School lockdowns. Do they always makes sense?
I am a public high school teacher. We went into "lockdown" for almost 2 hours. My campus is divided between two buildings, building A up on the hill and building B about 5 minutes down the hill. I am in A. After the lockdown, we were told that what had been found was a suspicious package. The package turned out to be someone's papers. The package was in building B. Rather than arrange for those of us in A to evacuate or escape, we are locked in, told NOTHING, and huddle waiting to be shot or saved...yes we are a "gun free zone...." If the kids start making death lists on the bathroom walls, again, or calling in bomb threats, we'll be locked in our rooms until June.
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Police tactical planning does not work for all situations. But it is the best plan we have at this time.
To contain the problem is the first priority in a tactical situation. It may not seem to be the best thing to somebody contained, when it is up to you to solve the problem, containment is the first step.
When police arrive and lock down has been implemented, the only persons moving are police and the bad guys. When people disregard the lock down you have just made the problem 100% more difficult. And you may be mistaken for the bad guy, and that's a bad problem.0 -
quote:Yes, I think I would have done a better job.
Still playin that air guitar...huh...0 -
In a classroom, door opens in? Would make sure i have a couple of rubber door wedges in my desk (Hint- Dollar General Store- 3 for a buck) If you believe there is an explosive device, put distance and solid structure between you and it. Shooter going room to room- block the door, desk thru window, have kids haul freight for at least one zip code. Improvised weapon- besides smacking him with the ruler (only if you are in a Catholic school) got a fire extinguisher around? dry chem is usually triammonium phosphate (aim for face) any other type- good club. 0 -
quote:Originally posted by Alpine
Police tactical planning does not work for all situations. But it is the best plan we have at this time.
To contain the problem is the first priority in a tactical situation. It may not seem to be the best thing to somebody contained, when it is up to you to solve the problem, containment is the first step.
When police arrive and lock down has been implemented, the only persons moving are police and the bad guys. When people disregard the lock down you have just made the problem 100% more difficult. And you may be mistaken for the bad guy, and that's a bad problem.
Thank you, Alpine. There are a lot of folks operating on different wave lengths when it comes to understanding lockdown procedures designed to protect students, and or, other people.0 -
quote:Thank you, Alpine. There are a lot of folks operating on different wave lengths when it comes to understanding lockdown procedures designed to protect students, and or, other people.
Yep, It's always gunna be what someone else can do to protect me and mine...and yours...When "real" life throws y'all a curve ball...make sure ya know where the book is...to tell ya what to do...If it isn't there...blame the...?...publisher...?...0 -
mlincoln, I guess you'll have to count me among the adolescent Monday morning quarterbacks. I contend you wouldn't have to have much of a plan to be a hell of a lot better than what happened. The school administration's blunder wasn't so much the lack of a plan, but the lack of action.
If the school administration handled everything as they should have, why would they agonize everyday about this for the rest of their lives? There are things in my life I wish had been different, but if it wasn't my blunder, I don't agonize over it.
You are correct that you can't prevent a homicidal maniac from going on a killing spree. The object of a plan is to minimize his success. If your answer is to throw up your hands and say "nothing can be done, come shoot me", you are a good sized part of the problem. I don't think losers come much bigger than that.0 -
What
JamesRK
said both responses.0 -
mlincoln, I guess you'll have to count me among the adolescent Monday morning quarterbacks. I contend you wouldn't have to have much of a plan to be a hell of a lot better than what happened. The school administration's blunder wasn't so much the lack of a plan, but the lack of action.
If the school administration handled everything as they should have, why would they agonize everyday about this for the rest of their lives? There are things in my life I wish had been different, but if it wasn't my blunder, I don't agonize over it.
Well, damn fine point. I think I'll adopt your line of thinking. In fact, those Marines, soldiers, and servicemen getting blown to pieces in Iraq, what do I care about them? I didn't send them over there, so who gives a hoot? Sure, I guess I wish they hadn't had their legs blown off or have been blinded or have been blown into little tiny pieces so there's not even enough left for a funeral, but using your logic, not my blunder so quite honestly, I really could care less.
So much easier than the old way of doing things, looking out for my fellow man, caring about others, even caring about them when some terrible fate that has befallen them has nothing to do with me. All that silly stuff you read about in that silly book in church.
You are correct that you can't prevent a homicidal maniac from going on a killing spree. The object of a plan is to minimize his success. If your answer is to throw up your hands and say "nothing can be done, come shoot me", you are a good sized part of the problem. I don't think losers come much bigger than that.
Well, let's run through that. It seems to me that the school tried numerous times to get him mental health care while still trying to adhere to state and federal laws. He never made an explicit threat, so they couldn't kick him out. They tried numerous times to get him mental health care, and he refused.
Are you suggesting that public schools be allowed to make subjective decisions about what students can and can't say or write? Well, let's take that idea and run with it. The shooter was very into guns. They're featured prominently in his videotape and in his writings. Should schools be allowed to proactively deny admittance to all those who have an interest in guns? Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were very interested in firearms, and look at their handiwork. Wouldn't it make sense to kick off a student who writes about target shooting or carrying a gun for "self defense"? Is that what you're suggesting the school should have done?
And if you're not suggesting that, what are you suggesting? What should the school have done differently?
Virginia Tech is a school of roughly 25,000 students. Add in faculty, cafeteria workers, janitors, coaches, and everybody else, and you're probably talking 30-35,000 people on campus everyday. I would imagine that there's at least one bomb threat, stabbing, domestic violence, assault and battery, suicide, stalking, rape, or arson concerning somebody on that campus every week. How would you handle that? Any one of those things could be the serious incident they are, or could explode into something much, much worse. Would you lockdown the campus every single time? Would you post men with machine guns in every buidling? Would you order strip searches or have people undergo polygraphs or what?0 -
"Are you suggesting that public schools be allowed to make subjective decisions about what students can and can't say or write?"
No, I'm suggesting that when a student start shooting at other students, you don't wait two hours. You start right then and there trying to get armed security or law enforcement on the scene to shoot the son-of-a-gripe.
I have no idea where you came up with that other crap. Well, yes I do, but I don't care to go into it.0 -
Having read the treatises on "Active Shooter" responses by law enforcement, the key is that when someone is shooting kids and going from room to room; make egress as difficult as possible for everyone involved.
Common sense dictates a rather different response than grouping targets together, defenseless, in a well-lit room, waiting for the inevitable.
Klinton's "Gun Free School Zones" are the cause of most of this insanity; where else would a bent head go if he/she wanted to kill a lot of people in a short period of time, where there is absolutely NO chance of someone being able to respond in kind, where most of the targets are contained in a small space, and LEOs are almost guaranteed not to respond quickly enough to save anyone?
When a weasel enters a hen house, would you close the door behind it?0 -
if you use the gtfo defense, you offer cover to the perp by creating human shields for the bad guy and confuse the attacking force.
it would appear based on history that perps never plan to leave alive.
thus, it becomes a matter of
offense kill time = high kill numbers.
goal of defense should be to decrease kill time to reduce kill numbers.
defense needs to slow down the attack.
dont believe me?
its why leos practice 'response time.'
and in every case, the response time is never fast enough.
ARM THE TEACHERS.0 -
Check out allen griggs' post ...
http://forums.gunbroker.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2436150 -
quote:Originally posted by JamesRK
"Are you suggesting that public schools be allowed to make subjective decisions about what students can and can't say or write?"
No, I'm suggesting that when a student start shooting at other students, you don't wait two hours. You start right then and there trying to get armed security or law enforcement on the scene to shoot the son-of-a-gripe.
I have no idea where you came up with that other crap. Well, yes I do, but I don't care to go into it.
+1 James. Some folks let big numbers negatively affect logic, common sense, and established procedures in favor of re-inventing the wheel, or giving the subject matter due thought.0
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