John Davis, Centerville Police Community Relations Officer, said his office has received an increased number of requests for training presentations developed by the Miami Valley Crime Prevention Association.
“We want people to understand that this can happen where they work,” said Davis. “This can happen where they live.”
During a recent training session in Centerville, Davis quizzed a few dozen employees at the St. Leonard Franciscan Living Community about their daily routines and their awareness of escape routes in case of emergency. He asked employees to close their eyes and respond to a series of questions.
“Where is your nearest exit? With a show of hands, is that exit sign lit?” Davis asked.
Trainers emphasize that being aware of where the exits are can save lives.
Davis, along with scores of experts like him across the country, teaches people the life-saving mantra that has become standard issue in active shooter training: “run, hide, fight.”
Widespread use of that line came in 2012 after the city of Houston and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security produced a YouTube video entitled "Run, Hide, Fight: Surviving An Active Shooter Event." It was developed after the movie theater shooting in Colorado that year that left 12 people dead and 70 injured. The video has been viewed more than 4.4 million times.
During the St. Leonard training session, office workers sat calmly as a fellow employee played the part of a disgruntled former employee who entered their meeting and pulled out a plastic handgun. Davis instructed people to throw plastic balls at the “gunman” to show how even a minor distraction could give people the opportunity to flee.
“Best-case scenario, law enforcement is 2 1/2 to 3 minutes away. For those 2 1/2 to 3 minutes you have to survive,” Davis said.
Fighting, he said, is a last resort.
According to the FBI, 56.3 percent of active shooter incidents over the past decade ended with the gunman committing suicide or fleeing the scene. Another 28.1 percent of the threats ended when law enforcement engaged the shooter in gunfire. Relatively few incidents, just 13.1 percent, ended after unarmed citizens restrained the shooter.
Know what the threats are
Security consultant Craig Hoschouer, president of PLE Group of Centerville, said a growing number of employers are requesting a detailed analysis of facilities, from the parking lot to the break room, with an eye on preventing an active shooter situation.
“You have to take a look at what the targets are and what the threat is,” said Hoschouer.
The odds are greater, he said, that a company will face an assault, robbery, or burglary than a shooting in their offices.
“But just because an active shooter event is a very, very low probability, it has to be looked at from a professional’s perspective because the end results are so catastrophic and so many lives lost,” Hoschouer said.
Like other security experts, Hoschouer encourages workers to study their surroundings. Check if office access security measures are in place and make sure co-workers do not allow strangers to “piggy-back” into a building by following them through locked doors.
Security technology comes in a wide range of cost and sophistication. Bill DeFries, CEO and president of COPP Integrated Systems in Dayton, said company managers as well as employees should take an active interest in improving security at work.
“One of the things you should look for is that people cannot enter easily without some type of authority,” he said. “They should have a credential that is administered to you that allows you to enter a building via access control.”
Office buildings and other workplaces may be outfitted in the future with new technology that will help direct employees away from an active shooter. Columbus-based Battelle developed the SiteGuard-Active Shooter Response System. A series of sensors placed throughout an office complex, factory or school would detect gunfire and pinpoint its location. The computer system instantly notifies police and gives them real-time information on a shooter’s whereabouts.
Ed Jopeck, a former CIA security analyst and senior program manager at Battelle, said the system can even tap into a facility’s security cameras to show authorities live video.
“We are trying to accomplish making active shooter situations as survivable as possible,” he said. “The goal for us is to reduce the loss of life to the point where it no longer makes sense to undertake the point of attack at soft targets.”
Using technology to pinpoint gunshots
At Battelle’s research facility in West Jefferson, Ohio — 55 miles east of Dayton — a cluster of buildings house the labs that gave birth to the SiteGuard system. Manager Duncan Langlois, armed with a handgun loaded with blanks, walked the office hallways to demonstrate the system’s speed and accuracy. Each time he fired the weapon, the computer screen showed which sensor picked up the sound of the gunshot, pinpointing his location.
The system also alerted cell phones registered to receive messages from the system with a digital voice that reported when and where shots were fired.
Jopeck said gunshots fired inside buildings produce an echo that often leads people to mistakenly run toward the shooter. With the SiteGuard system, people ccould determine where the shooter is relative to their position in the building.
“It allows them to evacuate with greater certainty in the direction of safety or to know that it is not safe to evacuate in that direction, that they may need to shelter in place, hide, or even prepare to fight,” Jopeck said.
Battelle has installed the system in one school building in the Columbus suburb of Reynoldsburg. Nicholas Keisel, Reynoldsburg’s Director of Safety and Security, said the building served as a pilot installation. Keisel, a former police officer, said he is impressed with the system.
“I think this is a need that was not covered prior to this,” Keisel said. “From a law enforcement perspective and even from a school safety perspective, there is a breakdown of communication when these incidents occur. We need that detailed, accurate, timely information for the students in our school.”
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