Active Shooter Training

Like most people these days who work for others (I’m a university lecturer), I have to attend various staff-development events and staff “away days.” Usually the latter consist of activities such as building egg-box towers or other such delights in the name of team building.

Back in 2007, and faced with another yawn-inspiring away day, I suggested to my boss that we do something a little more interesting, something more useful. What did I suggest, he asked. How about I teach a two-hour session on surviving spree shootings? Being a particularly forward-looking and astute chap, he exclaimed: ‘are you mad? We can’t do that! What do you think this is? This is a university, that sort of thing doesn’t go on in Universities! Even in America that doesn’t happen!’ I pointed out that many academics travel, and that it was a darn-site more useful than building and flying paper aeroplanes (as he had planned). But he wouldn’t have any of it.

Sadly, just a few months later Seung-Hi Cho rampaged through the halls and corridors of Virginia Tech University, killing 32 and wounding 25 more. Of course it happens at Universities! Even in a gun-bearing country such as the US, the gun-toting spree killer targets places where the authorities prohibit ordinary citizens from carrying arms. It stands to reason, if in your twisted mind you plan to kill as many people as possible, then you’re going to pick easy targets – schools, universities, public buildings – where the intended victims will pose no opposition.

Just a few weeks ago I taught an Active Shooter class at my Krav Maga club. Sadly, the very next day Colorado bore witness to a gunman opening fire in a packed movie theatre, and just a couple of weeks after that, another shooter entered a Sikh temple killing six innocent members.

The point of this is not a told-you-so one. Often in combatives we train for the high-probability eventualities – the mugging, knifing, gang attack – but it’s also possible and important to prepare for the less common. The basics of Active Shooter training can be learned in a couple of hours, and practiced once in a while. I do my class on it once or twice a year max. The second time people do it, they behave astonishingly more tactically than the first time.

The headline principles are simple – and I thank my good friend Pete Lee for the foundations for thinking about this (I believe he took them from the Jim Wagner system), but also from Krav Maga, research, and a bunch of professional training – and easily learned and practiced. They can be summed up in the good old fight, flight or freeze terminology.

Flight

If, when the brown stuff hits the fan, you can get out of the building or away to safety, then do so immediately. Don’t stay around to watch or look, but don’t take risks running if the shooter is nearby and the exit isn’t. As a guide, if the shooter is present, then only make a break for it if you adjudge the exit to be achievable in a couple of seconds. It’ll take him no more than that to track your movement. If he’s in another part of the building, proceed carefully.

Freeze

Well, almost. If you can’t run, then either hide if you have time (barricade yourself in a room or the like), or if he’s in the room, hit the floor double quick and play possum. Do not move. Try to regulate your breathing, and try to appear dead. The shooter is going to be amped up – he’s running on adrenaline too – and looking to shoot as many people as possible. He won’t be tracking each bullet from an automatic weapon, so lots of people will be going down from direct hits and ricochets. Another body hitting the floor won’t likely be noticed. He’ll be reacting to movement, so don’t move. Don’t move, that is, until the conditions under Flight (above) hold.

Fight

If you can’t get away safely and other options seem minimal then fight back. If it’s a choice between being shot passively and going out fighting, it might as well be the latter. You may succeed. You may, at the very least, allow others to succeed or escape. Opportunities do exist – he’ll likely have to reload. Weapons jam with alarming frequency. If there’s no other choice, what choice have you got? If you have chance, arm yourself in advance with improvised weapons. If not, fight tooth and claw.

D