Active Shooter - Words Matter
During a presentation on Active Shooter recently, I asked the audience if they use any other terms to describe an Active Shooter event. As a professional instructor, it is very important that the audience understands the terminology and that everyone is working from the same baseline. It is also very possible that someone in the audience is also teaching this subject and I am always curious as to what terminology they use.
On this particular day, I heard the usual responses of: Active Threat, Highly Traumatic Event, Active Assailantand then I heard the one I hate the most – Active Intruder.
If you are being paid to present on this topic – you need to be competent, and part of competency is accuracy. For the sake of accuracy, let’s look to the Cambridge Dictionary for the definition of Intruder:
· “An intruder is someone who enters a place without permission in order to commit a crime.”
“Without permission” - so they are not known to staff, they are a stranger, they are just some random off the street. Is this accurate? Is this the right guidance for the customer? The customer is the company employee, the person you are being paid to provide lifesaving information to.
The term Active Intruder is not statistically accurate.
Let’s look at two FBI studies for accuracy.
1. In 2013 the Bureau published a study of 160 Active Shooter incidents from 2000-2013. They concluded that “22 of 23 shooters were current or former employees.”
2. In 2022, the FBI designated 50 incidents as Active Shooter events and concluded: “48% of the shooters had a known connection to the location.”
Telling employees that the shooter is an intruder, a stranger, or is not known to them – is not accurate. It also can be deadly. It can be deadly as they have been provided inaccurate information and if they are ever in an Active Shooter situation, they are going to waste the most precious resource they have – Time.
Situation: John from accounting is getting fired, he knows it, he is standing in the hall with a gun and he is actively shooting at coworkers.
Employees seeing this will waste time responding because some “expert” told them in their company sponsored Active Intruder training that the shooter is not known but John is known! Now the employee is confused because they were trained that it was an intruder. But John is not an intruder. What is going on? Do you hear the clock ticking? They are losing time as they are trying to process what their eyes are seeing but their brain keeps hearing “Intruder.” Their OODA loop is stuck, and their likelihood of a successful outcome is dropping precipitously. (See Colonel John Boyd)
I know the term Active Intruder might make someone at a company feel good, but it is our job as real experts to educate them on the inaccuracy of the words. This takes courage and is difficult, but the right path is always the difficult one.
Live with courage –
- Copyright 2024
