For two years after a gunman opened fire inside a Southern California Edison office, corporate security rebuilt and reframed their corporate culture toward active shooter policies.
"Acts of violence such as active shooters aren’t random,” says A. Benjamin Mannes. “From events such as Adam Lanza and Newtown, Nikolas Cruz and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Jin Yu Park at Virginia Tech, and even Jared Loughner, who shot Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, all were planned.”
On June 28, Wendi Winters lost her life when a man shot her and some of her colleagues in the Capital Gazette newspaper office.
Yet, Winters is being hailed as a hero, according to some who witnessed and survived the shooting, because Winters reportedly fought the gunman, and “charged forward holding a trash can and recycling bin,” reported the Capital Gazette.
On June 28, 2018 at 2:40PM eastern time, shots rang out at the offices of the Capital Gazette, a local newspaper covering Annapolis, Maryland. The shooting resulted in the deaths of five people and injuries to two others.
A new FBI report on active shooters says that mass shooters don’t explode out of nowhere—they plan and prepare. Most have no diagnosable mental illness. And their attacks are almost always preceded by behaviors that stir apprehension in people close to them, possible warning signs that crop up over a lengthy period of time.
The Orange County, FL Board of Supervisors voted unanimously on a three-year, $4 million active-shooter training program for teachers and school officials.
Locations once considered safe havens such as schools, places of worship and healthcare institutions are no longer immune to acts of violence and, in worst case scenarios, active shooter incidents. In a webinar, Connie Packard, Executive Director of Support Services, Deputy Chief Public Safety for Boston Medical Center discussed ways that the external and internal environment can be used to mitigate risk, tools that are available to help, and standards and guidelines aimed at preventing violence.
In an emergency situation, such as an active shooter, people will take several actions. They will seek information, they will prepare for evacuation and evacuate, and they will inform and help others. And then there’s milling.
A proposed New Jersey bill would mandate panic buttons and red emergency lights in schools.
Dubbed “Alyssa’s Law,” the legislation would require all schools to have a dedicated panic button for use during school shootings and other dire emergencies, the New York Post said.
