Active Shooter Drills Draw Complaints/Lawsuit

Double Naught Spy · September 4, 2014, 02:20 PM

http://online.wsj.com/articles/activ...nts-1409760255

This is an interesting article. It opens with a lawsuit by a nursing home employee suing because of being traumatized because of an active shooter drill at her facility where she was taken hostage - never knowing it was a drill.

Apparently, while there are some states that require active shooter training for schools (no students present), the simulations are real enough to traumatize participants significantly, causing numerous complaints.

However the majority of the complaints seem to come from those not knowing that there are active shooter drills going on when they found themselves in the middle of such a drill.

There have also been injuries as a result.

That such drills were conducted without EVERYONE being informed at the time of the event (and not just the police counting on mgmt to tell the employees sometime beforehand) seems like a real safety hazard on many levels.

I certainly think that the drills are a good idea, but the people conducting the drill need not only know how to handle the active shooter situation, but also how to properly and safely conduct such a drill. This second part seems to be a salient issue.

Glenn E. Meyer · September 4, 2014, 03:04 PM

That's happened before as the article points out. It is a risk of ill planned FOF exercises. Not everyone is trained in running such.

If folks aren't informed, you take the risk of running into someone with a weapon - plenty of knives around.

Some of the schools here make sure there are only role players and everyone is informed to stay away.

Also, the role players have to be clearly and repeatedly instructed about the use of bodily contact. It's clearly inappropriate to a volunteer who is not in a red suit. The officers or defenders must be clear that the stress of the issue can't overwhelm them and they clobber someone. Some can get carried away with the role and you need referees all over the place.

Thanks for the link!

motorhead0922 · September 4, 2014, 03:53 PM

Interesting article, 00.

Wow, how stupid to not inform everyone!

Glenn, what's that about a red suit? As you might have noticed, Missouri is a state with mandated active shooter training in schools. A local police chief is a friend, and I volunteered to play a bad guy, and he thought that would be great since I would not know the tactics. He hasn't scheduled it yet though. Tell us more about what you've seen.

motorhead0922 · September 4, 2014, 04:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WSJ

Some experts, however, say recreating the chaos of a mass shooting is no way to prime for emergencies. "There ends up being zero learning going on because everyone is upset that you've scared the crap out of them," said Greg Crane, a former SWAT officer with the North Richland Hills Police Department near Dallas who holds seminars to teach civilians different strategies to deal with mass-shooting scenarios.

They won't know how much learning went on until they run a second simulation and see if the school personnel improved or not. That's how the bugs get worked out, to the extent that they can be.

Glenn E. Meyer · September 4, 2014, 04:42 PM

Red suits are big padded suits so you can beat on each other. In H2H classes, the instructor wears one so you can try your kung-fu.

Tackling someone in an uncontrolled environment is extremely risky for injuries. In some FOF, if it was dynamic and you wanted to try a disarm, you were to touch the gun and yell disarm. The person with the gun was to give it up.

Referees would later evaluate if you had a reasonable chance for the disarm. That save each of you from getting clobbered.

For FOGs like me being in a FOF scenario - I want NO chance of physical contact.

Double Naught Spy · September 4, 2014, 06:35 PM

http://www.nbcnews.com/watch/nbcnews...s-137508419511

The video here has an interesting perspective on the realism that can be experienced by students in such simulations...not simulation done wrongly, but apparently with extensive preplanning and realism. As indicated by the interviews, this simulations are at least getting people thinking about how they need to behave and what they need to be doing. On the scary side and hopefully beneficial, discovering some chinks in the safety mechanisms in place.

motorhead0922 · September 4, 2014, 08:17 PM

Thanks Glenn.

zxcvbob · September 4, 2014, 08:46 PM

This will keep happening until somebody dies -- and then it still won't stop unless the Chief who decided it would be a good idea to have an active shooter drill with uninformed real victims goes to prison for it or is personally bankrupted.

There was a particularly egregious example a couple of years ago at a university in... eastern Tennessee, I think. I was disappointed that no criminal charges were filed. (not that I really expected it since the police were the kidnappers)

ETA: Not Tennessee, North Carolina:
http://thefiringline.com/forums/arch...?t-282569.html
http://www.foxnews.com/story/2008/02...na-university/

raimius · September 4, 2014, 09:07 PM

Yeah, practicing response to violent crime, while not telling the role players that their attacker is actually not trying to kill them is incredibly STUPID.

It'll be a sad but not unexpected day when the simulated active shooter gets killed with a fire extinguisher to the head or stabbed repeatedly by a small knife or improvised shiv.

Koda94 · September 5, 2014, 12:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by raimius

It'll be a sad but not unexpected day when the simulated active shooter gets killed with a fire extinguisher to the head or stabbed repeatedly by a small knife or improvised shiv.

or shot by a CCW....

Double Naught Spy · September 5, 2014, 08:09 AM

This is just stupid. Apparently, there are goodly number of these surprise drills where there is no warning before hand and are given more as a test to see what would go wrong more so than as instruction on how to handle the incident.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...n_3195706.html

Different version of same story...
http://mic.com/articles/39123/school...n-school-drill

Another incident...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/1...n_1949343.html

Another...
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010...nounced-drill/

Another...
http://www.pnj.com/story/news/2014/0...kers/10207851/

I am sure there are a more, but don't have time to continue searching. Fortunately, these are the exceptions rather than the norm. There are apparently a LOT of active shooter-type drills being conducted at numerous schools, businesses (mostly larger corporations), buildings (multiple business structures), health care facilities, and even municipalities that are done very well with proper planning, notification, precautions, and safety measures in place. In fact, it can be difficult to find many bad incidents amongst all the good ones, but there are still quite a few bad drills that are either poorly administered or intentionally administered as a sort of assessment test to unsuspecting participants.

zxcvbob · September 5, 2014, 09:21 AM

Quote:

It'll be a sad but not unexpected day when the simulated active shooter gets killed with a fire extinguisher to the head or stabbed repeatedly by a small knife or improvised shiv.

And then the victim gets prosecuted for killing a police officer.

**Spats McGee** · September 5, 2014, 09:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zxcvbob

Quote:

it'll be a sad but not unexpected day when the simulated active shooter gets killed with a fire extinguisher to the head or stabbed repeatedly by a small knife or improvised shiv.

And then the victim gets prosecuted for killing a police officer.

And claims SD . . . .

Airman Basic · September 5, 2014, 10:16 AM

All the officers in our small department have been through active shooter training since Columbine. We use a school which is closed and nobody there but us.We take turns being the bad guys and use simunitions. Good training. If a non-participant turned up, which has not happened, we would certainly shut down the exercise.

**4V50 Gary** · September 5, 2014, 12:54 PM

Reminds me of the morality issue facing scientists of whether they should let their test subjects know if they're being used as lab rats.

It's better to call for volunteers and assemble them at a real place on a weekend. No bueno to have someone get a heart attack from a drill because they thought it was real.

serf 'rett · September 5, 2014, 02:27 PM

Somebody is going to get hurt or end up dead when there is no advance notice there will be a drill. Appears to have been poorly planned exercise.

Sadly, there are some folks, eternally in condition white, that will not know what is happening even though they have been informed there will be a drill. Some of them will be called “plaintiffs” in court. Getting very mad is a natural reaction following getting the crap scared out of you.

TXAZ · September 5, 2014, 02:36 PM

Airman Basic has it right. Train without terrorizing.

Conversely, if she believes she was terrorized / the victim of terrorism, then a criminal charge needs to be filed against all involved without the chance for sovereign immunity claims. That's the only way this crap will stop.

Civil suits are a joke because those who act under color of law seldom fork out of their own pocket. If it's good for the goose, then it's good for the gander. A little consideration on the front end could have avoid this.

BobCat45 · September 5, 2014, 02:39 PM

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

Seems to me that if the scenario were "real" enough and the person with the fire extinguisher "reasonably believed" the threat was real, that such a SD claim would be valid. But I have no knowledge or experience of such things and am curious.

2ndsojourn · September 5, 2014, 03:25 PM

So....the 'first responders' that are training for the drill know it's a drill, but the 'victims' don't. What's the sense of that?

Double Naught Spy · September 5, 2014, 03:28 PM

Of course an SD claim could hold up in court. All the conditions for SD would be met.

btmj · September 5, 2014, 10:33 PM

It wouldn't take anything as dramatic as an act of self defense... Someone could get severely injured just by running down a flight of stairs and tripping. I would think that a jury would be pretty sympathetic to an injured person under these circumstances.

I read the original WSJ article... very good and typical of that paper. I get 90% of my news from the WSJ. I pretty much ignore anything available online for "free".

BobCat45 · September 6, 2014, 02:43 PM

Thanks DNS. I get tripped up by the phrase "reasonably believes...immediately necessary" - the concept of reasonableness is pretty slippery sometimes.

I know some well-educated professional people who tell me they are certain, based on where they live, where the go, who they know and so on, that they will never be victimized - and it it utterly "unreasonable" to carry a pistol just in case. If it happens that I'm the one who swung the fire extinguisher, I don't want those people judging the reasonableness of my response.

DaleA · September 8, 2014, 07:08 AM

Active shooter drills without telling everyone involved it is a drill is really stupid.

How, oh HOW does someone so dumb that they would call an unannounced shooter drill without telling everyone it is a drill get promoted in an organization to the point where they could call for an unannounced drill?

It has to be somebody a little higher up that calls for these drills...I mean a first year teacher or rookie cop isn't doing this on their own.

Koda94 · September 8, 2014, 08:55 AM

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

jmorris · September 8, 2014, 09:22 AM

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

Yes, having drills without people knowing about it would be very stupid and would result in someone getting injured where I work.

September 4, 2014, 03:04 PM	#2
Glenn E. Meyer Senior Member Join Date: November 17, 2000 Posts: 20,064	That's happened before as the article points out. It is a risk of ill planned FOF exercises. Not everyone is trained in running such. If folks aren't informed, you take the risk of running into someone with a weapon - plenty of knives around. Some of the schools here make sure there are only role players and everyone is informed to stay away. Also, the role players have to be clearly and repeatedly instructed about the use of bodily contact. It's clearly inappropriate to a volunteer who is not in a red suit. The officers or defenders must be clear that the stress of the issue can't overwhelm them and they clobber someone. Some can get carried away with the role and you need referees all over the place. Thanks for the link! __________________ NRA, TSRA, IDPA, NTI, Polite Soc. - Aux Armes, Citoyens

September 4, 2014, 03:53 PM	#3
motorhead0922 Senior Member Join Date: October 30, 2010 Location: Missouri Posts: 635	Interesting article, 00. Wow, how stupid to not inform everyone! Glenn, what's that about a red suit? As you might have noticed, Missouri is a state with mandated active shooter training in schools. A local police chief is a friend, and I volunteered to play a bad guy, and he thought that would be great since I would not know the tactics. He hasn't scheduled it yet though. Tell us more about what you've seen. __________________ SAF, ACLDN, IDPA, handgunlaw.us My AmazonSmile benefits SAF I'd rather be carried by 6 than caged by 12. 2020: It's pronounced twenty twenty.

September 4, 2014, 04:42 PM	#5
Glenn E. Meyer Senior Member Join Date: November 17, 2000 Posts: 20,064	Red suits are big padded suits so you can beat on each other. In H2H classes, the instructor wears one so you can try your kung-fu. Tackling someone in an uncontrolled environment is extremely risky for injuries. In some FOF, if it was dynamic and you wanted to try a disarm, you were to touch the gun and yell disarm. The person with the gun was to give it up. Referees would later evaluate if you had a reasonable chance for the disarm. That save each of you from getting clobbered. For FOGs like me being in a FOF scenario - I want NO chance of physical contact. __________________ NRA, TSRA, IDPA, NTI, Polite Soc. - Aux Armes, Citoyens

September 4, 2014, 06:35 PM	#6
Double Naught Spy Senior Member Join Date: January 8, 2001 Location: Forestburg, Montague Cnty, TX Posts: 12,717	http://www.nbcnews.com/watch/nbcnews...s-137508419511 The video here has an interesting perspective on the realism that can be experienced by students in such simulations...not simulation done wrongly, but apparently with extensive preplanning and realism. As indicated by the interviews, this simulations are at least getting people thinking about how they need to behave and what they need to be doing. On the scary side and hopefully beneficial, discovering some chinks in the safety mechanisms in place. __________________ "If you look through your scope and see your shoe, aim higher." -- said to me by my 11 year old daughter before going out for hogs 8/13/2011 My Hunting Videos https://www.youtube.com/user/HornHillRange

September 4, 2014, 08:17 PM	#7
motorhead0922 Senior Member Join Date: October 30, 2010 Location: Missouri Posts: 635	Thanks Glenn. __________________ SAF, ACLDN, IDPA, handgunlaw.us My AmazonSmile benefits SAF I'd rather be carried by 6 than caged by 12. 2020: It's pronounced twenty twenty.

September 4, 2014, 02:20 PM	#1
Double Naught Spy Senior Member Join Date: January 8, 2001 Location: Forestburg, Montague Cnty, TX Posts: 12,717	Active Shooter Drills Draw Complaints/Lawsuit http://online.wsj.com/articles/activ...nts-1409760255 This is an interesting article. It opens with a lawsuit by a nursing home employee suing because of being traumatized because of an active shooter drill at her facility where she was taken hostage - never knowing it was a drill. Apparently, while there are some states that require active shooter training for schools (no students present), the simulations are real enough to traumatize participants significantly, causing numerous complaints. However the majority of the complaints seem to come from those not knowing that there are active shooter drills going on when they found themselves in the middle of such a drill. There have also been injuries as a result. That such drills were conducted without EVERYONE being informed at the time of the event (and not just the police counting on mgmt to tell the employees sometime beforehand) seems like a real safety hazard on many levels. I certainly think that the drills are a good idea, but the people conducting the drill need not only know how to handle the active shooter situation, but also how to properly and safely conduct such a drill. This second part seems to be a salient issue. __________________ "If you look through your scope and see your shoe, aim higher." -- said to me by my 11 year old daughter before going out for hogs 8/13/2011 My Hunting Videos https://www.youtube.com/user/HornHillRange

September 4, 2014, 08:46 PM	#8
zxcvbob Senior Member Join Date: December 20, 2007 Location: S.E. Minnesota Posts: 4,720	This will keep happening until somebody dies -- and then it still won't stop unless the Chief who decided it would be a good idea to have an active shooter drill with uninformed real victims goes to prison for it or is personally bankrupted. There was a particularly egregious example a couple of years ago at a university in... eastern Tennessee, I think. I was disappointed that no criminal charges were filed. (not that I really expected it since the police were the kidnappers) ETA: Not Tennessee, North Carolina: http://thefiringline.com/forums/arch...?t-282569.html http://www.foxnews.com/story/2008/02...na-university/ __________________ "Everything they do is so dramatic and flamboyant. It just makes me want to set myself on fire!" —Lucille Bluth Last edited by zxcvbob; September 4, 2014 at 09:08 PM.

September 4, 2014, 09:07 PM	#9
raimius Senior Member Join Date: January 27, 2008 Posts: 2,199	Yeah, practicing response to violent crime, while not telling the role players that their attacker is actually not trying to kill them is incredibly STUPID. It'll be a sad but not unexpected day when the simulated active shooter gets killed with a fire extinguisher to the head or stabbed repeatedly by a small knife or improvised shiv.

September 5, 2014, 08:09 AM	#11
Double Naught Spy Senior Member Join Date: January 8, 2001 Location: Forestburg, Montague Cnty, TX Posts: 12,717	This is just stupid. Apparently, there are goodly number of these surprise drills where there is no warning before hand and are given more as a test to see what would go wrong more so than as instruction on how to handle the incident. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...n_3195706.html Different version of same story... http://mic.com/articles/39123/school...n-school-drill Another incident... http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/1...n_1949343.html Another... http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010...nounced-drill/ Another... http://www.pnj.com/story/news/2014/0...kers/10207851/ I am sure there are a more, but don't have time to continue searching. Fortunately, these are the exceptions rather than the norm. There are apparently a LOT of active shooter-type drills being conducted at numerous schools, businesses (mostly larger corporations), buildings (multiple business structures), health care facilities, and even municipalities that are done very well with proper planning, notification, precautions, and safety measures in place. In fact, it can be difficult to find many bad incidents amongst all the good ones, but there are still quite a few bad drills that are either poorly administered or intentionally administered as a sort of assessment test to unsuspecting participants. __________________ "If you look through your scope and see your shoe, aim higher." -- said to me by my 11 year old daughter before going out for hogs 8/13/2011 My Hunting Videos https://www.youtube.com/user/HornHillRange

September 5, 2014, 10:16 AM	#14
Airman Basic Senior Member Join Date: April 12, 2013 Location: South of Interstate 20 Posts: 219	All the officers in our small department have been through active shooter training since Columbine. We use a school which is closed and nobody there but us.We take turns being the bad guys and use simunitions. Good training. If a non-participant turned up, which has not happened, we would certainly shut down the exercise.

September 5, 2014, 12:54 PM	#15
4V50 Gary Staff Join Date: November 2, 1998 Location: Colorado Posts: 21,841	Reminds me of the morality issue facing scientists of whether they should let their test subjects know if they're being used as lab rats. It's better to call for volunteers and assemble them at a real place on a weekend. No bueno to have someone get a heart attack from a drill because they thought it was real. __________________ Vigilantibus et non dormientibus jura subveniunt. *Molon Labe!*

September 5, 2014, 02:27 PM	#16
serf 'rett Senior Member Join Date: June 25, 2009 Location: Stuttgart, AR Posts: 1,569	Somebody is going to get hurt or end up dead when there is no advance notice there will be a drill. Appears to have been poorly planned exercise. Sadly, there are some folks, eternally in condition white, that will not know what is happening even though they have been informed there will be a drill. Some of them will be called “plaintiffs” in court. Getting very mad is a natural reaction following getting the crap scared out of you. __________________ A lack of planning on your part does not necessarily constitute an emergency on my part.

September 5, 2014, 02:36 PM	#17
TXAZ Senior Member Join Date: September 5, 2010 Location: McMurdo Sound Texas Posts: 4,322	Airman Basic has it right. Train without terrorizing. Conversely, if she believes she was terrorized / the victim of terrorism, then a criminal charge needs to be filed against all involved without the chance for sovereign immunity claims. That's the only way this crap will stop. Civil suits are a joke because those who act under color of law seldom fork out of their own pocket. If it's good for the goose, then it's good for the gander. A little consideration on the front end could have avoid this. __________________ Cave illos in guns et backhoes Last edited by TXAZ; September 5, 2014 at 03:17 PM.

September 5, 2014, 02:39 PM	#18
BobCat45 Senior Member Join Date: May 18, 2004 Location: East Bernard, TX Posts: 523	WRT post #13: Spats, in your opinion, could such a claim of self defense hold up in court? Seems to me that if the scenario were "real" enough and the person with the fire extinguisher "reasonably believed" the threat was real, that such a SD claim would be valid. But I have no knowledge or experience of such things and am curious.

September 5, 2014, 03:25 PM	#19
2ndsojourn Senior Member Join Date: January 15, 2013 Location: South Jersey Posts: 1,416	So....the 'first responders' that are training for the drill know it's a drill, but the 'victims' don't. What's the sense of that?

September 5, 2014, 03:28 PM	#20
Double Naught Spy Senior Member Join Date: January 8, 2001 Location: Forestburg, Montague Cnty, TX Posts: 12,717	Of course an SD claim could hold up in court. All the conditions for SD would be met. __________________ "If you look through your scope and see your shoe, aim higher." -- said to me by my 11 year old daughter before going out for hogs 8/13/2011 My Hunting Videos https://www.youtube.com/user/HornHillRange

September 5, 2014, 10:33 PM	#21
btmj Senior Member Join Date: November 1, 2011 Location: Near St. Louis, Missouri Posts: 864	It wouldn't take anything as dramatic as an act of self defense... Someone could get severely injured just by running down a flight of stairs and tripping. I would think that a jury would be pretty sympathetic to an injured person under these circumstances. I read the original WSJ article... very good and typical of that paper. I get 90% of my news from the WSJ. I pretty much ignore anything available online for "free".

September 6, 2014, 02:43 PM	#22
BobCat45 Senior Member Join Date: May 18, 2004 Location: East Bernard, TX Posts: 523	Thanks DNS. I get tripped up by the phrase "reasonably believes...immediately necessary" - the concept of reasonableness is pretty slippery sometimes. I know some well-educated professional people who tell me they are certain, based on where they live, where the go, who they know and so on, that they will never be victimized - and it it utterly "unreasonable" to carry a pistol just in case. If it happens that I'm the one who swung the fire extinguisher, I don't want those people judging the reasonableness of my response.

September 8, 2014, 07:08 AM	#23
DaleA Senior Member Join Date: September 12, 2002 Location: Twin Cities, MN Posts: 5,313	Active shooter drills without telling everyone involved it is a drill is really stupid. How, oh HOW does someone so dumb that they would call an unannounced shooter drill without telling everyone it is a drill get promoted in an organization to the point where they could call for an unannounced drill? It has to be somebody a little higher up that calls for these drills...I mean a first year teacher or rookie cop isn't doing this on their own.

September 8, 2014, 08:55 AM	#24
Koda94 Senior Member Join Date: November 25, 2012 Location: Cascadia Posts: 1,295	My guess is the person in charge is very anti-gun.... they think they know the solution but in reality they are clueless. __________________ lightweight, cheap, strong... pick 2

September 8, 2014, 09:22 AM	#25
jmorris Senior Member Join Date: November 22, 2006 Posts: 3,077	I think the term "active shooter" is stupid to begin with. What is an inactive shooter? How about "shooter" and dead criminal. Yes, having drills without people knowing about it would be very stupid and would result in someone getting injured where I work.