I LIVE FAIRLY CLOSE TO the Major Stoneman Douglas High School in south Florida.
I’ve also been an Enterprise Risk Management practitioner for more than a few years.
The disaster, the murder of 17 people and the wounding of many others, could have been prevented.
Seventeen people, 14 students and three staff, were murdered by a former student who entered a building armed with an AK‑47 rifle.
A number of years ago I was a technical writer at a manufacturing facility in Fort Lauderdale FL. A guy who had a fight with his girlfriend, an employee, walked into the plant and shot the woman.
That was my first workplace murder and although I was not a risk management practitioner at the time it started me thinking: How could this have been avoided?
The easiest way was LOCK THE DOORS.
The shooter came in through an employee entrance.
The victim should have told someone she was in danger (assuming she was aware). HR would have made certain employees entered via a different door and would have made certain no unknown people would come into the building. (It was an unusually good HR team.)
- Having push-bar emergency exit doors and making it mandatory to make sure the doors were tightly shut would satisfy both the Fire Marshal and the risk manager. So how would employees enter? During a specified time when the door could be open and monitored.
Likewise stationing a guard would have been considered too costly against the risk in 1980.
Again, times have changed.
ONE OF THE PROBLEMS at Marjory Stoneman Douglas was that the law enforcement officers (LEOs) were on not only “different pages” but on different radio frequencies. The “right hand” didn’t know what the”left hand” was doing or needed. Putting everyone on the same frequency became a “to do” item following the shooting. Whether or not multi-jurisdictional active shooter exercises also made the “to do” list is an unknown, but it should be near the top of the list.
Another problem, according to the post-event finger pointing, is that the school lacked a well-published and practiced “red alert” or “lock down” procedure. Like a fire drill, this must be practiced again and again and yet again.
My son the cop does not fault the sheriff’s deputy for not rushing into the school to confront the shooter. What good would it do, he posits, to be shot looking for the shooter. My son’s department policy is to call for backup and then go in. Even if the deputy had a “bulletproof” vest, unless it is military grade and “weighs a ton,” it won’t stop a rifle bullet. (Besides, a bullet might hit the head or cut the femoral artery; the end result would be a dead cop and no protection for the people under attack.)
Once again, because the sheriff and local cops failed to share a frequency, the nearest cop might have been a local who didn’t get the expeditiously message.
Blame that on the politicians.
Still on “sharing information,” apparently the FBI failed to share information it had on the shooter with either the local LEOs or with the schools. Unfortunately, the FBI is becoming INfamous for keeping information within each office — that contributed to 9‑11‑2001 according to that disaster’s after action review.
Metal detectors might have helped, but the shooter was blatantly carrying a rifle and no one reacted.
When I went to high school, back when Hector was a pup, we had student hall monitors. A hall monitor could have seen the gun and could have set off a lock down alarm assuming the school HAD hall monitors and a publicized and practiced procedure. The hall monitor would NOT have been expected to attack the guy with a gun — just report what was seen.
Having a single entryway might not be feasible during the morning influx and afternoon exodus of students, but those portals COULD be monitored, both with personnel and by a camera system.
Should teachers be armed? The county’s school superintendent thinks not.
Meanwhile, taxpayers are footing the bill for increased LEO presence at all schools. Is the increased presence really necessary? Is there a better way? I think there is.
Limit entry and egress to managed portals.
Utilize technology — e.g., cameras, metal detectors — to monitor hallways.
Develop AND PRACTICE policies and procedures for red alerts and lock downs.
While the schools are beefing up security, make certain someone can’t smash through a door with a vehicle. Schools don‘t need tank traps, but re-enforced statuary could add to the school’s image while preventing a “drive in” attack.
Should school staff be armed? Tough question.
Armed staff must be trained when, and much more importantly, when NOT to use a weapon. Even then, having a weapon doesn’t mean that when “push comes to shove,” the school employee will use it. It is one thing to “kill” a paper target; it is quite another to see and shoot a living thing. No one knows what their reaction will be if a situation arises. Then there are the issues of (a) who buys the weapons and ammunition, (b) will employees be paid for their time at the firing range, (c) what ammunition will be allowed, (d) would a stun gun be sufficient?
While not against arming school personnel, it is a poor second to preventing a threat from entering the facility.
What schools need is to work with an Enterprise Risk Management practitioner who has a curious mind and is willing to play the “What If?” game.
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