Countering school shootings: What tactics work best?

ALICE School Staff Training

note: The Alice Training Institute (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate) offers training based on a set of proactive strategies aimed at increasing chances of survival during an armed intruder event. www.alicetraining.com

Teachers at Harding High School went back to class Thursday with a different perspective.

Business teacher Tola Sanusi said she put herself in a different mindset after the active shooter training Marion City School employees participated in earlier this week. She gave more thought to how she could evacuate her students from her windowless classroom — maybe through the panels in the ceiling — if faced with a dangerous intruder. She considered different ways to prepare her room for an emergency lockdown.

She’s embraced those new ways of thinking.

“We need this. We should have had this a long time ago,” Sanusi said. “We know what to do in a fire drill. But for something that severe, I didn’t know what to do.”

Sanusi and more than 600 other staff members at the school underwent ALICE training on Wednesday. The Marion Police Department led six hours of drills with assistance from central Ohio police departments, neighboring sheriff’s offices and area schools.

“I think it’s important that we teach our young people to be safe at all times. It’s not just being in school; it’s anywhere you go,” Sanusi said. “We want our children to be prepared for any situation, anytime, anywhere.”

She said the training brings opportunities to strengthen Marion in preparation of a shooter in any public place, even outside of school.

“It’s rebuilding the school and educational community,” she said. “And as the kids begin to learn about this, they’re taking it home… They’re spreading that.”

ALICE method

Schools across the United States sought for disaster preparation resources after the highly-publicized shooting at Columbine High School in 1999. Fifteen people, including the two perpetrators, were killed and 24 were injured in the Colorado massacre.

“Columbine was the slap in reality for law enforcement,” said Greg Crane, president and founder of the ALICE Training Institute. “We can use our training, but we can’t get there fast enough.”

Crane also noticed those wounded in school shootings were much more likely to be killed when compared to all gunshot victims. He felt that there needed to be changes in school disaster plans across the country to avoid similar situations.

“Having a one-size-fits-all plan doesn’t work in all circumstances,” he said.

“We need to stop telling people how they have to respond to an event that we have no idea what it will look like before it happens. So we have to give them all the options, show them skills for all the options, and let them make that decision.”

Those five options developed by the ALICE Training Institute ask teachers to:

•Alert the school of a shooter.

•Lock down their classroom or area in order to evaluate and make survival decisions.

•Continue to inform the location and status of a shooter.

•Counter, if necessary, with simple proactive techniques with the goal of disarming the shooter.

•Evacuate a dangerous area quickly and safely.

“That’s the neat thing about ALICE: it gives you different options,” said Maj. Jeff Clewell with the Marion Police Department. “If you’re in the classroom, you’re not going to barricade. … You’re going to swarm, hopefully they can get him under control while everybody evacuates.

“If you’re in (a neighboring classroom), you’re probably going to lock down.”

Countering concerns

One of the most discussed elements to ALICE — Crane admitted it was the most “controversial” of the five factors — is the counter aspect.

According to the Marion City Schools school safety and emergency operations plan, staff and students can counter an active shooter by throwing objects at a target’s head to distract them, swarming in a group, grabbing limbs and fighting dirty.

“I can’t stop them from pulling the trigger,” Crane said. “But if I can diminish the hit rate, I can diminish the casualty rate.”

But not everyone advises using those methods to take on a shooter. Kenneth Trump, president of Cleveland-based National School Safety and Security Services, said a school district expecting students to attack a shooter “crosses the line of reasonableness.”

“People are responding emotionally rather than cognitively,” he said. “They’re looking at the ‘wow’ but not thinking about the ‘how.'”

He said the active shooter drills gives teachers a false sense of security and a sense to attack any time they see a gun instead of pursuing other, possibly safer, alternatives.

“When you’re dressing them up and playing cops and robbers in the hallway, this is what you’re telling teachers to do,” he said.

Trump advocates for stronger and more effective lockdown training, which he believes is more effective in preventing causalities in a crisis situation.

The training measures aren’t perfect, but Clewell believes “it’s better than what we’ve had.”

“I hope they never have to use this training,” he said. “But we want to be ready if it does happen.”

Teachers and school administrators, including Grant Middle School Principal Adam Kunkle, agreed they never want to use the tools and tactics they were shown in a real emergency.

“If you’re out of options, and that’s the only option you have, is to try and counter or try and distract that person so that other people can get away or that you can get away or minimize what happens,” Kunkle said. “It puts more options into our staff’s hands, into our students’ hands.”

Armed perspective

Although the methods have been questioned, students playing the role of the hostile shooters said the tactics worked against them.

About a dozen public safety services students from Tri-Rivers Career Center assisted officers and deputies in Wednesday’s training sessions. The students wielded Nerf guns and tried to shoot as many teachers as they could in simulated drills.

“I think we taught the teachers that it could really happen. It was good to see them grow in confidence as the day went on. During the first drill, a lady cried when I shot her,” Bailey Thompson said. “She was the same lady who tackled me during the later sessions. I think she learned that you can’t be scared to go after a shooter.”

The first drill was a success for the aggressive students: Teachers did what they had been taught in the past and huddled in the back of the classroom.

“Once you hear the first gunshot, you’re in shock. You’re frantic,” Thompson said. “But hopefully, your training will kick in. You know it’s a shooter and you can’t be scared to stop someone.”

Teachers then learned several tactics to combat a shooter. Desks and chairs were thrown at the door in order to barricade and lock down the room. When the silhouette of a shooter appeared, staff members pelted their heads with tennis balls before attempting to tackle the intruders.

“I found the tennis balls very distracting,” said TRCC student Kristin Pickett. “I got off only two rounds on the last exercise, and I didn’t hit anybody before they tackled me. One minute I was shooting, the next minute, I was down.”

“I could see the fear in the faces of the teachers. But I think they learned you can’t be a sitting duck, you’ve got to act.”

Next steps

Despite the debate, director of school operations Steve Fujii believes the ALICE method is the best practice for Marion City Schools. He said the training is backed by the Department of Homeland Security and the Ohio Department of Education.

“They’re teaching staff what we believe to be consistent with the best practices of schools nationwide,” Fujii said. “Countering is one of the five letters. We’re talking about alerting, informing and evacuating as well.”

Clewell said the training began with school administrators in October. They sat down and went through several “tabletop exercises” where they discussed “what we would do if there was an active shooter at Harding High School and what they should expect from us as a response.”

Later this month, local ALICE trainers will work with staff at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum, which will serve as the meet-up point in case of an emergency.

Parents, family and the public are invited to attend the Feb. 26 event at the coliseum. Beginning at 6:30 p.m., school officials and police officers will present similar material that was presented to teachers earlier this week, going into more detail on ALICE. Soon after, teachers will begin discussing these measures with students.

Fujii said the first step of introducing hostile situations preparedness to students will be reading through the school’s plan and talking about their options.

“Step two of that will be, before spring break, our administrators getting on the PA and saying we’re doing an ALICE drill,” he said. “Go through the process of barricading a room. Learn what tools you have available.”

The third step of that preparedness would be to do a full evacuation with staff and students. Fujii said all three steps will be done “to a grade-level and age-appropriate extent.”

“We’re not going to have a kindergartener or fourth-grader come in and talk about tackling another fourth-grader,” he added.

All of these plans are still in discussion by city school administrators. Fujii said he faces concerns over these decision daily.

“But if we empower people to do the best practices, then we’re doing our job,” he said.