By John Stofa Copyright 2013
The recent attacks in Aurora and Newtown have proven one thing for certain; we will never be able to stop the armed gunman from attacking for no apparent reason with no advanced warning. These evil actors walk amongst us, they are heavily armed and not about to conduct their lives within the confines of any law. So how do we protect ourselves and our loved ones; especially our most vulnerable and innocent young people? There simply is no foolproof method, but we can slow down the armed intruder and make it harder for them to maneuver using technology. Technology that is already available today. Technology that in the course of an attack could essentially help to slow down time.
There are many companies promoting their brand of products that are designed to help in extreme emergency situations like a shooting. These systems are not designed to prevent the action, but merely to notify others during the situation and provide them with valuable information about what to do and where to go, and then update them as to when the emergency is over and it is safe to resume normal activities. It was always believed that when activating these types of systems, we should provide discrete alarms in order to not alert the assailant. This is probably not the right course of action for all situations. The one thing we can learn from Newtown (and there will be much to be learned from Newtown) is the fact that the intruder “announced” himself at the front entrance with gunfire allowing the front office to alert the rest of the staff which gave them some time to react and prepare. He was temporarily slowed down by the access control system and the exterior doors to the school before ultimately gaining access to the interior of the school. If the intruder had simply walked in without notice without encountering resistance, the results may have been different. This fact shows that the best practice for this type of emergency may be to broadcast (shout from the highest mountain) a simple warning message such as “intruder alert” to a highly trained staff that understands what that warning means, and how to react to it. This early warning will allow us to basically slow down the event, provide necessary resistance and obstacles to the intruder, and give the emergency responders more time to get on-scene to end the violence.
Furthermore, in order help control these type of events in our schools, it is going to take a concerted effort from Architects and Engineers to design better and safer schools for our children. Schools that are less about the attractive finishes and award winning designs and more about safety and security. Designs that incorporate features that we see in airport passenger terminals, prisons and police stations; but then are customized to be softer and less restrictive for public K-12 school use. Design features such as man-traps, sally ports, or the funneling of all incoming people into “secure areas” such as an airport does. We need to consider the idea of having trained security personnel stationed either in plain sight or discretely located at school entrances in order to stop or slow down the assailant and activate the buildings’ Emergency Communication System. We are not ready for this brave new world, but this is the reality of where we are at today.
In conclusion, we need to help slow down time when these unthinkable events happen and allow the staff and first responders every possible second to do what they are trained to do. No, we will not be able to stop the next attack, but we will be able to make it safer for all involved if we change the way we have done things in the past.
