Every second matters during active assailant events

Intrusion Technologies posted this blog post on Medium:

Folks, as we are faced with another deadly attack on a school (Santa Fe, Texas), the hand wringing and questioning by lawmakers and decision makers continues with what some believe to be an unsolvable plague. The endless “news” conferences, the political debate about the instrument of choice, the “why” is this happening debates result in little or no effective solution to mitigating Active Shooter or Active Assailant events. For those of us that are in the business of addressing these events or responding to these attacks, the situation is maddening. Even those colleagues that have been at this for many years cannot agree on an effective solution. What almost every public safety professional, every security professional and every life safety systems professional cannot argue about is that seconds matter. With study after study, event after-action report, and every publication on the subject has proven, is that during Direct Threat attacks most casualties occur in the first 120 seconds (2 minutes). An armed responder to the event arrives in between 4 to 11 minutes on average. It takes an additional 2 to 5 minutes before they enter the building and an additional 2 to 6 minutes to engage the attacker(s)(FBI 2014). Even if armed intervention is on-site, their reaction and engagement take minutes.

Those are the facts! So, if we are to be effective at reducing or even eliminating the casualties from these events, we must either quickly find a cure to all the causal issues or reduce the timeline of an attack to as close to zero as technology will allow. Why technology? Simple, human reaction is not only slower than technological reaction, human reaction is most often flawed. Let’s look at a couple of events and how human reaction further contributed to loss of life:

· Sandy Hook Elementary School, 2012. The attacker attempted to enter the access controlled front entrance. The door was locked, so the attacker fired at least 3 shots through the glass entrance enclosure and entered. Having heard “a strange” noise, 2 staff personnel exited a closed door staff meeting to see what was occurring. Those 2 staff members were the first 2 casualties as they entered the hallway. The rest of the event is well documented in the Governor’s report.

· Franklin Region High School, 2014. The attacker, utilizing two 8” kitchen knives, attacks students. During the attack a student pulled the Fire Alarm. This brought additional victims into the reach of the attacker. In all, 21 students and staff were injured by the knife attack.

· Pulse Nightclub, 2016. Most, if not all of those interviewed by Police testified that at the onset of the attack, they thought the noise was from the show. Having off-duty Law Enforcement at the venue did not stop the attack.

·Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, 2018. The first several shots fired by the attacker were not recognized as gunfire. They were dismissed as “firecrackers” by almost everyone. Additionally, the fact that there was armed intervention at the school did not stop the attack.

· Santa Fe High School, 2018.Preliminary reports indicate that every student interviewed stated “I didn’t think it was someone shooting” until they heard screaming. Again, even though armed intervention was onsite at the initiation of the attack, that armed intervention became a casualty and did not stop the attack. Additionally, victims activated the Fire Alarm system in a fatally flawed attempt to warn people. This action brought additional victims into the hallways, which made them more vulnerable to the attack.

These handful of events show a clear pattern of natural human reaction to the onset of violence. Untrained ears and eyes are reluctant to identify direct threats in enough time to protect themselves and others from harm. A 2014 study from Purdue University’s Homeland Security Institute headed by Professor Eric Dietz concluded that the average time for a human to recognize an Active Shooter event was 30 to 90 seconds. Subsequently, it was an additional 30 seconds to 1 minute for a 911 call to be made and the initial response dispatched. This lag in recognition begins a pattern of seconds lost, which equates to additional casualties (Purdue 2014). It has been stated that every 5 seconds results in 1 casualty until the attack is mitigated. Simply put, for every minute of an event 6 casualties occur.

A clear picture results, the first seconds of an event are critical not only to survival but to initiate protective measures. Human recognition leads to human reaction. The longer recognition takes, the longer reaction takes, the more vulnerable victims are to being wounded and/or killed. How do we get recognition and reaction to the point of saving lives in seconds?

1. There must be automatic acoustical detection equipment in place.

2. That detection component must be tied to immediate notification of the response community with a capability to identify an area in the building where the alert was triggered.

3. Ballistic resistant material must be installed at ground level entrance ways. A consideration should be made to utilize doors that will withstand commonly used ammunition.

4. Once activated, the system must have a mass notification capability. Audible and visual components must be installed on site.

5. Additionally, the detection component must be connected to an automatic protective system that eliminates the attacker’s ability to gain easy access to victims.

6. This protective system must immediately close doors and lock them from ingress. There must be an ability for occupants to immediately escape those rooms if necessary (fire code compliant). The locking mechanism should be equipped with a responder defeat capability so Law Enforcement or the response force can enter, search and treat victims and occupants without having the occupants open the door. This eliminates the potential attacker from announcing themselves as a responder and having the door opened to gain access to victims.

7. Staff and occupants must be trained on threat recognition and threat reaction best practices.

8. Staff and occupants, if practical, should have access to equipment and training on hemorrhage control (stop the bleed).

It is unrealistic and dangerous to assume that we can prevent most attacks. Future technology may very well get us to the point of detecting an event before it is initiated. Prevention is a goal, reality is that the causal factors and attack techniques are so vast that even the best proactive program cannot, with any degree of certainty, be effective at stopping the Active Assailant. Implementing a plan for the 4 D’s is critical to saving lives during the first 120 seconds.

· Detect

· Deter

· Delay

· Defeat

Working together, we can make a material difference in limiting the vulnerability and consequences of these unthinkable events.