I learned of this tragedy as my school bus fleet prepared for our annual Christmas luncheon. We held a moment of silence, and then we shared our company with each other, with a renewed sense of life and an awareness of how it could end quickly. It reaffirmed for us why we do what we do, to get our precious cargo to and from school safely.
There are numerous pitfalls that can come after a tragedy like this. The first is to be reactionary. The smoke has barely cleared, literally, and I've already see some of this;
'Put all schools into lockdown!'
'Ban all guns!'
I heard it described succinctly by Dr. Greg Sipes, a psychologist, on local radio. He described left-brained and right-brained thinking. Left-brained thinking governs logical, rational thinking, while the right-brain governs emotional thinking. The reactionary examples come from the right brain. It is a natural response to trauma such as this, and should not be scorned or dismissed out-of-hand. However, we need to keep it in perspective, and keep the left-brain engaged as well.
This is hard to do with the pictures we are seeing of horrified children and parents that are coming out of Newtown, CT.
The second pitfall, exacerbated by the first, is to react based upon early information. This information will often change as it is vetted, corrected, then disseminated. We should then study the information, and get to understand the ramifications before we make changes.
Sandy Hook Elementary School has suffered a horrible tragedy at the hands of a gunman for as yet undisclosed reasons. 20 children are dead, as are 6 staff members.
Pray for the victims, and let the information develop.
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I just spent three days as an invited panel member on the National Summit on Multiple Casualty Shootings held at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Brunswick, Georgia. This mass shooting event is tragically ironic in that this occurred just after this series of meetings of subject matter professionals who are dedicated to try and defeat this behavior was conviened.
ReplyDeleteWe disected "who" is an active shooter on so many levels it left me mentally exhausted at the end of the day. We left with a good idea of where we need to go, but it won't be easy, and much research is to be done on what makes a human being snap into this rampage of evil and kill innocent children and adults. What makes them tick? That is one question. The others follow a pattern such as; can we predict this behavior? If such a pattern is observed, how is it then reported and sucessfully intervened to stop the behavior from happening in the first place.
We'll need to get all the facts before we start over commenting on what can happen and the first thing we need to do is pray for the families, and the first responders who walked thru this horiffic event today.
As a k-12 police Chief, I pray daily and am always looking to new ways to stop this evil from coming to our doorstep. I can not agree with Michael Dorn and Lt. Col Grossman enough...an electronic device should never replace that pattern recognition that when employed by a properly trained staff member, can help to recognize when something is just; "not right" and stops an offender in their tracks. Kudos to Mike and the Safe Havens staff for dedicating themselves to this mission daily.
Rod Ellis-Chief of Police-Glynn County Georgia School District
Rod, thank you for your comments. Mike and I co-authored a white paper on this topic: Fight, Flight or Lockdown – Teaching Students and Staff to Attack Active Shooters could Result in Decreased Casualties or Needless Deaths By Michael S. Dorn and Stephen Satterly, Jr., Safe Havens International.
ReplyDeleteI think it's a good read, and exemplifies what I've been saying.
By the way, Rod, I understand you are heading to Israel for some high speed training! Congratulations! I am impressed that you are qualified, and glad that people like you are receiving this training to use here in the states!
ReplyDeleteGod Speed, Sheepdog!