Eight concertgoers passed away due to a crowd surge at the Astroworld music festival in Houston, Texas. The tragic event highlights the duty of care that event organizations have to maintain safety at their venues.

A key role in corporate security leadership is in understanding global vulnerabilities as part of a shift that goes beyond traditional security concerns, in order to anticipate new risks to your organization.

Twenty-three years ago, when I worked with the Federal Protective Service policing federal facilities where security contract oversight was key, the General Services Administration and U.S. Justice Department designed systems that complimented each other to provide concentric layers of protection against unlawful entry and other threats.

Security executives have to be constant evangelists when it comes to preserving operational effectiveness.

Jurisdictions throughout the nation increased security at houses of worship this weekend after a teen gunman killed one woman and injured a rabbi, a child and another man during Passover celebrations at a San Diego-area synagogue last Saturday. 

As someone who has been engaged by consulting clients and full-time employers to conduct threat assessments and write security and emergency preparedness plans, I am often left puzzled by how many organizations go to great lengths to assess their vulnerabilities and create plans to address them, but almost never test their ongoing effectiveness.

On July 16, 2018; MGM Resorts International, owner of the Mandalay Bay Casino & Hotel, filed federal lawsuits against more than 1,000 Las Vegas mass shooting victims in an effort to avoid liability in legal actions related to the gunman who opened fire on an outdoor concert from his Mandalay Bay suite on Oct. 1, 2017, killing 58 concertgoers and injuring hundreds of others.

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.

In response to horrifying school shootings; Americans tend to oversimplify the issue or worse, distract the nation toward wedge issues. The truth is, addressing this issue is a lot more complex than simply “stopping a bad guy with a gun”.