With More Frequent, Deliberate, and Targeted Active Shooter Attacks, What Can You do?

This is the reality of active shooters: they are becoming more frequent, more deliberate and more targeted. Everyone needs to be prepared. Everyone needs to participate in active shooter training. AEGIS Security & Investigations is proud to offer an live and online active shooter preparedness and response courses that are easy to follow and teaches you how to prevent, react, and survive and attack.

Just last month, firefighters in Long Beach came under fire when responding to an emergency call. Captain David Rosa was murdered, and the community continues to mourn. This type of attack reminds us why emergency service providers need to be trained specifically on responding to active shooter attacks that target them.

Scene safety and THREAT have made their way as the newest recommendations for emergency responders when encountering active shooters either as the medical response or the potential victims. While scene safety is the basic premise of all first aid and emergency response courses, it was found to not be enough to ensure the safety of on-scene victims and responders. Thus, the Hartford Consensus from 2013 developed the notion of THREAT:

  1. Threat suppression;
  2. Hemorrhage control;
  3. Rapid Extrication to safety;
  4. Assessment by medical providers; and
  5. Transport to definitive care.

In all of this, active shooter training is still the best type of preventative action any organization can take to ensure the safety of its community.

 

Why seek active shooter training?

Active shooter situations have steadily risen since the start of the millennium, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and are projected to continue to increase. (For a list of 2016 mass shootings, click here.) Lethal Intimate Partner Violence has affected numerous workplaces across the country, ranging from day care centers to hospitals to grocery stores to department stores.

Because active shooter violence is generally seen as “happening rarely,” trainings tend to be lacking. However, this is not the case for the reality of active shooter situations.

Furthermore, the shooting outburst at Eugene Simpson Stadium Park did not only affect the five members of the Republican baseball team who were directly hit. It impacted the surrounding community.

According to NBC’s Special Report during the Today Show, Hodgkinson opened fire with an automatic weapon, releasing 50 to 60 rounds. Many of the bullets sprayed nearby buildings, including the YMCA across the street from the park where the Republican practice was being held.

Neighbors of the park were out and about — walking their dogs, driving their cars, enjoying the sunny morning — when the active shooter situation began. Even though they were not the intended targets, they were in the vicinity and subject to being hit by a stray bullet.

Recent reports have found that people generally feel underprepared for active shooter situations. In looking at workplace shootings, The Everbridge Emergency Management and Safety (EMS) Solutions Active Shooter Preparedness Research Report found that while companies view active shooter situations to be a major concern, they are still not tackling the problem. According to the report, an active shooter incident was a top potential threat to the workplace for 69 percent of employee respondents.

 

What is active shooter training?

Active shooter training teaches you how to react in such a situation. Once shots are heard, the typical response for untrained individuals is to scream and, more often than not, stop in their tracks, leaving them open targets for the shooter.

The civilian active shooter training provided by AEGIS Security & Investigations is intended to build on “run, hide, fight,” the long-standing method of saving yourself in these events. Workshops run from an hour to several hours dependent on the needs of the organization and individuals. Our most highly sought after workplace violence training program is our one-hour plus add-on Run, Hide, Fight Live Fire Demo; participants begin with a lecture and basic training on how to handle the situation and are then exposed to sample scenarios in which they practice those same skills. The effectiveness of this scenario can be viewed on a CBS segment here.

AEGIS’ program is modeled after our one-hour live lecture and live fire demo and has been expanded to include additional information regarding pre-incident indicators, workplace violence and terrorism. It has been adapted for a unique immersive online delivery that challenges participants to make split-second decisions that could be the difference between life and death. Participants learn proven techniques on how to survive an active shooter.

The course is taught by a security expert and professional instructor. This online active shooter training is designed for civilians and aims to increase their personal resiliency and likelihood of surviving an incident before the police arrive. Sign up today for your online active shooter course with AEGIS Security & Investigations.

 

The long and short of responding to an active shooter

As soon as you realize are in an active shooter incident, be prepared to run, hide, and fight. Put yourself into a mindset that keeps you calm yet reactive. Your first instinct should be to run away from the situation. Once you can confirm you are safe, locate or call police officers or local security.

If running is not possible, find a hiding place. This can be the nearest space in which you can lock and/or barricade the door and take cover behind dense objects. If there is no room or space readily available, hide behind or under a large dense objects, or a dark space that would be difficult in which to identify a target for a shooter. Keep in mind that if you are hiding, you may need to move to a new space is the threat gets closer and that you may also end up fighting. Wherever you are, fashion yourself an improvised weapon with which to fight.

If you must engage in a fight with an active shooter, you have three key goals: defend yourself, incapacitate the perpetrator, and secure his/her weapon as quickly as possible. Heavy objects from your surroundings that can be thrown at or bashed into the perpetrator are ideal weapons. If there are others with you, work as a team.

 

Remember, your safety is primary in an active shooter situation.

Some additional notes here about active shooter trainings are likely spaces for such situations and what trainings can prepare you for in such an event.

Participating in active shooter training enhances one’s likeliness to remember the key element of enduring such a situation: run, hide, fight. AEGIS Security & Investigations offers a real-life active shooter training course in which students learn to ensure their personal safety and help those around them stay clear of danger. The greatest benefits to a course like this are its ability to put trainees into the proper reactionary mindset, its unique approach as a drill to create physical memory of what to do, and its insistence on the need for run, hide, and fight.

AEGIS Security & Investigations is a Los Angeles region company that is licensed and insured in the State of California to provide high-end armed and unarmed regular and temporary off-duty police officers, bodyguards, security officers, loss prevention agents, and event staff.

Additionally, we offer services for private investigation, consultation, people tracing, and background investigation. Our trainings and workshops in the field of security licensure and counter-terrorism have been featured in news media and are renowned for their efficacy. For more information or to contact us, visit www.aegis.com.

Contact us today

AEGIS Security & Investigations is a Los Angeles region company that is licensed and insured in the State of California to provide high-end armed and unarmed regular and temporary off-duty police officers, bodyguards, security officers, loss prevention agents, and event staff. Additionally, we offer services for private investigation, consultation, people locates, and background investigations. Our trainings and workshops in the field of security licensure and counter-terrorism have been featured in news media and are renowned for their efficacy. For more information or to contact us, visit www.aegis.com.

Author: Chelsea Turner & Jeff Zisner