defend in court. The danger that a student or staff member will attack an armed person who is not an active shooter and prompt a shooting or a suicide is very real and has been demonstrated through controlled simulations. There have also been numerous serious injuries to school staff during poorly implemented options based active shooter training sessions. Many school and law enforcement officials utilizing some of these programs are extremely exposed to civil liability.

ALICE Training Canned in Media and Social Media

Advising students and staff to keep canned goods on their desk to throw at a gunman is an inherently dangerous and illogical approach. This outcome is but one troubling symptom of a number of poor quality “options based” active shooter training approaches. After more than $300,000 worth of emergency room medical bills resulting from active shooter training were paid by one insurance carrier in Iowa, the Iowa Department of Homeland Security shut off their agencies’ funding for ALICE training. ALICE is one of a number of programs that teach close quarters combat concepts (CQC) to staff and in some instances to students. Make no mistake about it, no matter what instructors may say, any program that teaches people to physically attack a person with a gun is CQC training regardless of what you call it.

Options Based Active Shooter Training Injuries Verified

According to Jerry Loghry from ERM Insurance, these injuries were sustained during “options based active shooter” training sessions. It is important to note these figures do not count surgeries, physical therapy, disability claims or other follow up costs. Due to the many injuries that are being reported around the country, we anticipate considerable litigation against trainers, schools and law enforcement agencies who have been providing unsafe active shooter training programs. As an experienced school safety expert witness, I feel that many school and law enforcement agencies will experience significant challenges in demonstrating that they have followed appropriate standards of care in many of the current types of training programs. This is due to the way some of these training programs are structured, delivered and because they have been falsely advertised as proven to work.

Misleading Marketing Practices

Further complicating matters from legal and ethical standpoints are the sometimes wildly inaccurate descriptions of these training programs as a “best practice”. Being a new and popular concept is far different from being proven to be effective and accepted as the standard in a particular field. If you investigate definitions for best practice you will see that most definitions describe a best practice as a practice that has consistently shown superior results in contrast to other approaches. To make matters worse, trainees are also often falsely assured that “Good Samaritan” laws will protect them if something goes wrong. An attorney for the Indiana School Boards Association advised us that these laws often only apply to rendering emergency first aid and offer no protection for the use of force in self-defense in many states.

ALICE Training and Canned Goods

Quite a few people asked me what my opinion was about a school principal who sent a letter to parents urging them to have their children bring canned goods to school for self-defense. The letter states that local police suggested this practice and that students should throw canned goods at a gunman should an attack occur. Media reports attribute this advice to ALICE training sessions. If true, this is not the first time instance where schools have been advised to issue canned goods by options based active shooter instructors.

School Safety Expert View

I have now worked in this field for 34 years, have worked eight K12 active shooter events and have worked hundreds of other far more typical school shootings, stabbings and other school crisis events. Unlike most people in the field, I have actually been shot at while on campus and have survived an attack by an armed aggressor using close quarters combat techniques when I was not carrying a gun. In my opinion, telling staff and students to carry cans of canned goods to throw at a gunman is unsound and will clearly increase overall danger for a host of reasons.  There are many other options available to us today and unlike arming teachers and kids with canned goods, they have actually been validated as safe and effective to implement.

The violent terrorist attack in Paris reminds us just how quickly an attack can occur

Viewing video clips of today’s brutal terrorist attack on the Charlie Hebdo Magazine office in Paris provides a striking reminder of how brutal and efficient modern terrorist attacks can be.  Watching the video of a heartless execution of a wounded police officer provides some insight into just how violent the attack on the journalists inside the building must have been. While we must use caution when making such comparisons, attacks on any civilian target can help provide insight into how terrorist attacks on schools and school-related targets can be.

We have seen a number of terrible terrorist attacks on schools and school-related targets around the world in recent years. Dr. Shepherd’s visit to schools in Nigeria in the wake of a series of terrorist attacks on schools there was sobering to say the least. Schools are also often impacted by terrorist attacks on other targets. One of our client Christian schools had two parents brutally murdered and two students seriously injured in a terrorist attack at the Westgate Mall in Kenya. Tragically, both students watched their parents die and only survived by playing dead next to their bodies. A teacher and a dozen students were thankfully able to survive the same deadly attack but the event has naturally left the entire campus community stunned.

There are definite changes in the nature of terrorist attacks in general as well as in incidents of school terrorism in recent years. Our extensive research for Innocent Targets – When Terrorism Comes to School provides a considerable contrast with what we have been seeing in the past few years. For example, the combination of firearms and fire in a number of school terrorism incidents in Africa are of concern to us. This is especially true since many people have become so intensely focused on firearms attacks in American schools. Our analysts have noticed that many schools are less prepared for hazardous materials incidents, radiological incidents, events involving explosives, hostage situations and a number of other types of events relevant to past school and school bus terrorist attacks. We have the same concerns when it comes to far more frequent and likely types of school crisis events such as common medical emergencies.

We also frequently remind people that the two most lethal acts of violence on K12 campuses have involved an attack using fire and an attack utilizing explosives. More victims died in the 1958 Our Lady of Angels Sacred Heart’s School fire than in every K12 active shooter incident in the history of our nation – combined.   We feel it is extremely dangerous to focus the majority of our prevention, preparedness or response efforts to any one type of school crisis event.

While we make no predictions of specific types of terrorist attacks for U.S. K12 schools, a number of our analysts feel the risk of school-related terrorism is higher now than it was a decade ago. We urge school and public safety officials to emphasize the all-hazards approach to school crisis planning to address the potential for school-related terrorism as well as the many other much more likely yet deadly types of school crisis events.

Great Day Filming New School Safety Videos

In a scene from one of several active shooter scenarios, Chris Dorn fires an AK-47 fitted with a blank adapter into a classroom. Our school safety video scenario tapings are typically all-hazards in nature. This session emphasized active shooter, hostage situations and incidents relating to school terrorism. The new school safety video scenarios are among the most powerful we have ever produced. Using new video equipment, our video crew was able to use a variety of new special effects to produce even more compelling school safety training videos. (Photo ©2014 by Safe Havens International Staff Photographer Rachel Wilson).

We had a long but excellent day of filming scenes for a new school emergency preparedness video last Saturday. Our award-winning video crew did a superb job as did our actors. We were able to tape several versions each of more than a dozen school emergency preparedness scenes. The rough footage looks great and the slow motion footage looks amazing. The experience that our crew has gained filming across the nation as well as in Mexico, Bolivia, Holland, Vietnam, South Africa, and other countries really shows in their work. Safe Havens Video won nearly 40 national awards last year and has won a number of awards in previous year.

Our school safety training videos have also been widely featured on 20/20, Larry King Live, Good Morning America, CNN, Fox, Al Jezera America, Tokyo Broadcasting, and dozens of other major media organization.  Our school emergency preparedness videos have long been used as model examples by the United States Department of Education and a number of state agencies. We are excited that so many school and public safety officials from many countries now use Safe Havens International school safety training videos.

We have additional tapings planned in Georgia and Oregon for this video series. We will be filming additional school terrorism scenarios during and content for a new companion training videos for these scenarios. Our video crew has worked tirelessly to produce so many school safety training videos and they continually improve the quality as well as the scope of their work. It was truly a joy to work with this outstanding crew and cast on what promises to be our most powerful school safety training videos yet.