Republished from forcescience.org:
Dr. Mike Clumpner holds a PhD in homeland security policy, with dissertation research on coordinated public safety responses to active shooters. He has logged 24 years in urban fire services, 21 years as a paramedic, and seven years in law enforcement, assigned to SWAT special op. Dr. Clumpner is a curriculum developer/instructor with the Dept. of Homeland Security. He has trained more than 40,000 first responders across three continents regarding active-killer suppression. In a special seminar earlier this year, hosted at the Force Science Training Center in Chicago, Clumpner shared what he considers current “best practices” for mitigating active-killer events. Here are Clumpier’s 10 critical factors for keeping an agency’s active-killer protocol on the cutting edge . . .
1. Know your opponent.
“If our police officers knew as much about active killers as they do about the National Football League, we would have tens of thousands of active-killer experts,” Clumpner says. “An abundance of after-action reports and other comprehensive response analyses are just a Google away, but most police trainers, leaders, and emergency responders haven’t taken the time to study them.
“Many of the lessons learned are consistent across incidents–communication problems, command and control failures, equipment failures, and delays in providing medical care for the critically injured. Without knowing the consistent shortcomings, officers and leaders are simply doomed to repeat the same mistakes.
“Active shooters, on the other hand, do study and learn from past events to make their event deadlier and more sensational. Many are infatuated with previous killers. The perpetrator at Sandy Hook, for example, had a 6X4-ft. spreadsheet on his wall, detailing the tactics of 500 spree killings around the world, learning what worked and what didn’t.”
2. Know your limitations.
“Ninety-eight per cent of all active shooter events occur in jurisdictions with 100 police officers or less,” Clumpner says. “Most school shootings are in rural or affluent residential areas.
“You likely won’t have immediate access to big-city resources. You need to know what your agency can bring to the event and what other nearby agencies can–and how you’re going to fill the gaps.
“You may not know you have problems until they surface in full-scale exercises. Repeated exercises before there’s a crisis are essential. That’s when you find surprises like which buildings in your area won’t accommodate radio or cell phone traffic. What you think is an asset may turn out to be an Achilles’ heel.
“And you have to solve the problems–you. If you think the FBI hostage rescue team or military special forces are going to sweep in and save the day, you’re probably sadly mistaken.”
3. Understand the complexity of active-killer events.
So far in the US, Clumpner points out, roughly 40% of active killings have been “basic” events: one perpetrator, armed with a handgun, attempting to kill in one location.
About 60% of active-shooter events have been “moderately complex.” Such an incident has one or more of the following: multiple perpetrators, explosives, chemical/smoke munitions, denial-of-entry tactics, ballistic armor, or long guns.
“What is absolutely coming to this country,” he insists, “are ‘highly complex’ events, in which teams of highly trained perpetrators simultaneously attack multiple locations in one city. We are simply not prepared for these events.”
These will be mass casualty incidents, potentially involving heavy weapons, incendiaries, explosives, and other haz/mat components. “Understand the multiple moving parts required both of the perpetrators and the responders,” Clumpner urges. “Understand the training and rehearsal necessary to counter this threat. The incident command strategies and tasks will be as complex as the incidents themselves.
“As of now, when active shootings in progress have been stopped by police intervention, 70% of the events have been halted by a single officer, Clumpner says. “If you are not training personnel for solo-entry tactics, you are missing an essential component of counter-action.
“But with an eye to the inevitable future, broad-based, multi-agency planning and training for large-scale operations is now also mandatory for every jurisdiction, regardless of size.”
4. Understand that “running to guns” is just part of a good response.
“Of course, stopping an active killer is the top priority,” Clumpner says. “If the perpetrator hasn’t taken his own life already, officers generally neutralize him in the first four to six minutes after arriving.
“Police understand the importance of running to guns; that’s often the easiest part of active-shooter response. But after the threat is neutralized, these incidents often enter a period of chaos and confusion that can last an hour or more as officers search for additional actual or perceived threats and search for and treat numerous victims.
“By focusing predominately on methodically searching for additional suspects, officers may forget about wounded victims who desperately need help. After a shooter in a Los Angeles airport was in custody, a severely wounded TSA employee was left unattended where he had fallen for 33 minutes before receiving medical attention.
“Hundred of officers responded to that incident; paramedics were waiting outside, a mere 100 yards away. Yet no one tended to this bleeding victim for an appalling length of time.”
Clumpner suggests, “Try starting some of your training exercises with the suspect already dead or in custody. Practice managing all the other things that come into an event. He says this should include a rapid sweep through the building looking for victims, before launching a slow, thorough back-clearing.
“This exercise can also include real-world complications most agencies never train for, like hordes of frightened parents breaking through or circumventing your perimeter control looking for their kids, opportunistic looters at a shopping mall that’s under siege, intrusive media, and dispatch centers overwhelmed to the point of paralysis.”
5. Train to move and clear in large structures and outdoor locations.
“Active-shooter training has focused so long on close-quarters tactics, moving in hallways, and clearing small rooms that preparing for encounters outdoors or in large buildings often gets short shrift,” Clumpner notes. “Many patrol officers lack training moving in extensive malls, warehouse or manufacturing floors that cover city blocks, or even large church sanctuaries that seat several thousand people. In some of these sites, threats can be coming from 720 degrees around you.
Clumpner had hands-on experience with one reported active-shooter incident at a commercial mall with numerous separate entrances, multiple inside levels that could have provided perpetrators a high-ground advantage from multiple angles, and 18,000 people inside for holiday shopping.
“Tactical officers maybe have trained in such environments–maybe,” Clumpner says. “But probably few patrol officers have–and they are most likely to be first on the scene at any killing spree.”
6. Prepare for “transitions” in the active-shooter threat.
An offender who transitions from actively killing into a barricade mode with prisoners should not be regarded as the usual hostage-taker, Clumpner believes. “What he has, most likely, are doomed captives. He’s just fortifying his location. Once he has demonstrated homicidal behavior, statistics show that the captives have small chance of surviving.
“Time is not on your side, as it would be in an ordinary barricade standoff. Rather than fall back and wait for crisis negotiators, continue to drive into the threat,” Clumpner advises. “Do whatever you can to keep the perpetrator in a problem-solving mode.
“Continue to try to gain access to him, even if you have to breach through walls. As lifesavers, you want him to focus his weapon and attention on your efforts instead of on his captives.”
7. Anticipate “non-standard” offender tactics.
“The biggest failure of 9/11 was a failure of imagination,” Clumpner declares. “We failed to imagine how creative and unpredictable evil people can be.”
As a vital part of training, he recommends brainstorming what atypical obstacles you could face, and how to respond. An up-armored vehicle turned into a “mowing machine” that plows into crowds? Attackers dressed as cops? Canisters of chlorine gas deployed in school hallways? Plywood sheets nailed over windows and doors? A killer moving down the aisle of a school bus, shooting kids right and left? An active killer who goes mobile into a hospital?
“Some of these have already happened here in the US and all have happened somewhere in the world. Yet few departments have trained for asymmetrical and unconventional assaults,” Clumpner says.
“Do not let the day it happens be the first time you’ve considered this type of event. That’s not the time to be seeking answers.”
8. Develop response protocols for fire as a weapon.
In 600 BC, Sun Tzu’s The Art of War references the use of fire as a weapon, and offenders in modern times continue to employ this tactic, Clumpner says.
Traditionally, Clumpner says, firefighters have been reluctant to move in to fight a fire when a hostile suspect is uncontrolled, and “police officers are not trained to work in the fire or smoke environment. In the resulting impasse, innocent lives can be lost as the police look to the fire department to control the fire and firefighters look to the police to control the threat.”
Clumpner and a research team have spent hundreds of hours conducting controlled-structure burns to determine the best methods for officers to rapidly search a burning house and conduct a hasty rescue operation. These experiments have confirmed how far officers can penetrate into a burning structure without special fire gear, what kind of portable fire extinguisher from a patrol car works best, and so on.
Clumpner says he has trained hundreds of federal tactical personnel to sweep and clear a residence with a room on fire and get out safely in two minutes. Now he and his team teach a three-day course for officers on responding to fire as a weapon with an armed perpetrator present.
The course includes how to defend against Molotov cocktails and hand-thrown napalm. “Recipes for making napalm are readily accessible on the internet,” he warns, “and for the first time in almost 40 years in the US, we saw Molotov cocktails thrown at officers at Ferguson. It’s perfectly reasonable to include these elements in your when-then planning.”
9. Train responders on the Rescue Task Force concept.
The Rescue Task Force (RTF) concept is unfamiliar to many LEOs, Clumpner says. The idea is to deploy teams of medical providers into certain areas of an active-shooter site early on, accompanied by one or more officers for force protection. These RTFs provide immediate point-of-wounding care for victims, followed by rapid extraction to awaiting ambulances.
Clumpner points out that half the victims at an active-shooter scene typically “will have moderate to severe gunshot wounds. If they are not to a hospital within 30 minutes, you’ll have a mortality rate of nearly 70%. But with early medical intervention–within 20 minutes–the survival rate nearly doubles.”
When sufficient personnel are available, Clumpner recommends a division of forces. A primary law enforcement “contact” team or teams pursue the perpetrator(s) with the goal of locating, containing, and neutralizing the threat. These teams perform in the “hot zone,” an area with an obvious and imminent threat.
Concurrently, teams of medical providers with law enforcement protection follow behind the contact team(s) to deploy in the “warm zone,” an area without an obvious threat, to treat and extract the injured.
“In practice, officers often find this is harder than they think,” Clumpner says. “There can be problems of rescuers maintaining stamina while moving unconscious victims, reliably marking areas that have been canvassed, maintaining protection for unarmed responders, and so on.
“It’s not a simple process. But done right, it will save lives.”
10. Integrate fire and EMS agencies into protocol development and training.
A “silo” response–police, fire, and EMS operating independently in their own worlds–is yesterday’s ballgame in active-killer strategizing, Clumpner emphasizes. “An active-killer event really can be four distinct incidents rolled into one: a law enforcement incident, an EMS mass-casualty incident, a fire suppression and rescue incident, and an explosives/haz mat incident.
“Today’s strongly favored approach is to integrate the roles and responsibilities of each public safety branch into coordinated planning, training, command, and performance.”
The two greatest challenges he has observed, Clumpner says, are: 1) convincing law enforcement that these events require fire and EMS integration for successful mitigation with a minimal loss of life, and 2) convincing fire and EMS providers to operate forward into the event, instead of staging blocks away for the all-clear signal, often hours after the event began.
In winning cooperation, he called to mind a comment from a London fire brigade special operations manager who noted that the brigade faces a huge reputational risk if they are seen standing idly by doing nothing.
Even with a good integrated plan on paper, Clumpner says, “there tends to be a lot of role creep and role confusion. It takes a lot of planning and rehearsal to make a joint response effective.”
Dr. Clumpner, president of Threat Suppression, Inc., is headquartered in Charlotte, NC. He can be reached at: mclumpner@ThreatSuppression.
Did I miss the training on how to identify and coordinate with any good guys with a gun on site?
That particular training is for us, not law enforcement. Responding LEOS are moving quickly in a chaotic environment to neutralize a threat. As armed citizens, we need to be aware that they will most likely be more prone to shoot first and ask question later in regards to any armed personnel they cannot easily identify. As such, don’t try and play the hero running around chasing the shooter. Instead, defend where you are until police come and then holster your weapon and obey commands.
I’m sorry but I cannot agree with that. In a public mass shooting scenario, I’m moving towards the gunfire as soon as possible. Police must be trained in how to identify good guys and NOT shoot us. Recently we saw an off duty police officer shot by his own people right in front of his precinct. THEY NEED BETTER training. We complain about GFZs and the fact that these situations keep happening because of them. Well we need a better plan to deal with what will most likely be an inevitable event; One or more carrying civilians responding to an active shooter and then LEOs arriving on scene.
Not gonna happen. There is no simple way to tell you from the bad guy and training tells cops to shoot the bad guy immediately. There will be no “drop the gun” nonsense (particularly if it’s just one cop! Action beats reaction). If you’re not in a uniform and you’re carrying a gun in an active shooter environment, you are likely to be killed upon being found by police- accept that and use it to determine whether it is worth going in. Such a scenario is, along with a terrorist attack, the very highest threat level possible. And yes, that goes for plainclothes officers as well.
Were I to go into such a shooting without a uniform I conceal my gun until I knew the threat was near. The bad guy is probably less of an immediate threat to me since he’s not specifically looking for me. But if I’m walking down a hallway with a firearm the police coming in ARE looking for ‘me.’
You’re expecting people who have as their motto “The most important thing is to go home at the end of the day” to involve themselves in trying to sort out who is a good guy with a gun?
Are these are the same people who are shooting dogs that are wagging their tales, bystanders and hosing down entire neighborhoods while they’re trying to shoot a pickup with two middle-aged women in it that we’re talking about here?
In many states, seeking out a shooter and neutralizing him could be considered murder or vigilantism, as outrageous as that is. While you may be lucky to live where you have no “responsibility to retreat” that legal protection does not usually extend to you when you seek out confrontation outside of your immediate area. Even though the shooter poses a threat of serious bodily harm or death to others and yourself, you still sought him out. A case could be made, and your life placed on hold as you defend you morally right, but legally grey decision.
It is usually safer to bend over in life, it’s true.
However, the whole principle of the Constitution of the United States is that rule of law extends even to encounters where authorities are a little cross, or perturbed.
Call me a demanding tax-payer, but for all the overtime we are paying these destroyers-of-donuts to sit in their squadcars, I believe it earns a little discretion on the trigger.
I am not advocating waving your gun around when they show up. However, according to the Rule of Law, this is no different than a traffic stop looking for a person who might match your description. There has been no state of emergency declared, and the rule of law will not be suspended by police because they find it convenient to do so.
The 4th amendment is still in effect. Those pictures of people getting run out of school at gunpoint looks very similar to certain black-and-white pictures of people being loaded into cattle cars.
The 5th amendment is still in effect. None of that crap where they keep the evacuated kids away from their parents and interrogate them for 4 hours.
The 6th amendment is still in effect. None of that crap where they set bail too high for you to pay knowing full well you didn’t participate in the problem (Looking at you Waco).
Is it SO unreasonable that I ask Professional Paid Police be held to AS high a standard as concealed carriers who attend a day-long class?
I don’t think anyone is saying there shouldn’t be consequences should law enforcement infringe on your rights, merely that an active shooter scenario is akin to extremely chaotic combat that cannot be controlled. While the department may be sued for wrongful death if they shoot a good guy with a gun, that good guy is still dead. It’s your choice how you want to respond when the SHTF, but my handgun is for defensive use, and is not ideal for a search and destroy mission against an attacker or attackers armed with long guns and other gear.
We did indeed miss that part.
More importantly though, this whole article is “colored” by the politics of the people this guy is trying to sell services to. The language is coded so as to skirt deep logical flaws in the mentality of LE, EMS, and Fire agencies
“The two greatest challenges he has observed, Clumpner says, are: 1) convincing law enforcement that these events require fire and EMS integration for successful mitigation with a minimal loss of life, and 2) convincing fire and EMS providers to operate forward into the event, instead of staging blocks away for the all-clear signal, often hours after the event began.”
1. is a problem because the cops don’t want to have to train to be paramedics and firefighters, or to drag them along. When you screw up and your overweight, bumbling, under-practiced idiocy results in the death of another agency’s personnel, there are real consequences. This starkly contrasts to the yammering chorus of “immunity” that we hear every time citizens get hung out to dry in a crisis. An anecdote to illustrate this point might be something like Fast and Furious. Dozens of Mexicans are in the ground, and no one cared. It took a border patrol agent to get the same treatment before the wheels started creaking,
2. GOOD LUCK with that. There are very few departments that respect their EMT and firefighter’s lives enough to get over the perceived risk of letting them carry guns for self-defense. Very few, and I’m in a large, gun-friendly southern state. I don’t think it gets better going further north.
Emergency and firefighting personnel have no way to protect themselves “operating forward” so they will not do it. Remember, this isn’t the army. You can’t force a guy to stand in the street until he attracts sniper fire, he’ll quit first.
Honestly, “Integrate fire and EMS agencies into protocol development and training.” is code for
We need better results, but if we blur the lines between EMS and Police, everyone will figure out it’s much easier to learn how to shoot back at an aggressor than it is to go to 2 years of paramedic school. Some enterprising departments working on Free Market principles will respond by training paramedics in building-clearing techniques, and use them for mast shootings because FAR it’s cheaper than making a cop smart enough to administer drugs.
More likely, the LEO’s are also looking for other agencies to help shoulder the blame.
That’s hilarious. Cripple the other guy’s operation, then try to distribute the blame
The 2016 Federal Active Shooter / Emergency Response training specifically mentions that off-duty police officers and armed civilians may be on your scene. It warmed the cockles of my heart.
Really?
And what does the training mention to *do* about armed civilians on the scene?
Fantastic post! I believe that citizen responders should be a planning consideration- I have a VHF radio with local emergency frequencies programmed, but probably not one in 10,000 others do.
Citizen responders? Hey, I’m not looking for a fight. I’m talking about a fight you didn’t choose because it happened while you were there.
As a paramedic we have no choice but to stage away until the scene is secure. We are not given any body armor, not allowed to carry a weapon, nor have any where near as good as health/death benefits as the police. So no thanks. Im not bringing IV’s to a gun fight. Now if the police get over their egos and start equipping and training with us that would be a different story. But they wont and these terrible incidents will continue to happen and get worse.
Communication & cooperation between police/fire/ems is decades away from where it needs to be.
Anyone involved in a active shooter scenario is basically on their own since we cant go in and the police are to excited to go and shoot someone rather than help/extract a victim and bring them to us.
-Frustrated NJ Medic
Yep.
We should NB that all the EMT/FF training is to defer to LEO’s on these types of scenes.
Mind you, when you are discussing EMT/FF response at these scenes in training, it takes only seconds for someone to bring up how incompetent LEO’s have been on such scenes, shortly followed by frustration and anger at the incompetence of LEO’s in the EMT/FF community.
But here we are.
EMT near me are training to go into just such a situation quickly, before the scene is fully secure (which could take hours). They’re being issued vests and the training is voluntary but the ones I’ve talked to are willing to take the risk if there’s a bunch of kids bleeding out.
To be honest dude, they’re scared of you taking their job. I mean, what’s harder: cardiology, or shooting back at someone?
The “hardest” part of their job, which is still much easier than what you have to do, is navigating the complex legal system and lying to suspects, lying to their families, and lying to keep your boss and department out of hot water. The practices they really excel in is of no substantial benefit to the general public during situations like these. You, on the other hand, are the people who keep victims from bleeding out.
Once you have a gun under your shirt, you are far more valuable than any of those cops are. Smarter, and more hormone-balanced too, most likely. And you have a real skill.
This is why they will never admit in 100 years that you need means of defense. They will lie, people will die, and they will hold that line with a fervor they lack when it’s time to go save people. Once you have a gun, they’re just JV bureaucrats with a penchant for wife-beating and DWI.
Ouch. If I was more sensitive I’d really be offended by that.
Anyways, there are plenty of boots on the street LEOs that absolutely do support gun rights for medics, teachers, and anyone who is a citizen. Similarly, I hope you support EMR and EMT training for LEOs. It’s usually the police chiefs and commissioners who are anti-gun.
You’re probably right. For all the pro-gun stances I hear from cops the clamor dries up when one of those career politician police chiefs goes on TV and lies. There were some really solid guys in the Wehrmacht too, no doubt.
The best of those who had courage and opportunity tried to kill Nazi leadership when they realized what it was really about, at great personal cost to themselves and their families.
But, it seems that they understood that they would be judged on the organization as a whole that they helped prop up. You’re only as good of a man as the person or organization that is using you.
There is no honor in guarding a warehouse of grain if you’re freeing up someone who is willing to help out in the gas chambers. Likewise, checking cigarette imports is a dirty job when you’re granting the ATF more manpower to lie to Congress and cover up Fast and Furious. Unless you’re planning something like Col. Stauffenberg was, you’re helping them.
You better clarify that blue line and publicly, loudly, explain how principles of liberty are more important to you than that line is, then prove it by helping oust the dirty elements, even at great risk to your career.
As they say, “I Vas just following ordas!” doesn’t fly. I wouldn’t want to wear one of your uniforms these days, but don’t think for a second that I will strap on plates and go try to save your asses from the mob if you’ve been bending over to the Statist police chief for the last decade.
Amen. Hit the nail
On the head. Thanks for the support
I take exception to much of what was said in this article but will only comment on #7. We failed to imagine 9/11?! Are you kidding me? They made a movie about hijackers using a hijacked commercial airliner as a weapon delivery system. It was called Executive Decision with Kurt Russell, Steven Seagal and Halle Berry. No, what our government did was criminal in making airliners easy targets.
Do you mean criminal by preventing us from carrying aboard?
I do indeed. Please research how the Israelis handled hijackings since the 70s. Raid on Entebbe is free on youtube.
OK, here’s two problems with this 10-point list. There’s utterly no point in picking apart one or more of these 10 points. Here’s the two unfounded assumptions on which this entire list is built:
1. LEO’s are going to undertake all this training, operational risk and possibly liability, or even have the wherewithal to do so.
Right now, we see urban departments with cops who shoot dogs they perceive as a risk as their first response, and a general reluctance to engage in various neighborhoods now that the “black lives matter” twerps have cowed their political leadership. The motto of many cops today is that it is most important to go home at the end of the shift. Are these types of LEO’s going to go running into an active shooter environment upon first arrival or are they going to wait for the SWAT teams to arrive with all their toys, MRAP’s and snipers?
2. Going forward from here, we’re likely to see two broad classes of active shooters – both of which are mentioned here. There’s the one/two malcontents, often young males, armed with a handgun or possibly a long arm, who have figured out how to maximize their press coverage by examining what the prior murders have done to gain press attention.
Then there are the coordinated terrorists, as we’ve now seen in Mumbai, Paris, San Bernardino et al, who aren’t going to be easy for LEO’s to deal with – because this isn’t a law enforcement exercise. This is a war being fought on the cheap. This latter class of shooters are not a law enforcement exercise, and how we deal with them afterwards isn’t an exercise for the courts, but lots of people in political leadership keep holding little nuggets of cherished twaddle on the subject (eg, “Islam is a religion of peace…”).
The motto of many cops today is that it is most important to go home at the end of the shift.
DG, I don’t think that going home at the end of the day is their most important thing. I could understand that mindset. I think it’s their only important thing, and nothing else matters (except maybe meeting their quota of traffic tickets and nuisance arrests).
+1. If Obama cant be bothered to leave is bedroom, and Hillary avoided the 3am call, leaving Ben Rhodes or Lying Susan Rice to make the call: Stand Down, the chances of us handling the next Beslan with the lone Barney Fife expected to break thru the drywall, at 100% guaranteed fail.
Historically true.
However, the training and mindset are starting to change. The updated LE response basically involves hauling ass to the shooter, taking him out, securing his weapons, starting emergency medical treatment, coordinating with allied agencies and firefighters, and looking for additional threats while reasonably attempting to preserve and evacuate the crime scene. Firefighters aren’t authorized to enter the scene when it’s “hot,” but will do so when it’s declared “warm.” Alternatively, cops can move victims out of the hot zone and into the warm zone for treatment. So if you’re ever in the hot zone and take about the bad guy, conceal your weapon and get your ID ready.
There’s no more waiting for SWAT unless the subject is barricaded and is no longer actively trying to kill people. Theoretically, anyways. It’s much better to clear rooms with 2-4 person teams of uniformed cops in the same agency (preferably also 0311 Marines) on the same radio frequency, but I’d go in solo. Already have, without radio comm, after a transgender guy stabbing people in an office building armed with an 8″ chef knife. I caught the guy (now a “woman”) and got a conviction on him / her for attempted murder.
Of course a lot of these responding cops are overweight and only shoot 50 rounds a month at stationary targets, if that. The last time some of them saw a gym was in a movie. And cop cars are slow. Which is exactly why teachers and taxpayers should be armed.
I get that people are blaming cops, some of whom are jerks, but the anti-gun mindset in a world filled with armed adversaries and terrorists is a far greater enemy. Of course those at the tippy-top always have their armed guards. And I truly apologize to those here who have never had a positive experience with law enforcement.
There’s free 18 year old scotch and cigars for Ralph, DG, Tom in Oregon or any of the other TTAG aficionados available here in Brea, CA.
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” So if you’re ever in the hot zone and take about the bad guy, conceal your weapon and get your ID ready.”
A better course of action might be to conceal your weapon and keep your hands where LE can see them.
Lest they mistake you reaching for your wallet as you reaching for your gun…
Thought that part was pretty obvious. Yes to having your hands up.
keep your hands where LE can see them
BS “hands up” is for a French POW. Same for lying facedown in the mud.
A81, I’d be happy to tip one with you any time.
Thank you, Dr. Clumpner, for the great observations and recommendations.
Governor’s need to activate the militia to protect schools and their buses. Teacher’s need to be armed. Other teachers should be trained and equipped and each room equipped for first aid and GSW trauma training.
Police and EMT’s should have gas masks. EMT’s and firefighters should AT LEAST have bullet-proof vests WITH hard plates. Hospitals, govm’t offices, malls and sports arenas should have similar set-ups.
I train armed security teams for churches. It looks like I need to extend my training to a session w/ Dr. Clumpner.
Ive been trying to get my dept to at least put two vests on each medic truck. Especially the nignt truck i work on. Shootings are a common occurance in my area. Just had two seperate ones the other night. They are usually at the night clubs. And the cops say the scene is safe yet the crowds yelling around out side of it tell me otherwise. While the cops are deciding whose doing the paperwork. Smh…
The biggest failure of 9/11 was a failure of imagination
No, it wasn’t. Rick Rescorla, who was security chief for Morgan Stanley, predicted the manner of the 9/11 attack and planned for it. As a result, 2,700 MS personnel successfully evacuated the South Tower after the North Tower was hit. The only MS personnel who died were Rescorla and his security personnel who went back into the Tower to clear all the floors.
When the North Tower was hit, all Morgan Stanley personnel evacuated as planned. After a few minutes, the NYPD told the MS personnel to go back to their offices! Rescorla said “bullshit, we’re not safe.” Had the MS people listened to the cops, they would all be dead.
9/11 wasn’t a failure of imagination. It was unrelenting, monumental hubris on the part of the NSA, CIA, FBI and all the rest of the alphabet agencies who to this very day aren’t worth a damn.
There has always been a widespread failure of imagination where terrorism is concerned.
On 9/11, when I saw the second plane auger into the WTC, I noticed that it banked its wings as it went in.
At that exact moment, I knew that either an engineer was at the controls of the plane, or an engineer was involved in planning the attack. Banking the wings would create a convection column in the fire, which would result in the fire being hot enough at the top of the column to weaken the steel on the top floor penetrated by the wing. After that, it was just a matter of time. The basement bombing of the WTC in ’93 had an engineer as a ringleader, 9/11 was planned by OBL, who was an engineer.
The problem in failure of imagination of public officials is that in too many of these terrorist attacks, they’re up against engineers in the planning or actual operation of the attack. When engineers go rogue, they are constrained by only the physical laws of the universe – anything and everything is on the table for them. Most of the public officials involved in anticipating attacks still believe that laws, which are nothing more than words of intent of retribution on a piece of paper, are going to constrain engineers in the planning or execution of attacks.
That simply won’t work.
I saw that live when it happened as well.
It looked to me like that was a last-second course correction, the flex was pronounced because he was moving 500 MPH and the aircraft was configured ‘clean’, not the usual low landing speed, flaps, ect.
It’s *possible* that was deliberate, to me it looked like a Flight Sim kid was behind the controls of an airliner for the first time…
It was deliberate – as communications from OBL himself later indicated.
OBL was a civil engineer. The first bomber to try blowing up the WTC from the basement was a EE, and didn’t understand the nuances of the problem he was taking on. They made a really good bomb, but they didn’t understand how to attack the WTC.
OBL, being a civil engineer, and coming from a family that did large building projects, understood the problem better. Unlike the idiotic conspiracy theorists in the US/UK about 9/11, OBL understood that all you needed to do to a steel building like the WTC was get the steel hot enough to basically temper out most of the strength. Hit the towers with at least a quarter of the building’s mass above your point of impact, heat up the steel to lose about 60% of the tensile strength and make the steel more plastic, and then just wait for the inevitable. OBL’s communication to his network after 9/11 showed that the attack succeeded beyond his expectations, because it also brought down WTC 7 as well as tied up the Pentagon more successfully than he had predicted.
The point on the buildings where the jets impacted, the bank of the wings before impact, the choice of non-stop trans-contiental flights loaded with fuel – all were part of the engineering analysis to take down the WTC. OBL did his homework.
Learn something new every day! Gracias…
Good article. For those that don’t get it, well welcome to the real “not call of duty” cut and dry of combat. Bad stuff happens even to the good though everyone does what they can to minimalize the risk through training no matter who except for the badguy. You understand that there is a likelihood that you may be killed even by those you side with so decide now is it worth it? This is what we face daily. you go up its wrong, you go down its wrong so sometimes you just go and pray it comes out and you come out. It sucks but we didn’t start it but we are damn sure gonna end it if possible. You can armchair QB the responders, training and viewpoints all you want but if you step in the dance you might get them toes stepped on or you might have the time of your life ya just never know.
Always carry a ticket to Valhalla. Oh….and exact change…..tolls are a bitch.
Coming to a gun free zone in Kalifornia soon.
That’s an awful lot of words to say “wait outside until the shooter expends all their ammo on the defenseless civilians.” Which seems to be standard policy for these brave heroes at columbine and elsewhere.
You can put lipstick on a pig but it’s still a pig. When seconds count, the cops are minutes away. Get a handgun and learn how to use it. YOU are the first responder.
“PhD in homeland security policy”
From where? Is FSI completely staffed by frauds with diploma mill certificates?
I saw that and puzzled over it as well. I then decided that it didn’t matter. If Harvard offers PhD’s in “Women’s Studies” with a straight face, then some other school can offer a PhD in homeland security – and not even have to keep a straight face. Harvard is probably a bigger diploma mill than most of the schools set up in mini-malls.
After all, the pay-for-play schools in mini-malls don’t have legacy admissions…
Even if you view FSI’s “research” work without dragging their highly dubious credentials into consideration, it still leaves much to be desired. Specifically, multiple peer-reviewed psychology journals have rejected Lewinski’s work as fraudulent.
Then there’s the issue of creating to create an air of authority with a diploma mill’s printout and using that to testify on behalf of killer cops in court while posing as an expert witness.
“Harvard is probably a bigger diploma mill than most of the schools set up in mini-malls.”
If a majority of Harvard academics were rejected from reviewed publications, seminars, etc, then maybe you can call them a diploma mill. Until then you can hardly compare them to FSI’s quacks.
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