# What are you doing to evaluate your active shooter plans?



## gafftaper (Oct 7, 2017)

Bataclan, Pulse, Manchester Arena, Aurora Colorado, Reina in Istanbul, and now Vegas. Once again there has been a mass shooting in one of OUR spaces. While others debate what can and can't be done on a national level, the question is what can we do in our own spaces right now to make them safer?

I manage a high school PAC. Next week I'm getting together with the other two PAC managers in our district and a local police officer to discuss the district emergency policies, strategies from our local police department, and ideas from the article in Protocol below. We will be working on formulating the best plans we can come up with to keep our facilities safer. I'll be posting my thoughts after that meeting next week.

Do you have ideas on how to keep us safer? Please share them here.

@ruinexplorer posted this great article written by one of the lead people at the Event Safety Alliance and published in Protocol. If you haven't read it, please do. Unfortunately it's not very encouraging. But it is a strong dose of reality. Protocol_Summer2016_RunHideFight.pdf


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## MRW Lights (Oct 7, 2017)

We have annual active shooter training at our facility for all staff members as well as around the clock visible security. I'd like to think that my venue is in a "nicer" area of NYC where those kinds of things don't happen... but the truth is it can happen anywhere and it's happening more frequently.

Here in NYC all public assembly facilities are required to file emergency action plans with the city for evacuation, internal threats and natural disasters. Even if your municipality doesn't require you to submit plans I am 100% for having them. It's not a question of IF we need them, but a question of what we do WHEN we need them. Hopefully the answer is we never need them and it will be the most useless piece of knowledge we obtain... but then again if it was useless we wouldn't need to know it...


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## ruinexplorer (Oct 7, 2017)

I truly hope that we start seeing more people who are in charge that have actively been trained as venue managers and have specific training in keeping our venues safe. The International Alliance of Venue Managers specifically has a training program for venue safety. And as is the protocol for all risk assessments, that manager should be having follow up training on a regular basis.


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## What Rigger? (Oct 7, 2017)

Having a meeting tomorrow where that topic will be brought up.


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## gafftaper (Oct 11, 2017)

So I met today with the other theater managers and a police officer. Our district has adopted the "A.L.I.C.E." training program. 
A= Alert (be aware)
L= Lock Down (secure your space as much as possible)
I= Inform (Notify the police and administration)
C= Counter (Is there a way to fight back? Protect yourself)
E= Evacuate

So it's similar but a little different from the "Run, Hide, Fight" strategy that others are using. Also when you consider the school environment, it makes a little more sense. I'm not sure that the first step of having 1,500 kids all start running off campus is the best solution. Right? However if the shooter is inside the theater "run, hide, fight" is the strategy that makes the most sense. The officer pointed out that the truth is in situations where the first reaction is a group of people in the crowd attacking the shooter, body counts are extremely low. So in some situations the best solution is just "Fight". However, you can't count on what you will do in the situation let alone what the audience will do. So planning for "fight" is a bad choice. "Run, Hide, Fight" makes a lot more sense. 

We talked a lot about saving yourself vs. protecting those in the theater. The officer stressed that it is not a job requirement to risk our lives for people in the theater. Since it's a school, we may feel compelled to try to protect students but in the moment we may also decide to run for our lives. Either option is fine. There's no wrong choice in these situations. 

We talked a lot about ways to get the crew and people backstage out safely if a shooter was in the house, which in our spaces seems fairly easy to do. But unfortunately, this means leaving the people in the house to fend for themselves. About the only thing I can come up with to do to help the house would be to make some sort of an announcement to fight back, but this would mean making the booth a target and giving up precious seconds to get my crew out safely. So clearly it's a decision that can only be made in the moment. 

If there was a shooter nearby on campus but not in the theater we talked about not just locking the doors but finding ways to secure them beyond just the lock. For example use a belt or rope to tie the doors (or the door closers up above) together to make it harder to get in. Perhaps having some sort of a chain nearby with hooks in the door making it easier to permanently secure the doors from the inside. Screens to cover glass windows backstage. Also the officer made the point that if you are in a lock down situation it's very important to call 911 and tell the police that you have 400 people safely secured in the theater. This will help them as they are clearing the facility. 

As for the next steps, I'm going to follow up with a police officer in my own theater. We will talk about more specific plans for my space. From there I will put together a more detailed plan for how to deal with a shooter emergency. The plan will include discussion of evacuation routes, thoughts on how to make the theater more secure to shelter inside, thoughts on ways to fight back (stage weights anyone?), plans for what to do if you have 400 agitated non-english speaking adults in a theater and you want to keep them calm and locked down inside, plans for a meet up location for the crew a safe distance away from the theater, and more. Once those plans are complete I will be having staff meetings to train everyone in what we want them to do. 


Please share your thoughts and plans here. If something I have said either does or doesn't sound good, please respond and say why. I want to hear what you think. What can we all do to stay safer? Without a drastic change in policy, this is a reality we have to live in for the foreseeable future. The most important thing we can do is plan our courses of action. The more of these conversations we have, the more we plan, the better prepared we will be mentally if the situation ever does arise.


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## TheaterEd (Oct 11, 2017)

We, as a school district will be going through ALICE training next week. I'll let you all know if something new comes up.


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## StradivariusBone (Oct 11, 2017)

gafftaper said:


> If there was a shooter nearby on campus but not in the theater we talked about not just locking the doors but finding ways to secure them beyond just the lock.



My favorite way of doing this is with a drywall screw. In most doors you can hand drive a screw in between the door and the frame and it won't budge. I use this trick to store door flats, but I also used it to brace my front door during the hurricane. 


gafftaper said:


> We talked a lot about ways to get the crew and people backstage out safely if a shooter was in the house, which in our spaces seems fairly easy to do. But unfortunately, this means leaving the people in the house to fend for themselves.



I'm a HS TD too and my priority is my kids getting out. I perpetually tell them that their only responsibility is their own safety. If they are able to leave a mic unmuted or flip the house to full on their way out then do it, but don't jeopardize your own safety for that. The reality is that the likelihood of being in this sort of situation is not high enough to justify any actual training beyond what run-hide-fight says. To me, Vegas proved that where there's a will there's a way. I don't think any of us who have never been in that sort of situation can predict how we'll react if the worst should happen. 

Now that's not to say that preparation is pointless, but whether the building's on fire or someone's shooting my kids' only job is to get out and stay out.


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## edifi (Oct 11, 2017)

I'm interested in this thread. When we have a lock down - two real ones in the past four years and drills, I take my students into the theater because my classroom has large plate glass windows and a glass door. However, there are 14 doors into the theater, all of which are routinely left unlocked. It takes some time to lock them all. I'd welcome suggestions on this.


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## TheaterEd (Oct 11, 2017)

edifi said:


> I'm interested in this thread. When we have a lock down - two real ones in the past four years and drills, I take my students into the theater because my classroom has large plate glass windows and a glass door. However, there are 14 doors into the theater, all of which are routinely left unlocked. It takes some time to lock them all. I'd welcome suggestions on this.


We have 4 class periods a day. At least once a period I do a lap to check my doors. It seems excessive, but I generally find one a day that has been left unlocked at some point. It's a constant struggle. Additionally, my current plan has my class going to a dressing room so I only have to really worry about one door. BUT if there are students in the cafeteria, they get herded into the aud and seated in the mezzanine. To me, this seems dumb since that is generally the largest group of people (about 350 kids per lunch) and the most likely target. Personally, I think they should scatter throughout the building / evacuate rather than all herd in the same direction towards a room with 7 entrances. I intend to bring that up next week.


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## emathews (Oct 11, 2017)

Following this post. We had a gunman in our town yesterday. Locked down 3 K-12 schools, including the one where the performing arts space that I am TD of is located, locked down 2 pre-schools, required 3 other schools to shelter in place, and neighborhoods within about 1 mile diameter of where the shooter was to shelter in place. We are a brand new space and there are so many things that need our attention that when I raised my safety protocol concerns to the principal he put it on the back burner. I have a feeling it will now get addressed sooner. As a note: our PD and surrounding town PDs did an amazing job of capturing the gunman after 4.5 hours without any injuries.


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## gafftaper (Oct 11, 2017)

edifi said:


> I'm interested in this thread. When we have a lock down - two real ones in the past four years and drills, I take my students into the theater because my classroom has large plate glass windows and a glass door. However, there are 14 doors into the theater, all of which are routinely left unlocked. It takes some time to lock them all. I'd welcome suggestions on this.



Keeping a high school theater secure is difficult and one of the most important things we can do. There are SO many ways a kid can get injured, killed or into trouble. What better place to hide out and get high or have sex at school? (I've found evidence of both over the years.) Two years ago one of the actors snuck in the theater and had a diabetic emergency alone during school. I would start with trying to get administration backing that theater security is a high priority. I assume they will agree that it's a bad idea to have a dark dangerous place full of high power and high fall dangers open to unsupervised students. Post reminder signs to lock doors. Explain to all the normal users why the theater must be secured. You can secure it! With a lot of vigilant work, I find one door unlocked about every three weeks. Yeah it's frustrating, but it's very important and worth the hassle.


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## gafftaper (Oct 11, 2017)

TheaterEd said:


> Personally, I think they should scatter throughout the building / evacuate rather than all herd in the same direction towards a room with 7 entrances. I intend to bring that up next week.



I agree. You might consider asking a local police officer to come help you do a risk assessment of the theater. This alone would be valuable. But you could also work in the question of what the officer thinks about this policy giving you more support with the administration.


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## emathews (Oct 11, 2017)

We have one class a day that takes place in the theatre. Does anyone else have this issue? Have you figured out a way to limit access to the space outside of that one class period a day?


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## gafftaper (Oct 11, 2017)

emathews said:


> Following this post. We had a gunman in our town yesterday. Locked down 3 K-12 schools, including the one where the performing arts space that I am TD of is located, locked down 2 pre-schools, required 3 other schools to shelter in place, and neighborhoods within about 1 mile diameter of where the shooter was to shelter in place. We are a brand new space and there are so many things that need our attention that when I raised my safety protocol concerns to the principal he put it on the back burner. I have a feeling it will now get addressed sooner. As a note: our PD and surrounding town PDs did an amazing job of capturing the gunman after 4.5 hours without any injuries.


Let's keep talking here sharing ideas. Again I like the idea of bringing the police in to help you with a theater safety assessment. School districts only think about classrooms when the Commons/Lunch room and theater are the most critical points to protect.


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## gafftaper (Oct 11, 2017)

emathews said:


> We have one class a day that takes place in the theatre. Does anyone else have this issue? Have you figured out a way to limit access to the space outside of that one class period a day?


I have two classes a day. I secure the theater when I go home and check the Doors that the drama teacher has supposedly locked. The biggest problems I have is actually random administrators walking through the theater for various reasons and music teachers who bring a class in for a full stage practice session and forget to lock back up. Every time I find the door unlocked I try to determine who did it and remind them this is a dangerous place that must be secured for the safety of the kids. Your tone is important in this conversation. Don't be angry or frustrated, be concerned for kids safety. That sells! It's a long battle, but they are genuinely apologetic and over time have learned to be concerned from me.


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## TheaterEd (Oct 11, 2017)

gafftaper said:


> The biggest problems I have is actually random administrators walking through the theater for various reasons and music teachers who bring a class in for a full stage practice session and forget to lock back up.



SAME!! Administration, Guidance, and Maintenance are the biggest offenders.


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## gafftaper (Oct 11, 2017)

StradivariusBone said:


> The reality is that the likelihood of being in this sort of situation is not high enough to justify any actual training beyond what run-hide-fight says. To me, Vegas proved that where there's a will there's a way. I don't think any of us who have never been in that sort of situation can predict how we'll react if the worst should happen.
> 
> Now that's not to say that preparation is pointless, but whether the building's on fire or someone's shooting my kids' only job is to get out and stay out.



Hey Strad, I was watching the news last night and there were three stories about teens shooting teens, one of which was at school. Yeah it's unlikely that there will be a shooting at my school, but the violence is not going away. When you combine school shooting with lockdowns due to outside violence, I think it's a given that over the rest of my career there will be at least one serious lockdown happening at my school, probably more than one. The likelihood of a single teen vs teen revenge sort of shooting I think is probably in the 30% range. I think the likelihood of a mass shooting is more likely around 5%-10%.

Yeah I'm not very optimistic about us doing anything meaningful to prevent this stuff.


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## gafftaper (Oct 11, 2017)

TheaterEd said:


> SAME!! Administration, Guidance, and Maintenance are the biggest offenders.


Oh maintenance is a huge problem! Drives me crazy! But they at least tend to do this when I'm around to check on them afterwards. .


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## firewater88 (Oct 11, 2017)

Gaff, I like your ideas in the post earlier. Seems we have a similar size theatre. The big difference is that mine is a stand-alone facility, not even on the same campus as a school. So my space is not filled with kids on a daily basis, I kinda like it that way...
My FOH position is actually in the house, we don't use the booth in the back of the balcony. So my tech, including myself, are usually right there with the patrons during a show. We haven't had any major instances inside, a few outside in the area, but nothing that impacted us inside the space. 
I might push to get some guidance from the local police and see where that gets us. I like that this is being discussed and people are taking a proactive approach to this.


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## gafftaper (Oct 11, 2017)

firewater88 said:


> Gaff, I like your ideas in the post earlier. Seems we have a similar size theatre. The big difference is that mine is a stand-alone facility, not even on the same campus as a school. So my space is not filled with kids on a daily basis, I kinda like it that way...
> My FOH position is actually in the house, we don't use the booth in the back of the balcony. So my tech, including myself, are usually right there with the patrons during a show. We haven't had any major instances inside, a few outside in the area, but nothing that impacted us inside the space.
> I might push to get some guidance from the local police and see where that gets us. I like that this is being discussed and people are taking a proactive approach to this.


Yeah being in the heart of the house changes things. 

The police officer we met with talked about the importance of thinking about what you would do. How could you run? How would you fight? How would you hide? Having a thoughtful conversation about it with the police and your crew means the information will be there if you ever need to use it. Maybe you need to hide a baseball bat at the FOH position. Would self defense courses be worth it? What about ways to better secure doors? etc...


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## Charles Heetbrink (Oct 11, 2017)

Active shooter training should be followed up by Mass Casualty Incident training, if possible. Schools seem to like ALICE here in the PNW.


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## manuallyfocused (Oct 11, 2017)

I teach at a private Jewish high school, in a former Jewish community center in an area where a JCC was the target of an active shooter incident a few years ago. As you can imagine, we have a very visible security presence as well as lockdown drills, active shooter training, and a very involved Facilities manager (sometimes too involved!) who is constantly looking for ways to keep us safe. Of course, we have issues with student access to the auditorium and other spaces they shouldn't be in by themselves, but we're working on it. 

Two things have been added to our set of emergency preparedness tools recently that solve some of these security issues. One is a quick and easy door locking system called "Nightlock" https://nightlock.com/door-security-devices/door-barricade/nightlock-lockdown/. These make it really easy for us to secure the doors to a classroom or the auditorium from the inside. The second is an app: https://www.titanhst.com/. All faculty are connected into the system, so everyone is informed as soon as an emergency is reported, and anyone can report an emergency. I was a bit worried that we'd get spammed by a lot of false notifications, but it's been pretty well utilized so far.


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## josh88 (Oct 11, 2017)

Much like the above, I was working at a private high school where about a decade ago a man had murdered his wife and kid, buried them in the woods a few miles from our campus and then wandered through our campus briefly. Things were a bit different back then, also nobody had any idea it had happened until they found the bodies later. Because of this we had a pretty decent lockdown plan in place and went over it quite a bit after newtown happened. 

We installed a similar door lock product on our of our classroom doors and were already using IRIS (https://www.irisdispatch.com) for snow cancellations, delays and other important alerts and our phone system could be used to make announcements to every building on campus. Luckily for us the Police and Fire Department was a baseball throw away from my shop door. Given the proximity we started offering lunch at our dining hall to officers so that they could walk around campus and get more familiar with it and get our students more comfortable with seeing them. 

We also had dorms on campus but access to them was already restricted to people with a badge/ID to swipe in.


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## gafftaper (Oct 12, 2017)

Charles Heetbrink said:


> Active shooter training should be followed up by Mass Casualty Incident training, if possible. Schools seem to like ALICE here in the PNW.


Hi Dutch... Yeah it's me... Our sister High School down the hill to the East actually did a full active shooter drill with the police, an actor as the bad guy, simulated gun shots, students in the hall, etc... A few years ago. My counterpart at the school said the simulated gun shots in the hall were absolutely terrifying.

There was a group of teachers and students who volunteered to be in the target classroom. They out smarted the script for the drill by blocking the door before the "shooter" could get in. The "shooter" had to improvise off script which totally messed up the plan. But in the end the police said it was much better for them as they suddenly had no idea what the script was and so it became a true drill.

@manuallyfocused that night lock looks like a great security solution. How do you store the lock plates so they are close but don't walk off?


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## TheaterEd (Oct 12, 2017)

gafftaper said:


> that night lock looks like a great security solution. How do you store the lock plates so they are close but don't walk off?


Also, how do you ensure that some smart alec doesn't have access to them and lock everyone out of the aud, Or, even worse, lock the main doors, while an audience is in the aud? If they're accessible, they're a liability 99% of the time, and if they are not then what's the point. (note: I'm genuinely curious as to how you mitigate that risk. I like the idea, just concerned about the execution.)


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## Charles Heetbrink (Oct 12, 2017)

The article that gaftaper posted has some frightening implications. Based on my experience, the bell curve the author talks about is true. The emphasis to find and teach (create?) effective emergency leaders becomes therefore a critical component, in my opinion.


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## StradivariusBone (Oct 12, 2017)

Charles Heetbrink said:


> Active shooter training should be followed up by Mass Casualty Incident training, if possible.



This is a really good point. When I was in Scouts as a kid we actually brought up the fact that the First-Aid training seemed to revolve around the typical injuries one might sustain from doing outdoor activities or the standard workplace hazards (cuts and bruises on up to cardiac arrests, etc). While discussing it we starting thinking that it might not be a bad idea to also do some training on firearm-related injuries as at that time the Columbine HS shooting had just occurred. 

I feel like a lot of the knee-jerk response to these attacks is to focus on the training that involves dealing with the attacker during the attack, but a real problem comes after people are injured and you've got gunshot victims that will bleed out in minutes- well before paramedics would ever be able to get to the scene.


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## audiomaster (Oct 12, 2017)

If we are talking "shooter situation" that means he has a gun. The only counter to stop a gun is another gun or guns in the hands of people who know how to use them. You may slow him down with the above suggestions but if he is determined, he still has a gun and can use it. Most doors and walls won't stop most rounds. In every school there should be teachers who are armed and trained to use guns. A principal, janitor, coach or other willing armed and trained person that is willing to accept the responsibility of legal carry. The local police need to know who that person is, they need to have a phone or communication device on them at all times, and one or more of them need to be present at all major events. Even if there is a school security officer present, there should be another person in plain clothes armed as the "security officer" will be the first target of the gunman.

The idea of a shootout in a crowded venue is not pleasant, but allowing a gunman free targets for the time it takes to get an armed officer to the venue is even less pleasant.

My church has a plan. The minister is armed, there is a person in the front of the balcony armed, and on most Sundays at least one of the ushers is armed. And it's not a big church. God helps those who help themselves!


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## TheaterEd (Oct 12, 2017)

audiomaster said:


> In every school there should be teachers who are armed and trained to use guns. A principal, janitor, coach or other willing armed and trained person that is willing to accept the responsibility of legal carry.



This may be the worst possible idea suggested..... Thank you for sharing your opinion. Moving on...



audiomaster said:


> My church has a plan. The minister is armed, there is a person in the front of the balcony armed, and on most Sundays at least one of the ushers is armed. And it's not a big church. God helps those who help themselves!



One more reason not to go to church.....


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## StradivariusBone (Oct 12, 2017)

audiomaster said:


> A principal, janitor, coach or other willing armed and trained person that is willing to accept the responsibility of legal carry.



Don't forget about taking the responsibility of ending a child's life because they accidentally killed them in the crossfire trying to take out an assailant. How exactly would this help in a situation like Vegas? Shooting from several hundred yards away at a glass building with a handgun? I doubt the custodians are going to carry long rifles with scopes.


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## dvsDave (Oct 12, 2017)

audiomaster said:


> If we are talking "shooter situation" that means he has a gun. The only counter to stop a gun is another gun or guns in the hands of people who know how to use them. You may slow him down with the above suggestions but if he is determined, he still has a gun and can use it. Most doors and walls won't stop most rounds. In every school there should be teachers who are armed and trained to use guns. A principal, janitor, coach or other willing armed and trained person that is willing to accept the responsibility of legal carry. The local police need to know who that person is, they need to have a phone or communication device on them at all times, and one or more of them need to be present at all major events. Even if there is a school security officer present, there should be another person in plain clothes armed as the "security officer" will be the first target of the gunman.
> 
> The idea of a shootout in a crowded venue is not pleasant, but allowing a gunman free targets for the time it takes to get an armed officer to the venue is even less pleasant.
> 
> My church has a plan. The minister is armed, there is a person in the front of the balcony armed, and on most Sundays at least one of the ushers is armed. And it's not a big church. God helps those who help themselves!



Some of you know my credentials, but other's may not. My dad is a pastor of a church and I've grown up in and around many churches. In the past decade most insurance policies for church's have started to require things like background checks for people who work with kids AND have started to strongly recommend church's have security plans in place for these situations. Get with church leadership and ask what's been done, and _what the insurance company requires_. A lot of people have put serious time and thought into these situations. A lot of the knee jerk reaction is just to arm some people, but that creates other issues (accidental discharge, mistaken identity shooting, police arriving and mistaking someone with a gun as the perpetrator, etc). Most of the insurers want trained people (like off-duty cops), but that costs a lot and small churches (like the one in Antioch, Tenn) can't afford that. Also people overlook that the guy in Tenn was a former member with a beef against the church (not a random act), and one of the people shot was shot in the parking lot outside (which is almost impossible to prevent).

Now, let's keep this civil and not turn this into a gun control debate, or so help me, I will shut this thread down. This is about discussing having a PLAN for an active shooter situation. The answer is NOT to arm everyone. If you don't believe me, go ask your insurance carrier for your venue and then listen real carefully.


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## TimmyP1955 (Oct 12, 2017)

audiomaster said:


> If we are talking "shooter situation" that means he has a gun. The only counter to stop a gun is another gun or guns in the hands of people who know how to use them. You may slow him down with the above suggestions but if he is determined, he still has a gun and can use it. Most doors and walls won't stop most rounds. In every school there should be teachers who are armed and trained to use guns. A principal, janitor, coach or other willing armed and trained person that is willing to accept the responsibility of legal carry. The local police need to know who that person is, they need to have a phone or communication device on them at all times, and one or more of them need to be present at all major events. Even if there is a school security officer present, there should be another person in plain clothes armed as the "security officer" will be the first target of the gunman.
> 
> The idea of a shootout in a crowded venue is not pleasant, but allowing a gunman free targets for the time it takes to get an armed officer to the venue is even less pleasant.
> 
> My church has a plan. The minister is armed, there is a person in the front of the balcony armed, and on most Sundays at least one of the ushers is armed. And it's not a big church. God helps those who help themselves!




This is by far the most useful post of this thread. Unfortunately, in most places, only a police officer can lawfully have a firearm in a school. Bad guys don't obey gun laws, our laws create easy targets.


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## TimMc (Oct 12, 2017)

TimmyP1955 said:


> This is by far the most useful post of this thread. Unfortunately, in most places, only a police officer can lawfully have a firearm in a school. Bad guys don't obey gun laws, our laws create easy targets.



I disagree. Most "owners" do not have the requisite training and experience to be effective; it also opens the venue and the good guyresponder to later liability and creates an immediate issue for First Responders in determining who the "bad guy" is. Cop sees guy with gun in this situation - guy with gun becomes bad guy to cop. There's no definitive way for the L.E.O. to determine the civilian with the weapon is friend or foe and WILL be treated like foe until cleared. If the guy with gun isn't displaying police credentials he's milliseconds from becoming a target himself.

More guns/gunners in an active shooter situation only confuses the situation further for those trained, equipped and able to help.

Again, our job isn't to take down shooters, our job is to keep ourselves, our crew, our actors and patrons as safe as we *reasonably* can; engaging in a fire fight does little in a majority of situations to enable or enhance our ability to help our charges.


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## MNicolai (Oct 12, 2017)

Allowing people to carry in a performance venue invites a lot of potential for tragic errors. It would be incredibly dangerous to do a show like Blood Brothers where actors with prop weapons come running through the audience and pop a couple rounds at the stage. There's no amount of preshow or intermission warning that will override someone's instincts when a dimly lit figure is in the crowd, regardless of their costume or that they're holding a period weapon or that the ushers are still standing calmly near the exits. Their lizard brain kicks in and assumes the worst case scenario is playing out, especially if the show that night is dull and they doze off or stop paying attention, waking up to some guy holding a prop gun on stage and actors shrieking.

As I've talked about in other threads, I have specific concerns for events and rehearsals where other people are in the building who are not aware that a prop weapon or a sound effect is part of a rehearsal and they take matters into their own hands while their eyes and ears deceive them.


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## gafftaper (Oct 12, 2017)

Charles Heetbrink said:


> The article that gaftaper posted has some frightening implications. Based on my experience, the bell curve the author talks about is true. The emphasis to find and teach (create?) effective emergency leaders becomes therefore a critical component, in my opinion.


It really does. For large facilities this is easy to do. Disneyland can make a point of hiring combat veterans, and scattering them around the park as trained emergency leaders. But for small facilities it's hard. You pick and train the one person from the 5 on your staff who you think is the best emergency leader, you train him, and then find out he's part of the bad 10% who does the wrong thing in the moment.


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## teriyaki586 (Oct 12, 2017)

Here is another article specifically about house lights- http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/when-theres-an-active-shooter-can-lighting-save-lives/

I'm at a roadhouse on a university campus and we recently had the police department lead a training for staff from all of the performance venues on campus and they will be working with individual venues to develop specific plans. They stuck to the Run-Hide-Fight model, but also pointed out that if you get shot, you have about an 80% chance of survival, especially since the trauma hospital is so close (the one Gabby Giffords was treated at. Her shooter was stopped by unarmed people, btw). 

Regarding house lights, we decided that the benefits of having them up were more valuable than the drawback of more visible targets for a shooter, but that everyone's first priority was their own safety. Since the light board is one of the first things someone would encounter when they enter from the lobby, our secondary plan would be to pull the fire alarm which automatically brings the house lights to full. The reason this isn't our first reaction is because if people are hiding, they may be more likely to leave a place of safety since that is what we are trained to do when there is a fire alarm. 

We have 2 meeting locations in our general evacuation plan, but will address if these are appropriate when we meet with the police to write our venue plan. They would prefer our locations have a building between us and the theater, but I don't think there are any nearby locations that can facilitate the entire audience.


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## josh88 (Oct 12, 2017)

StradivariusBone said:


> Don't forget about taking the responsibility of ending a child's life because they accidentally killed them in the crossfire trying to take out an assailant. How exactly would this help in a situation like Vegas? Shooting from several hundred yards away at a glass building with a handgun? I doubt the custodians are going to carry long rifles with scopes.



Agreed. As a former teacher... I think this is a horrifically bad idea. I'd always rather have a person trained to deal with the situation be the first armed person. I'll wait for a cop with a gun who knows how to deal with any number of tactical situations than an armed person who thinks that because they're trained to use a gun, they know how to save the day and be a hero. I've fired weapons, I've handled guns, I'd rather focus on securing and protecting my students than be the "good guy with a gun" leaving them alone and wandering around to try to stop an attacker, and making the situation more convoluted for the police when they show up.


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## TheaterEd (Oct 23, 2017)

So, we had a three hour Alice Training. 
Step one: learn the principles of ALICE
Step two: Classroom Simulations with a police officer portraying a bad guy, armed with a very low velocity plastic pellet gun
Simulation One: Current Lockdown Procedure. Turn off Lights, hide, and be quite. = Many Fatalities.
Simulation Two: Barricade (All my Les Mis Training is finally going to pay off). By making the classrooms more difficult targets, we were able to keep casualties very low.
Simulation Three: Counter / Evade. We were given dodge-balls and told to distract the shooter and try to escape. Most rooms were able to evacuate to safety, but the room that the shooter entered had to fight back. Very few casualties.
Simulation Four: Large Gathering Space. Aka the Auditorium (My time to shine ). Shooter entered from the back, I immediate grabbed the god mic and advised the audience to evacuate towards the stage while I hid under the desk in my cinder block booth. Once the crowd was moving the correct way, I began to just be loud and obnoxious on the microphone to mess with the shooter while the wireless mic was connecting. Once that connected I took off up the ladder to the spot position so that I could more accurately call out the shooters location from safety. Around that time however, he was tackled by one of the more sneaky tech-ed teachers (This guy is seriously prepared for these events. Very glad to see I'm not the only person in the school being proactive).


Take Away Points for me: 
Lights on or off? ON!!!! During the first simulation when the lights went out I was unable to move due to how dark it was. It was legitimately scary. If I'm barricaded in a classroom, then I would turn them off, but as far as active shooter in the auditorium goes, lights NEED to be on.

God Mic? Yeah, that sucker needs to be by the board and ready to go at all times. Additionally I plan to carry a spare wireless in my pocket that can go live no matter where I am. I may have finally found a use for the built in auto-mix system.

Those door lock thingys? Good idea to make the classrooms barricade-able, but basically useless for the aud.  There is simply no way to get to all 7 of the double doors in enough time. Do not barricade the aud, evacuate. It is way to easy of a target. I have some back rooms where I could hide out with a small group, but I really don't see a scenario where barricading a couple hundred people in one place with many exits is a good idea.

Most important take away. Do SOMETHING. Run, Barricade, Throw stuff, ANYTHING is better than nothing. If you see a chance to get out of there, Do IT!


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## gafftaper (Oct 24, 2017)

TheaterEd said:


> So, we had a three hour Alice Training.
> Step one: learn the principles of ALICE
> Step two: Classroom Simulations with a police officer portraying a bad guy, armed with a very low velocity plastic pellet gun
> Simulation One: Current Lockdown Procedure. Turn off Lights, hide, and be quite. = Many Fatalities.
> ...



Thanks for sharing your experience. I worry about you being obnoxious on the God mic. It's one thing to make one announcement to clear out and then run. It's another thing to stay there and make yourself an annoying target. Same goes for moving to a spot position, how safe are you in between locations? If it's truly secure and safe, then that's great. But if you have spent 30 seconds making the shooter mad and then you are exposed on the way to the follow spot, it may not be a good choice. 

Everything you said sounds great, but I want to repeat that our only obligation is to try to get home safe. If you can give directions on the God mic, help the police, decide to jump the shooter, throw stuff, those are all great ways to help. But you have no obligation to endanger yourself by doing any of them and you need to carefully evaluate the risks to you now. The cop we talked with suggested spending some time carefully evaluating all of your options now. For example is that route to the follow spot position safe if the shooter is in all positions or only when the shooter is House Left. Considering all options now can help you choose the right option under stress.


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## TheaterEd (Oct 24, 2017)

Yeah, my booth is elevated from house level and solid cinder block for the first 3 feet, so I was able to be concealed the whole time. My path to the ladder was concealed as long as I ducked. He had no idea where I ended up. Additionally, the aisle he entered from was the only exit from the booth, so escaping would have put me in the line of fire.

I agree and would like to echo that your only responsibility during a situation like this is to try to escape with your life. Anything you can do to help others is just a bonus.


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## avkid (Oct 26, 2017)

Today we were all enrolled in an online course at the Alice Institute.


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