Active Shooter: On the rise but still misunderstood! Institutions need help!
We recently called 11 institutions in Miami to ask about their active shooter and emergency preparedness plan. Sadly, most don’t have a clear idea of what to do, how to proceed and their SOP’s (standard operating procedures) are lacking. In addition to this, the focus is only on the civilian perspective and most just recommend to barricade, hide or wait for help.
We know that this is the wrong thing to do because most active shooter situations are over in 5 minutes or less. Average police response times in major cities are between 5.4 and 9.6 minutes, and in some cities that time can get up to 15 minutes. The carnage of the event may be; will be; over by then.
We currently consult some large organizations to help them develop an effective plan and wanted to provide some information so that everyone can understand the importance of paying close attention to this pandemic.
When developing your plan; focus on having a clear understanding on these 4 areas: Risk Mitigation, Civilian Response, Understanding Law Enforcement Response; and Response of Institutional Leadership and Supporting Staff.
Know that more that 15% of active shooting incidents involved shooting at multiple locations: mobile killers. This is the trend and this trend will most likely increase being that many of these individuals have had a history of questionable mental health. Mobile killers are an entirely different breed that currently have no coverage but need to be dealt with in a different way. As a matter of fact; about 10% of these incidents began with the killing of a family member.
In more than 50% of the incidents the killers ended the incident themselves without intervention from the police or a civilian. As mentioned above; most active shooter incidents ended in 5 minutes or less and about 1/4 ended in 2 minutes or less.
Play the statistic. The traditional belief of most agencies that they are going in looking for a team of shooters has been mathematically debunked. Less that 2 percent of active shooter incidents have more than one shooter. The preparation needed to plan for a team of shooters vs, going in with the first available and first responders could mean the difference of multiple lives.
Your Director of Public Safety should have multiple skills at their disposal to understand what is good training and what is mediocre training. If you can find someone who is adept and highly trained with firearms, martial arts, active shooter certifications, and SOP development, that would be the best option. Don’t just settle for a good business person that can write well. Get someone who understands and can do it all. Patrol officers, support staff, leadership and key employees need to be trained.
These are just a few things we wanted to share today. Feel free to contact us for a FREE consultation on your active shooter emergency plan or SOP’s at info@topshotmiami.com
Content was created by Javill Byron; self-defense expert and entrepreneur. Javill Byron currently also teaches firearms at Top Shot Firearms Academy and serves as a public safety consultant for several large organization.
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