Active Shooter Drills Draw Complaints/Lawsuit

[Airman Basic]

I think the term "active shooter" is stupid to begin with. What is an inactive shooter? How about "shooter" and dead criminal.

If you'd been through the class, you'd know the difference between a hostage situation and an "active shooter", who is wandering around killing people, as in Columbine. A hostage situation, you can wait for backup, SWAT, negotiators, whatever. An active shooter you go in with what you've got, whether one or two, or a dozen officers. No time to wait. Clear?

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Active shooters vs. hostage takers is important do to motivational issues.

The latter might want to make a statement or be some schmuck who didn't make it out of a failed robbery. These two have different strategies and tactics that are needed from the active killer.

Some incidents were based on the hostage taker - contain and negotiate. Didn't work for the killers. In some sieges - the surrounding law used the play book for hostage takers and didn't understand the motivations and it went terribly wrong.

[Spats McGee]

Originally Posted by BobCat45

WRT post #13:
Spats, in your opinion, could such a claim of self defense hold up in court?

First, my caveats: (#1) I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. I'm not licensed in your jurisdiction, so what follows is simply commentary, not legal advice. (#2) I've only skimmed the article.

Now that I have that out of the way, yes, such a claim could hold up. In describing SD in legal terms, most jurisdictions have some variant of "reasonably believed that he was in imminent danger of death or grave bodily injury" in their statutory language. The term "reasonable" often means that it can be left to a jury to determine if the SD Shooter's belief, that he was in imminent danger of death or grave bodily injury, was "reasonable," meaning something like "an ordinary, reasonable person, having the information possessed by the SD Shooter, could come to the same conclusion." So it might have to go to the jury to make that decision, but under the right facts, yes, a jury could find it reasonable.

[armoredman]

IIRC correctly, there WAS a case where a man defended his home from what he believed to be a home invasion, that turned out to be a SWAT raid on the wrong address, and a police officer was killed by the home owner....years and thousands of dollars later the home owner was supposedly cleared as being self defense. Think the police will EVER show up to HIS house if he calls 911 for any reason?

[Double Naught Spy]

My guess is the person in charge is very anti-gun.... they think they know the solution but in reality they are clueless.

Whether is the people in charge may be anti-gun isn't relevant or in evidence in any way in the situations where the drills have been sprung on unsuspecting people.

Yes, they are clueless {about possible pitfalls and ramifications}, but there are plenty of pro-gun people who are clueless as well. Don't ever forget that, but if you do, there is Youtube to remind you.

[zxcvbob]

IIRC correctly, there WAS a case where a man defended his home from what he believed to be a home invasion, that turned out to be a SWAT raid on the wrong address, and a police officer was killed by the home owner....years and thousands of dollars later the home owner was supposedly cleared as being self defense. Think the police will EVER show up to HIS house if he calls 911 for any reason?

Are you talking about Corey Maye? (who spent years on death row) Or somebody else in a similar situation?

[2123]

Are we still talking about Active Shooter drills and training? If so, I've been involved in countless training scenarios. Not once, were uninformed players involved. Everyone involved knew exactly what was going on, in order to avoid any kind of misunderstanding or injuries.

And yes, there's a HUGE difference between a hostage situation and an active shooter situation. I'm a certified Hostage Negotiator, and have been for years. No way that you should mistake one for the other. Whole different set of dynamics involved, as well as time frames, obviously.

Back to my first paragraph. If someone was not informed of an active shooter training situation, someone made a big mistake. To even make such a basic mistake, speaks volumes of the organization hosting it.

[kilimanjaro]

I took two axes out of my truck and stashed them under my desk at work for an active shooter response, as opposed to stashing myself under the desk.

I would not want to be the dimwitted numbnuts who came near my area shooting blanks at co-workers.

[armoredman]

zxcvbob, I don't think it was that guy, wasn't convicted of anything. Dang, wish I could remember the details, can't think of enough to even Google it right. My bad, sorry.

[Double Naught Spy]

And yes, there's a HUGE difference between a hostage situation and an active shooter situation.

Yes, but they are not necessarily exclusive. Sometimes that HUGE difference is just a matter of timing. For example, Tacoma Mall, Concordia University, Mesa School, Laura Dann's rampage went from an active shooter situation to a hostage situation. The Amish School Shooting went from a hostage situation to an active shooter situation, shooting 10 victims before the police could do anything to stop him.

So while the two situations may be different types, they are not necessarily exclusive and one can change into the other.

[Skans]

Yes, having drills without people knowing about it would be very stupid

That about sums it up for me as well. I'll add:

1. Just because its labeled "training" doesn't mean it's NOT kidnapping....under the law.

2. If you can force someone to volunteer for a secret training exercise, what else can you force someone to volunteer for? Unlawful quartering? Military Service? Sex?

[Ruger9er]

When my nephew (a ridiculously big dude) was in high school they interrupted a pep rally when the police came in full force, wrestled him to the floor of the gym, told him he was under arrest for dealing and hauled him off to jail. In front of the whole student body. He was bailed out that night.

The next day they had an assembly to tell the students it was all made up and was staged for the shock effect. Apparently pretty effective from all reports.

The people that knew were the Supt and Principal and two Vice Principals and the head of Security. His (widowed) Mom knew but they didn't tell his sister in the same school. To her credit she defended him completely.

The 6 arresting officers had unloaded weapons but did have pepper spray. The Lt and 2 Sgts had loaded weapons but stayed out of the way.

[seeker_two]

Did the kid being arrested know?

[Ruger9er]

Ha! Yeah, he did. I just slid right by him didn't I? Sorry 'bout that.

[seeker_two]

That's good....could have ended up with a few injured people otherwise...

[James K]

It is not always possible, but our local PDs have used a closed school and an empty shopping mall (both scheduled to be demolished) as training areas. Good realism and with entry controlled, no way a member of the public could walk in or be hurt.

Jim

[Double Naught Spy]

Some people are just idiots. Despite the previous problems of such drills, a principal in Florida thought it would be okay to have an active shooter drill during school hours, no bad guy, but ran the drill unannounced and has the RSOs running around the school with weapons drawn (pistol, loaded, AR15 not loaded) and scaring the hell out of the children as a result (unintentional, but still scaring them). The principal is suspended and parents are NOT happy.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/1...n_6188418.html

[mehavey]

I read the article carefully to see if there was a environment where an armed "actor"
could have been taken down by an unknowing adult/teacher, and then his weapon
used (in apparent self defense) on other "actors". (Then there'd be hell to pay as
the courts tried to figure that one out.)

In this case however, the article only describes it as being ".. the school resource
officer and another police officer systematically entered classrooms with weapons
in hand — one had a loaded pistol and another had an unloaded AR-15."
So apparently both were known and/or in uniform.... a slightly different bent to things
than might otherwise be inferred.

Still.... not too smart at all. You do have to wonder about just the basic intelligence
of the educrats who've somehow filtered up through the system.





post: The included pic series of "People who want more guns in schools" was a classically-breathless Huffington Post footnote.

[Double Naught Spy]

Still.... not too smart at all. You do have to wonder about just the basic intelligence of the educrats who've somehow filtered up through the system.

Not too smart? I would say that it was absolutely stupid to run such a drill with uninformed children and teachers along with officers with at least one confirmed loaded weapon and the concern isn't with the administrators, but also with the officers who ran the drill.

Jewett school administrators, including Moore, and the Winter Haven Police Department school resource officer coordinated the drill.

http://www.theledger.com/article/201...medium=twitter

Also note...

Some students told parents that officers pointed guns at them.

My guess is that this claim, echoed by different students in several publications, came as a result of being swept by officers "clearing" rooms.

Apparently, the Captain of the Safe Schools program knew of the drill, but was UNAWARE it would be run with drawn guns. Apparently, nobody thought enough about this to have policy on running surprise drills to suggest proper safety be employed.

Overall, it appears that there was bone-headedness across the board and a general lack of prudent behavior on the part of the school's administration, officers involved in the planning and implementation of the drill, and of the police administration.

Check out the interview here...
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/11/16...ockdown-drill/

Watch the video.