NFPA Journal - September/October 2019 - 54

Perspectives

protect themselves. I looked around the country for examples of citizen training programs and
saw that most communities were just telling citizens, "if you want training on active shootings, go
watch this video and you'll be good to go." Most
municipal websites pointed people to a video
created in Houston called "Run, Hide, Fight,"
which we think is great, but I realized we had to
do more. In the fire service we've learned that you
can't just watch a video, you've got to see what
the concepts are, understand why you're doing
those concepts and then actually practice it. I
thought that our community needed some kind of
hands-on approach. Then I witnessed a lockdown
drill at our high school, and I became even more
convinced that we had a real need for more attention in this area.
What was it about the drill that made you
feel that way?

I saw kids trained in the traditional lockdown
methods-turning off the lights, locking the door,
hiding in the far corner, making them sit on the
floor until the event is over. There's no preparation about what happens if the shooter comes
into the classroom. There's no talk of what their
response is going to be. For years that's pretty
much what we've been telling people to do-just
hope that the shooter doesn't enter. And because
kids have been trained that way, we're now seeing
some people in the workforce do it this way in
their business environment. All we're doing is
clustering people together and creating target-rich
environments that don't challenge the killer. It
only makes it easier for them.
What is the better alternative?

nfpa.org/
perspectives
Listen to Polera's
presentation at
the 2019 NFPA
Conference in San
Antonio.
Read the NFPA
Journal feature
"Writing History"
on the creation of
NFPA 3000.

It all starts with good situational awareness, and
knowing where you are in relation to the shooter.
Getting out of the building is always the first
choice. If you are unable to get out, then you need
to have a plan to avoid the attacker, which could
include barricading the door. This is followed
by planning for what may happen next, which
may include confronting the shooter. We've seen
evidence that if you do something proactive, it
can make a difference. In April, a student named
Riley Howell rushed and tackled a gunman at the
University of North Carolina at Charlotte. The same
month, Oscar Stewart, an Army veteran, confronted
and stopped a shooter at a synagogue in San Diego.
In May, a football coach named Keanon Lowe tackled a gunman at a Portland, Oregon, high school
before he shot anyone. Howell died, but all of these

54 | NFPA JOURNAL * S E P T E M B E R / O C T O B E R 2 0 1 9

individuals made a difference. They saved lives by
being proactive in their response. The key here is
not to continue doing what we've been doing.
How did you come up with the specific
period of 12 minutes?

Most of these events are usually over in less than
12 minutes. Sandy Hook was five minutes. Then
think about what is considered a good response
time. It's going to take one or two minutes for
someone to identify that it's shooting they're hearing and make a call. Then dispatch puts the call
out to emergency responders-that's another two
to three minutes. Then you get law enforcement
arrival, which could be up to eight minutes. Once
they're on the scene, they have to identify where
the shooting is and get there. Twelve minutes is
actually a very good response time, but in rural
areas it could be much more than that. The speed
of violence is much faster. Usually by the time
police, fire, and EMS arrive, it's unfortunately
a recovery operation at that point, not a rescue
operation. So life-saving elements need to be
deployed to the citizens who are going to be there
in the moments the shooting is happening.
What does the actual training look like?

The first part is a lecture that usually lasts about
an hour. We go over active shooter data, current
FBI statistics, and we show the current trends on
these shootings and where they're occurring. We
also talk about the response time and the speed of
violence and the probability based on those that
people might be injured or killed.
Then we break the attendees into three groups
for breakout sessions that last about a half hour
each. In one, we talk about how to barricade a
door if you have to and what that looks like. In
another, we talk about bleeding control and focus
on tourniquets and non-occlusive dressings. In the
third, we show them the traditional approach to
lockdowns where you go hide in the corner and
what would happen if a shooter did come into
the room. And then we do it again using the more
active approach that we're teaching.
How do you recreate the active shooter
scenario? What happens in the room?

We have a fake shooter come into the room
shooting these little Nerf foam pellets while
the group is huddled in the corner of the room.
Afterward, we ask questions to attendees about
their response, what they did, and how they felt.
Most say the same things: "I didn't do anything.

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NFPA Journal - September/October 2019

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