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Edited by Christian Lowe | Contact

Avoid Another Va. Tech Part II

va-tech2.jpg

Alright, back to the "law enforcement" portion of Defense Tech.

My bro David Woroner from Survival Consultants International is laid up in the hospital for some pretty serious stuff today, but he managed to text over this story about a shooting on the University of Delaware campus that shut down classes.

This assault obviously raises the alarming specter of the Va. Tech shootings and prompts me to post the second part of Dave’s recommended solution to the recent outbreak of campus shootings.

I invite you to slice and dice his analysis, but I also ask you to keep Dave in your thoughts as he undergoes some pretty serious surgery in the coming days...

Part II

Follow Up: In the Aftermath of the release of the of Gov. Timothy Kaine’s panel report, while not scathing, did say “the alert should have been issued, and classes should have been closed.”

Too often we see what can happen, and how fast… The term I use: “Everything can change in a Second” still applies. We all know that’s what it comes down to for businesses (private or public) and educational facilities. It is about the bottom line, cash and PR. The Liability vs. Cost of this “Professional Security Presence” can be easily offset.

If Virginia Tech had armed professionals there, they would have engaged. There may have been casualties, but not so many. Also, from a business perspective, how much are you now gonna have to pay those 30 odd families who lost young ones in litigated settlements? I can guarantee you this: “cheap” is not the word I would use.

If you had the professionals onsite, in a court of law, it would be easily shown that the overseeing entity provided security for the employees, students and visitors to the best of their abilities. In my opinion, that would be the courts final say. Its all about “Did you do everything you could, or at least show you tried to avert some situation such as this.” Follow the above or get ready to get sued out of business. When there is blood in the water, the sharks will come.

Depending on the size of a venue, Professional, Armed Security is a must.

Overview:

These Professionals should not be walking around in battle dress, but a specific dress delineates who the good guys are. Proper dress is very important in this scenario.
Active shooters, terrorists and other unforeseen plans will always be there from now on, get used to it, prepare.

This security presence is not intended to be the creation of a secret police, police state mentality in the venue. The idea is to always be constitutionally bound by fairness, law and contain the ability to incorporate checks and balances within itself. It must protect the protected from becoming the target of an out of control security member or members. It should also be decisive and final in case of an event. It should come from proper team selection and overall creation of the intended group, to include all three key components of the security field.

The three components are Private Security, Prior Military, Prior Law Enforcement within the scope of the American Society of Industrial Security. This will surely bring together a force that will be able to work together from different viewpoints, both learned and lived.

Finally, an off property training location is necessary to engage in learning, training and cross training in all of these learned prior experiences - to include methodologies, communication, real-time maneuvering and live-fire exercises. This must be supported by the entity employing/engaging such professionals. The operators must work out plans in real time scenarios, to discover any internal flaws and fix them. You can only do this when you’re sweating, engaging, etc. The world goes to a different level when an event takes place.

Also, in the contract, it must state that administrators, owners, CEO’s, etc. may not intervene and attempt to persuade or order the security group to engage or cease. There is a lockout and protection clause from the hiring entity in the case of certain events.

Communications shall consist of:

Contact w/ each other and the security base as well as a channel for switching to “interweave”, which would allow security and law enforcement (local, state, federal) in the case of an event to coordinate. Complete loop communications is essential.

These Professionals will quickly delineate the property and everything on it to understand points of flow, large grouping areas. It’s also important to develop operational plans for multiple scenarios on all parts of the property being secured.

The event at Va. Tech. should clearly illustrate the need for an overall, all-encompassing notification and threat level “all electronic device notification system.” What this means is that sending out an email is not satisfactory. The administration personnel must be taught to pass to the Security Center all threatening phone calls and any type of written or verbal intelligence. The Security Center head (at the time) [and this is a 24/7 operation] should receive all data and distribute it to professionals on the property immediately. These professionals can delineate the level of threat and respond appropriately.

This does not infer that Regular Campus Police should be removed. Rather this is an add-on specialized unit, and it should have information flowing back and forth between regular campus police, the security center and, in case of an event, all know to switch to X channel for interwoven communications.

Returning to the “all electronic device notification system” - this system would do the following:

Install Strobe type flashing units around the property. This strobe is only to be activated if an “entire property notification” has been sent. This property wide strobe would let everyone on property know (even if they were not electronically connected that something “was going on”) to seek out someone with an electronic device to get the following “threat ladder” information:

(Example Only, each security unit would devise a specific set of parameters)

Green - All Clear and safe to move about freely.

Yellow - Receipt of information that there MAY be a problem, though not overly serious at this time, monitor your electronic device for any updates. (No Strobe)

Orange - A low-level threat or incident is confirmed and all should remain calm, stay where you are or seek cover, shelter, lock doors within your current placement. Notify the Security Center if you positively can identify a threat (this will set in motion a number of “false positives). Be prepared to Respond/Not Respond, and perhaps some administration can be taught to help with this situation.

This would be a situation for all law enforcement, security center to “switch to interwoven channel.” (Slow Strobe?)

Red - Imminent or Active extremely dangerous event taking place at this time.

Do Not Move From Where You Are. (See Part 1 of SCI’s Intel Brief)
Same Steps as Orange pretty much for public, but this activates Local LE, Campus Police, Security Center “interwoven communications/full interweave” PRE planned specific areas for all entities LE/Security to gather if appropriate, or go directly to a plan already known and sent to all on interwoven channel. (Rapid Strobe?)

This information MUST over ride, and deliver to multiple sources this information. All cell phones, pagers, computers, phone systems, etc. must receive the same / or more detailed information. All devices must receive these ladder steps.

I have specifically avoided how to setup the Security Center & Camera’s/Camera Placement, as there are very good reasons for keeping them not available to potential threats.

-- David Woroner

So what do you all think?

-- Christian

Comments

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I think the key is not so much the presence of "armed professionals" who, after all, can't be everwhere at once, but more training directed at students, faculty members, and campus employees. The same kind of training, by the way, that I believe every citizen should receive. The CERT program should be considered a model in that regard.

I often worry that the extreme professionalization of our nation's police and emergency services personnel, while itself commendable (and something I support), has come at the price of an American citizenry that has come to think that the solution to every crisis is to hide under the bed (or desk) and dial 911. We need to instill, in everyone, a sense of how to formulate an appropriate "OODA" response pending the arrival of professional assistance.

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Posted by: 121 at November 6, 2007 03:00 AM



The point of what i write is to only to make you think. What i find most disheartening is the "lack" of outside the box thinking? Wheres the whacked out ideas? Are we all sheep?

Im layin in my bed recovering from a pretty serious heart operation, (with Mr. Colt nearby)

Who said this? " I ain't going out like that!"

Your notes n wishes are very welcome and help me fight to my feet some days for those walks. It was serious, and Im seriously lucky.

Thank you all readers, i do appreciate it.
Best to all of any opinion, etc... after all, we are all on the same side in the end.
Best, David Woroner

Posted by: David Woroner at October 4, 2007 07:28 AM


just a nit pick, but the shooting was at Delaware State University, in Dover DE (think southern end of DE), NOT the University of Delaware, which is in Newark, DE (approximately an hour apart).

Posted by: GTH at September 25, 2007 12:10 PM


just a nit pick, but the shooting was at Delaware State University, in Dover DE (think southern end of DE), NOT the University of Delaware, which is in Newark, DE (approximately an hour apart).

Posted by: GTH at September 25, 2007 12:06 PM


Not only do I believe that campus personnel with CCW permits should be the norm, this should also include students!

Here, at the University of Georgia, Faculty and Staff can keep firearms in their vehicles in accordance with State and Federal law, but students may not have such weapons, whether they have a CCW or not. So while faculty and staff may feel secure in their parking place on campus, students are vulnerable.

Since when should becoming a student waive your legal rights to protect yourself?

Also, if it were common knowledge that campuses honored CCWs of faculty, staff, and students, I believe you would see less, not more potential for lethal violence.

Posted by: Mark Toomey at September 24, 2007 03:24 PM


Fair enough. Don't really buy the armed professional in the dorm/theatre/Wal-Mart, etc. scenario, and I don't think you can plan and budget for the rare exception, rather than the quotidian rule.

But in the face of horror, some of us hope and reach for solutions, and if our reach exceeds our grasp, well -- that's life, too.

Posted by: demophilus at September 22, 2007 02:51 AM


Somehow, this misses the point. We do not need another SWAT team in each college in the country. The cost would be staggering. Before we start talking about 'armed professionals training once a month in the building' we should start thinking about how many places there are. If it isn't college, it is shopping malls, movie theaters, Wal-marts, eating places...millions of places that you can't protect with 'armed professionals.'

You just have to accept that there will be occasional incidents, and people will get killed. That's life. You can't protect against everything and you will go broke if you try.

Posted by: Rixon at September 22, 2007 12:46 AM


And your point is?

When I was in college, I was trained how to fight the Soviet Union. I also partied a wee bit.

If the SHTF and you don't want to save your own skin, or somebody else's, that's your choice alone. I honestly hope you never have to make the choice.

As for my beliefs, well, "maybe" conveys doubt or reserve, where I come from. Like, you're not sure something is right, or wrong.

Posted by: demophilus at September 21, 2007 11:32 PM


Maybe students have to be ready to throw books and backpacks, or fire extinguishers, or form a phalanx of desks and charge, rather than die.

THIS

IS

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Posted by: perianwyr at September 21, 2007 06:51 PM


Whoa -- check out the huge cranium on ohwilleke. ;)

Get better, David. Thanks for the article.

Don't know that I agree with all of it, but that's really neither here nor there. Some issues are so large they frustrate any individual viewpoint. That's why a forum like this is important; you can surround the problem, and wrestle it down.

In that spirit, let me toss a little more grist into the mill.

First off, an event like the VT shootings makes us want and need to respond, to make sense of it. Don't know that's so easy. You're talking about a freak occurrence, far off the mean or quotidian. It's hard to validate theory or create policy for data points so far off the standard deviation.

For example, you can plan and train for a shooter scenario, and the next wackoid will just see you doing that. He may choose another attack mode, like chemicals. Hell, your preparations may just provoke him. All that HSLD, SWAT stuff brings out the worst in fragile minds.

More to the point, your campus police are trained for the day to day -- the rule, not the horrid exception. A campus SWAT force would have to deal with the reverse: granted, you can train all you like for the horrid exception, but how are you going to handle the ceaseless, crushing boredom of the rule? You've got to train like Delta, but live like Barney Fife. That'll drive even a strong man nuts.

Second, standard CQB tactics may not be necessary for schools. Clearing rooms and buildings is a bitch, even for the well trained; setting up to secure a hallway or quad isn't as hard. You can probably improve campus police response procedures just by having them secure open areas, entrances, exits, passages and choke points, and letting local SWAT try to dig a shooter out of classrooms or labs.

Third, don't forget the importance of terrain. The embittered student is dangerous because he knows his terrain, like any other guerrilla; a good reaction force should know it just as well. Hell, you could probably garner a good improvement in your campus cops with paintball, airsoft, or Simunition training in the actual campus buildings after hours. Have them train once a month or more in a different campus building until they know all the choke points, then start the cycle again. That might get you a better force than some pros that train in a shoot house somewhere else.

Fourth, let's not lose sight of the fact that it's not just a question of armed vs. unarmed -- it's also a question, what are your campus cops armed with? Training pistoleros can be difficult, time consuming and expensive; riflemen, not as much. Carbine skills don't degrade as quickly. NYPD ESU supposedly carries Mini-14s in their trucks; don't know I'd hand those out to campus cops, but after the Miami firefight, you've got to wonder why anyone still believes in pistols.

Israeli police and Civil Guard volunteer units still use M-1 carbines. That's an easy plinker that hits hard with soft points, which shouldn't ricochet; the round nose profile also limits range. The M-1 carbine was designed for support troops: more Barney Fife, than Chuck Norris. Maybe what a campus cop needs is a plinker.

Hungarian cops have supposedly used plastic bullets for their Makarovs for indoor CQB. The Chinese have supposedly used plastic bullets for security on planes, trains and buses. Our own air marshals have supposedly used both plastic bullets and frangibles. Don't know that I favor a proliferation of CCW permits on campus, but I could probably live with qualified marksmen with the right equipment. Some of the more recent frangible designs have interesting qualities.

Fifth, don't forget the OODA loop. Reacting to the guy after he starts killing is too late. You're better off identifying the shooter before he loads.

The first line of defense to the berserker should be better mental health TTP. As a society, we lag miserably in that department. Even well educated people think depression is marked by inertia and emotional paralysis. Not in young men -- depression means irritability, and hostility. Alienation. Rage. And it can usually be fixed with the right medications. Yes, I know: the record on berserkers and psychiatric medications is mixed. Nevertheless, just getting someone to admit they have a problem can defuse matters. Hell, just getting someone to know that it's OK to seek treatment can help.

Ohwilleke identified a real problem with our gun control laws. Every time you buy a gun, you have to certify that you haven't been committed for mental illness, etc. But people lie, especially if they're angry and alienated. If we don't treat people for mental illness, or at least encourage them to seek treatment, how are we going to get the screening data we need?

Of course, it's not so simple: good treatment often requires the utmost privacy, and turning private concerns over to bureaucratic authorities is a slippery slope, if not a pitfall. Still, if you don't treat the mentally ill, or at least facilitate their treatment, you're never going to know who they are.

Beyond that, the OODA loop militates other types of better soft security: CCTV networks, barricades, access limitations, etc. You can't turn an open campus into a Federal courthouse, but, once the shooting starts, you should be able to maintain real time coverage of the threat, and/or contain it, while opening and coordinating escape routes.

Last, we can't forget the lesson of United 93. Sometimes, fighting back makes a difference. Maybe we've reached the tipping point where we can't blithely count on professionals any longer. Maybe we have to train to not be soft targets. Maybe students have to be ready to throw books and backpacks, or fire extinguishers, or form a phalanx of desks and charge, rather than die.

Hell, maybe we don't even need to train for beserkers. Maybe all we need is to hear the first guy or gal yell "Let's roll!", and yell it back, building voices into a war chant. After that, we can improvise.

Posted by: demophilus at September 21, 2007 03:19 PM


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* .05% involved 5 or more victims

There were 16,692 homicide victims that year.

There will be fewer than 100 homicides with 4 or more victims in the next decade, if history is any guide.

Also, multiple homicide killers almost never end up being recidivists. They are killed, commit suicide, or incarcerated until they are elderly and harmless is almost every case. You can count on your figures the number of multiple killing cases that weren't cleared in the last hundred years.

Armed security response to homicidal mass killers is inevitably a "one first bite" affair. Somebody, and probably multiple somebodies will die in the initial part of the violent outburst unless you are in a society that has gun control which is as effective as that of Japan or Britain were almost no one, including non-professional criminals, has a gun (there is virtually no overlap between armed organized crime and the nutcases who commit mass killings like Virginia Tech and Columbine).

We can expect on the order of 300-500 deaths from mass killings like Virginia Tech and Columbine over the next decade. A universal armed guard presence wouldn't prevent a single one of those incidents, although it might reduce mortality by a quarter to a third (maybe even in a half in the most optimistic scenario).

To achieve this reduction in killings would be massively expensive. We are talking something on the order of 300,000 new full time well trained security guards, at a cost on the order of $2 billion a year nationwide (a cost of on the order of $100 million per life saved by the effort). There are hundreds of thousands of places where large numbers of people gather in this country, and some of those places, like Virginia Tech, had armed security forces which had only partial impact.

Identifying mass killers, in particular in advance is also difficult. There are 100 people, all alive right now, who will commit a mass murder in the next decade. There are three hundred million people in the United States, there are tens of millions of ex-felons, and there are tens of millions of people with mental health histories that could raise a yellow flag. Moreover, a substantial proportion of mass killer have no significant prior criminal record and an entirely private mental health history.

The most concrete things we can do are:

(1) replace almost non-existent Brady mental health screening with a system that may screen at least some mentally ill risks to themselves and others from buying guns shortly before crimes (as the attempted assassin of Colorado's governor was able to do and as the Virginia Tech killer did).

(2) increase the ease with which concerned people can convey a concern that someone is a risk to the proper authorities causing some intervention to happen, in cases where no crime has been committed with a theraputic goal, and make it easy for people with problems to seek help on their own.

Neither of this options are going to prevent all mass killings. But, thee options could make a dent comparable to universal armed guard services would, at a far, far lower price (this would involve a change in administrative proceedures in medical facilities with existing staff, dozens of state and federal employees to handle mental health Brady paperwork, changes in reporting rules under health and education privacy rules, and perhaps something on the order of 3,000 additional mental health workers to intervene in yellow flagged cases costing something on the order of $20 million a year nationwide), and would also make a bigger dent in incidence of suicides and non-mass killing crimes (like much more common single murder-suicides) which this approach could help prevent, but after the fact armed guard responses could not. This would cost considerably less than $1 million per life saved because suicides and non-mass murder deaths would be reduced in amounts probably greater than reduced mass murder deaths themselves.

Reducing the harm from mass murder is a good and desirable thing, although it is damnably hard. But, we need to be smart about how we apply our resources to get the best results possible for our investment.

Posted by: ohwilleke at September 21, 2007 01:11 PM


The armed professionals trained in active shooter scenarios are a good idea, but they are still a reactive force that comes after communication and confirmation of the threat.

Still say CCWs need to be enforced on campus. Active shooter expects no resistence from the sheeple. Anytime a sheepdog pops up, most active shooter scenarios end, or at least disrupt the active shooter's plans. Mess up his decision cycle.

Staying in one place is suicide. Cho was able to rack up a body count because people barricaded themselves in place and prayed for deliverance. What they got was slaughtered. The kids who jumped from windows and broke legs lived to tell about it.

Schools need to practice having kids egress from every point possible of any building to avoid creating a juicy target for the killer.

The LEOs need decide if their priority is getting innocents out of the line of fire or stopping the shooter. Getting the kids out will make it harder for them to find the shooter, but it foils his plans for them to huddle together and wait to die.

A Beslan-style assault is a different beast altogether. The emo kid lashig out at life does not even touch the required planning and response to a highly-trained squad of suicidal jihadists using fire-and-maneuver to take over a school.

Posted by: qualityhardware at September 21, 2007 12:21 PM


Well.. I happen to be a Virginia Tech employee, and I had some *big* issues with this. First off, as Robert pointed out, we *had* armed professionals, and they *did* engage (our shooter still had some 170 rounds of live ammo left, and shot himself rather than be captured when the police were closing in).

Second:

"Red - Imminent or Active extremely dangerous event taking place at this time. Do Not Move From Where You Are."

Wow. Our campus has a 22 acre open area called the Drill Field right smack dab in the middle of it. My cell phone gets a message "dangerous event, do not move" while I'm walking across it, there's *NO* way I'm staying put. How about "Seek secure shelter" instead?

http://spec.lib.vt.edu/imagebase/04VT/VisCom/screen/04UR042701tray3slot71.jpg

Would *you* "stay put" if you were in the middle of that? And yes, that's the *center* of campus - the dorms are on the far side of that, the academic buildings on the near side (and behind the location the picture was taken from).

Posted by: Valdis Kletnieks at September 21, 2007 11:52 AM


First two paragraphs are factless, and the rest
is unsupported..

> If Virginia Tech had armed professionals
> there, they would have engaged."

Uhmm, what?!?
http://www.police.vt.edu/VTPDnew/Police%20%20Virginia%20Tech.htm

Google "VA Tech Police force". First link..

I think these qualify as armed professionals.


A coherent article, after the pain meds, please.

Posted by: Robert at September 21, 2007 11:12 AM


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