Surviving an Active Shooter Event

UNCLASSIFIED//PREVIOUSLY RELEASED

*All information contained in this document is publicly available on the web.

(**See www.dhs.gov for complete bulletin/brochure)

Active Threat situations unfold quickly, are unpredictable, and are usually over within minutes. A well thought out, planned, practiced, and critically evaluated response by the vulnerable population is crucial to reduce the severity of the event. ACTIVE THREAT*: Any activity/action performed by/set in motion by/caused directly or indirectly by a person or persons with the intent of causing fear, intimidation, or harm (from minor injury to death) in/on or against groups of various sizes, usually in a confined area or space. (*also: Active Shooter)

THREAT: can include nearly anything that can be considered dangerous, deadly, or that can be manipulated to be dangerous and/or deadly (knives, baseball bat, etc.).

Typically, law enforcement has trained and coordinated with other nearby agencies to respond quickly no matter what environment it occurs in/at. Being mentally and physically prepared to deal with the violence and aggression in such an attack will help to drastically reduce the impact of such an event.

BEST PRACTICES: 1. RUN: Away from the violence, in the opposite direction. Put distance between you and the attacker/s by using corners and stairs. 2. HIDE: Lock the door, block the door, remain quiet, prepare to fight. If you have to hide in a bathroom, be aware of motion sensing devices. 3. FIGHT: Like your life depends on it (it does!) Use whatever you have in your Office Arsenal (pencils, staplers, chairs). Go to: www.breakingptllc.com/blue-horse-security/blog for Bob’s Guide To The Office Arsenal.

Best Practices: RUN/HIDE/FIGHT

· CALL 911, do not hang up unless told to do so, if necessary, leave the phone on, turn the volume down and hide the phone nearby

· Be aware of your environment and possible dangers

· Note the location of exits in every location you are in

· Understand how to secure the location you occupy

· If you are in the open, get into a room and secure the door, stay quiet and out of sight

· Identify suitable locations as well as a method to escape that location in the event it too becomes compromised

· LAST RESORT: If confronted by the Threat, FIGHT, your chances of survival are greater

When suddenly confronted and FIGHTING is not an option, your best option is to put your hands up and keep them visible. COOPERATE WITH POLICE.

Law enforcement and other rescuers/responders will likely be in groups. They may NOT all be dressed the same, coming from different agencies.

They will be issuing commands, there WILL BE CONFUSION. Keep your hands in view and keep quiet to hear instructions, they may save your life or that of others. Officers will be shouting and possibly pushing people to the ground.

Law enforcement, when responding to a suspect actively harming people, are trained to move quickly past injured persons and go directly to the threat to stop the killing. Keep in mind that multiple agencies and rescuers are likely not far behind the officers that have proceeded to the threat.

If you are injured or have been affected by pepper spray or other control methods, try to remain calm and assess/self-treat your injuries. Identify those that are more seriously wounded if you can and direct rescuers to them.

What law enforcement wants to know:

Where is the threat?

Where are you?

What is being done/what is the threatening behavior?

How many victims/injured are there and where are they?

How many suspects?

What do they look like?

Which direction are they going?

Active Threat events typically last less than 10 minutes. However, in that time, a well-coordinated assault, even by a single suspect, can have devastating effects. Although not an easy subject to discuss and consider, the benefits of being prepared for such an event, even if it never happens, go a long way in securing our community.

BE PREPARED

Tack & Sword 032621 Run, Hide, Fight

Run Hide Fight (From Tack & Sword 25MAR21)

RUN.

HIDE.

FIGHT.

For anyone who has found this article as the result of a last minute Google search...

RUN AWAY FROM THE THREAT OR THE SOUNDS OF DANGER. IF YOU CAN’T RUN…

HIDE. LOCK THE DOOR, BLOCK THE DOOR, AND REMAIN SILENT, AND BE PREPARED TO…

FIGHT. LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT (IT DOES). WEAPONS: FIRE EXTINGUISHER (SPRAY IF DISTANT, CLOSE DISTANCE AND HIT—THE HEAD—HARD—REPEATEDLY. CONTROL THE WEAPON/WEAPON ARM. #2 PENCIL TO THE EYES, THROAT, AND GROIN. IF THEY ARE STILL MOVING, THEY CAN STILL HURT OR KILL YOU.

Click here for Bob’s Guide to the Improvised Office Arsenal.

Good Luck.

If you happen to be reading this at a more leisurely pace…

Run. Hide. Fight. Basic, but necessary, guidance. Given the characteristics of your particular environment, you may have all three options, two at best, and maybe only one if the conditions are just right—or, wrong.

SHOTS FIRED.

When you hear the sounds of gunfire in a distant office or cubicle, maybe a couple of floors above or below you…wait. Do you know what gunfire sounds like in a building?

Combat veterans, gunfight survivors, shooting enthusiasts, and a few other categories of people will instinctively respond to and identify the sounds of gunfire. Some will be familiar with a wide variety of gunfire and gunfire in varied environments, some will recall the sound of a particular weapon due to specific training or focused exposure, like being the victim of a crime.

Given the circumstances that would surround the instance of gunfire inside of your building, it does no good to spend precious seconds trying to determine IF there is an active shooter, or did someone just “drop a printer” (a common recollection of an inaccurate assumption). Even if you never get the chance to do some research on the behavior of sound inside structures, when having to decide between:

“Was that the sound of a printer being dropped?” and “That sounds like gunfire!”

…only one of the above choices will result in a regular ending of a chaotic workday. The other will, if debated at any length, likely result in “the sound” happening much closer, confirming what was thought (but denied due to fear) and severely limiting your options and reducing your chances of survival.

Go to an indoor gun range. Stand around for a few minutes (don’t act suspicious), and listen. Then, get closer to those shooting if you can and try to generally identify the types of weapons that make the sounds you hear. This is not to become an auditory gunshot expert, but to gain the understanding that gunfire doesn’t always sound like what you hear in the movies, or on the news.

So. We’ve responded instinctively and have made the safest assumption that a gun has been fired in an environment where it most definitely should NOT have been fired. This should drive us to the conclusion that someone has been shot. It could have been a suicide. If not? Statistics have indicated that a significant percentage of workplace shootings are predicated on relationship problems. Although it’s not a hard and fast rule to depend on, when you see or hear of three fatalities or injuries in the workplace, there is a good chance the three people were also involved in a relationship triangle. Just an observation of actual incidents, not a rule.

Tick, tick, tick, tick…

Suicide? Homicide? Hmm, should I stay in the lunchroom eating my sam’ich? Or, grab my chips and head for the door? Here’s a good rule of thumb from a career police patrol officer: If there is one, there is two. One shot fired? Expect a second. One bad guy shooting people? Expect two. If the bad guy had one gun, expect that he has a second. And leave the chips.

This is NOT the moment to Stop, Think, Decide, Act (or OODA: Observe Orient Decide Act). There is only one decision you have to make unless you are one of those people moving towards the threat: Which way is the fastest way out of the building?

Everyone in the room is going to spend that Hollywood action pause with the frantic “what do we do?” look. That is 4-5 seconds lost. Someone (YOU) need to say, “That’s gunfire, let’s go. Be quiet, watch behind us,” and leave. Now. I’d rather look stupid for running from a dropped printer, than look dead for not running from gunfire. Now, RUN.

How close is close?

IF…IF…IF the gunfire is “danger close” to you. Outside your office door. In the next adjoining office. In the stairwell as you are walking down the hallway. Your response must be immediate. You may not have time to get to your door to exit, or to close and lock it. That will be discussed later.

This is the point in the movie where they put the advertisement, or the cutaway to another scene. This is the point where I will hammer the point of being familiar with your environment.

You know where the copier is, where the coffee maker is, where the bathroom is, where the breakroom is. Do you know where the closest emergency exit is? If its not accessible, do you know where an alternate exit is? Where is the closest office product you can use to defend yourself with? Do you have any idea HOW you will use it? Have you picked it up with the intent of using it to hurt someone? Probably not. (Here’s the ad: check out my Guide to the Improvised Office Arsenal)

Plan. Plan. Plan. Plan a plan and have a backup plan for when the plan fails or changes. If you take a walk for a break during the day, use it to scope out your environment. Stop and listen at various locations. Can you hear someone’s footsteps in the stairwell? If you can, so can a bad guy that is looking for his next target. Check the bathroom. Besides the main entrance, the elevators/stairs, and office space, the bathroom is the next most occupied location in office buildings.

I can read your mind…

“If I’m in the bathroom when the shooting starts, I’ll just stand on the toilet so they won’t see my feet if they come in.”

Good idea! Until the automatic flusher keeps flushing because it senses your movements. One solution (if you have the time): put something over the sensor. It may flush once or twice, but my research has indicated that it will think there is an error and stop flushing automatically. Research may have different results at your specific location.

Does the bathroom door have a lock on it? Most do not. What about a janitor’s closet? Many maintenance and janitorial staff use a doorstop to hold the door open when working. A doorstop is better than nothing. Bonus: there might be some industrial strength (and caustic) spray cleaners in there.

RUN.

Okay. You’re running. Quietly. Quickly. Effectively. Getting closer to the exit with every turn.

When RUNNING, put as many doors, corners, and stairwells between you and the danger as possible. If you cannot run IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION OF THE THREAT, run perpendicular and away. Keep in mind that getting to your office exit may necessitate that you move towards the sound of danger. It’s not good to have anything in your hands while running, but at this point, you may have to FIGHT before you can shut the door. Keep an eye out for weapons of opportunity.

Because you have planned your escape well in advance, you know that there is one more door between you and sunshine. You open the door and are greeted by officers wearing all black, pointing guns at you and yelling:

Happy Birthday! “Put your hands up!” “Get down on the ground, NOW!”

Although they are not expecting a determined gunman to be running out of the building frantically, they ARE expecting an intelligent and deceptive enemy, and will likely point their weapons DIRECTLY AT YOU. They do not know that you are the ‘very important’ assistant director of the sunshine committee. Cooperate and follow their instructions immediately. If they perceive you as a threat, or “dangerous” (NOT showing your empty hands), they will take immediate measures to control you that might not be very nice.

While running, with the expectation that you followed the directions and kept your hands empty, keeping your hands open and in front of you affords you a precious split second or two to grapple with a bad guy, lock a door, open a door, grab an office product, etc., and also shows responding officers that you are not holding a weapon.

WHAT TO DO (AND NOT TO DO) WHEN ENCOUNTERING LAW ENFORCEMENT:

THEY HAVE AN IMPORTANT JOB: STOP THE KILLING AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

This is BOLD because it is IMPORTANT: If you are armed, there is very little likelihood that you will NOT have your weapon in your hand with a crazed killer somewhere in the building. **If you are armed and FAIL TO INTERACT PROPERLY with law enforcement, THEY WILL LIKELY SHOOT YOU.

Trust me, as one of those responding officers, they do NOT want to shoot an innocent person. You shouldn’t be running with a weapon in your hand anyway. Keep your HANDS EMPTY AND UP when encountering law enforcement. They will thank you later.

Follow their instructions immediately.

DO Listen carefully. They will want to know IF YOU HAVE SPECIFIC FIRST-HAND KNOWLEDGE OF THE SUSPECT. “Where is the shooter?” “What do they look like?” “How many are there?”

Do not inform them you were in the middle of a zoom call with the president of the company. They do not want to know about your house keys left on your desk, nor that the coffee maker is still on.

IF you know the identity or location of critically injured people, let them know IF THEY ASK. EMTs and Medical help will be on the way, expect responding officers to pass you by EVEN IF YOU ARE INJURED. DO NOT TRY TO STOP THEM.

You will be very happy when you see them. DO NOT TRY TO HUG THEM OR MOVE TOWARDS THEM. There will be time for that later, I promise.

HIDE.

Okay. The shots were VERY CLOSE. No chance to get out. I have to hide.

Lock the door.

In most cases, a roaming shooter is looking for easy targets. A locked door takes valuable time. Time is NOT on their side. The unfortunate chances are that there are probably easier targets elsewhere. Don’t be them.

Lock the door, block the door, turn off the lights, silence your cell phone (turn off vibrate too), remain absolutely quiet (remember listening for sounds during your walk?). At the other end of the chance spectrum, loud noise throughout the office environment (excluding the shooting) might disguise movement, whispering, and other noises that might otherwise attract a killer. It might, MIGHT, drown out the emotionally vocal victims-to-be also.

Hopefully. Maybe not.

When teaching this portion of Run, Hide, Fight, I usually say it like this: “Lock, Block, and Sock. Lock the door, block the door, and ‘sock’ anyone that won’t shut up, because they will get you killed.”

And that’s the truth. Anyone that cannot control their outward expression of the fear of dying, when it attracts that very presence which is there to kill people, deserves to be on their own. They WILL get others killed. Try to help them by saying their crying, whining, or whelping will bring the attacker HERE! If they cannot be silenced, put distance between you and them. If you cannot get away, position yourself so the ‘emotional one’ is where the attacker’s attention is focused upon entering, and then FIGHT.

THE FIGHT.

FIGHT. Like your life depends on it. Because IT DOES. You will have to dig deeper than you have ever dug into your violent reserves to survive this.

Solo. Do not think that you will have the opportunity to smash the flower pot on the head of the attacker. If you get that chance, please email me. If you have the luxury of carrying or have access to a firearm, make sure you are proficient, accurate, and confident with it.

Knives, pencils, letter openers, and scissors are close quarter weapons that require you to at least be within arm’s reach of the attacker.

To be there, you have to get there. Without being shot. An improvised weapon with a medium effective reach (like a fire extinguisher or bug spray or hot coffee) is probably the most effective at creating the opportunity to close the distance with the attacker. Prepare to physically harm, damage, and possibly kill, the attacker.

Depending on the circumstances, the location (in a doorway), the weapon system used by the attacker (pistol vs long gun), and your abilities, you should try to control the weapon first. The weapon is the thing that will harm and kill you. It is NOT recommended that you attempt to use the attacker’s weapon system, BUT you may have to. The next best target is the HEAD. Violent blunt force to the head, followed up with targeting the weapon system. The next area for consideration is the legs. Put your shoulder into the hips, hug the upper legs, drive up and backwards to the floor with maximum force to shock.

Follow these initial attacks with lethal and damaging pencil/letter opener strikes to the face, eyes, neck, upper-inner arms, groin, and inner thighs. Strike as many times and as quickly as possible. If your pencil gets stuck, use hands, elbows, and forehead to stun, redirect, and control. Follow up with a stapler or paperclip as directed in your office handbook. Just kidding.

As a group. Designate someone to go for the weapon and the weapon only. Someone else focuses only on the head and face. The next person focuses on the weapon arm. Then the other arm. Then the legs. Then start doubling up.

The only time you should touch the attacker’s weapon is to keep it away from them. Call 911 and let them know you have subdued an attacker. DO NOT SUGGEST that the emergency is over. Remember, “If there’s one, there’s two.” Be prepared for the police to make a violent entrance. They might trust that you have subdued the attacker, but they will just want to verify its not a trap.

Make Your Plan Now.

The most important thing you can do RIGHT NOW is to MAKE A PLAN. Look around. Check online for “interesting” desk décor.

A plan will improve your confidence in your ability to survive and will give you a better sense of your surroundings. Including others will improve your plan and multiply your chances of survival. After deciding on a plan, try it out. Exercise your plan. Revise it if necessary. Talk about the details. Figure out who will be effective, who will need to be helped, and who will be left by themselves because they won’t shut up.

Look around my site. Email me with questions and suggestions.

Scan and Breathe. Stay Safe.

Robert

You can find a handy-dandy pocket guide to Active Shooter events on my home page.

Tack & Sword 032521 Office Arsenal Pt2

Bob’s Guide to the Improvised Office Arsenal PART 2

I think I’ll keep this at the top of these docs just in case.

RUN. HIDE. FIGHT.

For anyone who has found this article as the result of a last-minute Google Search:

RUN AWAY FROM THE THREAT OR THE SOUNDS OF DANGER. IF YOU CAN’T RUN…

HIDE. LOCK THE DOOR, BLOCK THE DOOR, AND REMAIN SILENT, AND BE PREPARED TO…

FIGHT. LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT (IT DOES). WEAPONS: FIRE EXTINGUISHER (SPRAY IF DISTANT, CLOSE DISTANCE AND HIT—THE HEAD—HARD—REPEATEDLY. CONTROL THE WEAPON/WEAPON ARM. #2 PENCIL TO THE EYES, THROAT, AND GROIN. IF THEY ARE STILL MOVING, THEY CAN STILL HURT OR KILL YOU.

Visit www.breakingptllc.com/blue-horse-security for my article RunHideFight

Good Luck.

In Part 1 (not labeled as part I, but, hey) I described some innovative uses for mundane office equipment. If you managed to get through that article, you might have a different view and respect for office supply stores.

In the previous article I mentioned a little about my background and lifetime “research” on the subject of improvised “tools”. Here’s an instance of how bizarre things can get.

We trained all the time. Our supervisors (CO’s, XO’s, 1SGs, PSG, LTs, SLs, & TLs) tried to turn every event in our day into a learning opportunity. A typical morning started, as most in the military, with PT at O’Dark Thirty (not a play on the movie. That’s what we really called it). However, one morning, we came out to the quad to see a bunch of “E-Type” silhouettes (targets) stapled to tall stakes in the ground making about a 15 foot circle. Our 1SG, “Crash”, was out and, instead of wearing his PT uniform, he was in cammies. Weird.

“Crash” was a Viet Nam vet. Had his head on right and was “a sergeant’s sergeant”. Tough, mean, and could walk a rucksack forever. His best attribute, though, was that he was short, like me.

Anyway. “Gather around here, knuckleheads!” He proceeded to staple some balloons to the targets. He pulled out his driver’s license. Turning it over, he had taped a razor blade to the back of it, a piece of 100 mile an hour tape covering the edge but folded back. His lesson was about being without a traditional weapon.

Unlike “Crash” and I, the rest of our unit, for the most part, was made up of giants. Seriously. If you’ve seen Hollywood actors one-hand an M60, you haven’t seen these guys do it. It was like they were pointing a compact pistol and yawning while sending 7.62 downrange.

As Crash described being surrounded by the enemy in some remote jungle and “all you’ve got is your driver’s license”, he got closer to the soldiers standing around, describing how fierce they would have to be. For most of them, he had to crane his neck to look them in the eyes. Most of the giants sort of grinned at the tiny, angry man waving a piece of plastic in their faces. “Sure”.

All of a sudden, he began whirling within the circle, POP! POP! POP! Balloons began popping quickly, one after another. He was, literally, “a whirling dervish”, which, by the way, became a short-lived nickname for him. The effect was profound. Needless to say, no one ever asked to see his license after that.

When working in certain organizations, there are restrictions on what you can bring into the building as far as objects that have the ability to be used in nefarious ways. Some people can get away with “art deco” pieces that, surprisingly, can be used effectively as weapons. It’s all how you characterize it.

Among the other very obvious items I neglected to include in the last article was a stapler. As an instructor for emergency preparedness at the U.S. Capitol building, the most frequent question asked about using a stapler for offense or defense: “Should I use it opened, or closed?”

This was (and still is) a great segue into the subject of PLANNING and OBSERVATION. Most people will see a stapler in the way it was intended to be used: closed. You slam the top down onto the bottom. It’s metal. Holds together pretty well over time. Kind of heavy. Feels like it would hurt if I hit someone with it or threw it at their head.

Whatever works for you works for you. Right? Having a few decades of experience in swinging wooden (and metal) sticks at bad people and hurting them (and not hurting them at times), I can say with some assurance that the mechanics and physics of the proper swinging of your SwingLine ™ in its extended form (opened, held by the base) will result in more damage delivered more frequently than either trying to beat someone over the head with it or attempting a hail Mary throw to pop them on the melon. Not to mention the damage points earned from the 3/8” staples left behind. *Warning: Graphic Content Ahead*** Bonus damage points for violently ripping away the stapler after impact.

You may ask yourself: At what point in my life will I ever have the chance to “practice” hitting someone with a stapler?

Glad you asked. This is where you secretly become a stapler afficionado. Check around for anyone who has that piece of trash stapler that always has staples stuck in it and gets tossed in a drawer. Get a few of them. Find a piece of scrap wood and do some testing.

I should start a survey. How many people are thinking of using that ugly picture hanging near the door and smashing it over the bad guy’s head? And not just to defend your life, but to finally get rid of that eye sore on the wall?! Very 1960’s Hollywood schtick. In reality, there is some value in the idea.

It depends on the quality of the framing and covering, you wouldn’t want to use one of those plastic, slip-on-the-edges, plastic framed, poster thingies. However, if you were to decorate your walls with pictures, and wanted to invest a small amount in your potential office arsenal, find a mid-sized wooden, glass-covered picture frame that is securely stapled or connected at the corners. Sharp corners are better. The frame shouldn’t be so big that it would be hard to handle, raise, or quickly strike with.

As a mental reminder, put the ugliest picture you can find in it. That will remind you of why it’s there. Or, you could hang a picture of something that would motivate you to survive.

There was a story circulated among officers about an incident on a New York (maybe) subway. An old man, reading a newspaper, was confronted by a young man with a gun who pointed at the old man from directly in front of him and demanded money. The old man, lowering the paper, said, “No”, and then raised the paper. The robber, intent on using the display of the weapon rather than the bullets IN the weapon, raised the weapon over the paper and demanded again. The old man, “No”, and moved the paper in front of the gun. Apparently, according to the story, this went on for a few moments until an officer showed up and took care of the problem.

The lesson here (albeit in story form): perception is everything. I’ve seen would-be intruders on the patio of the intended victim’s home tapping on the glass to be let in. They pointed the gun at the resident through the glass door, but the resident shut the curtains and the bad guy moved on.

Now, obviously, a picture and frame will not protect you and I wouldn’t recommend trying anything like the above acts of defiance against an armed attacker, but think of the disadvantage of not being able to see beyond an ugly picture of clowns being shoved in your face. Remember: seconds, even milliseconds count. The preferred method of a “Striking Portrait”, would be to use its edges as the contact surfaces, particularly the corners. A solidly framed corner can put an eye out (or worse).

In nearly every circumstance discussed here I’ll include an important caveat: The Situation Dictates.

The events and incidents we’re talking about are dynamic, changing every millisecond, comprised of thousands of decisions and courses of action based on ever-changing conditions. It is extremely difficult to plan for every event. The best plan is the simplest plan. The best plan is the one that fits most circumstances with the best outcome. PLAN, PLAN, PLAN.

Your best laid plan can go out the window because of dead batteries. Do not build your plan on the expectations of a piece of equipment. Equipment will break, fail, get lost, drop, not fit, etc.

The Situation Dictates. The Environment Dictates. The Enemy Dictates.

When you are on the receiving end of the bullets, when you are the one being attacked, unless you have extensively planned your defenses and counterattacks, incorporating tactical genius into every decision, you will unavoidably be, to a large extent, at the mercy of the attacker. You have set the stage, you have determined the “normal” rules of “acceptable” behavior within your environment. The attacker is committed to the attack with no regard for rules or anything that is acceptable. They will take advantage of every crack, every slip, every mistake to get access to their goal.

YOUR job is to BE AWARE of your surroundings and the people that populate them. I sign off my articles with “Scan and Breathe”. It’s a bit tripe, but it was a mantra that was drilled into our brains on the range. “Scan and Breathe” refers to your immediate post-shooting actions (besides getting off the X and reloading) where you have to defeat the mind’s tendency to hyper-focus in times of high stress, in what’s called tunnel vision.

You are probably not an “active duty” patrol officer who is constantly in a heightened awareness for most of their waking hours, a few steps closer to a defensive response, a few inches closer to the holster, as every unknown approaches. YOU will, depending on your life perspectives, likely feel threatened by strangers for a variety of mundane reasons. If you have lived a life of avoiding confrontation, your tunnel vision may kick in much sooner in certain circumstances.

The saying, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”, is absolutely true in the context of this article and subject. Once you start to expect the unexpected, the unexpected will not surprise you.

Two more office items and we’ll call it quits for this one. The clunky, clackity, desktop keyboard. If you have one, pick it up. Hold it by one end and tap yourself on the side of your head (not too hard). It might shatter after the first hit, but it will hurt. Similarly, hardcover books work the same way. As a last resort and NEVER something to rely on, a thick book can have SOME effect on bullets.

There you go for now. While we’re on the subject of protection, check out Leatherback Gear’s Bulletproof Backpacks at www.leatherbackgear.com. Use my promo code: BlueHorse for a 10% discount. If you purchase something, leave me a message, tell me what you think about it.

Scan and Breathe. Stay Safe.