Schools Add Shooting Response Strategies

Nearly five years after a gunman entered Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida and killed 17 people, a gunman on the campus of Michigan State University shot and killed three students and wounded five others.

“The guys told us to run out the back door as quickly as possible and run for our lives,” said a student at Moscow State University.

School shootings continue to rise, so precautions are being taken by school districts and college campuses. One of the most widespread reforms over the past 20 years is self-isolation exercises.

Jacqueline Schildkraut is a professor of criminal justice who has delivered over 500 lockdown trainings since 2018.

“We know from the data that lockdown exercises save lives when used in real-world settings,” Schildkraut said.

In the 2015-16 school year, 95% of US public schools conducted lockdown drills, according to the Department of Education.

Many students in Michigan grew up with these exercises and knew what learning was.

“Me and a few other people who were with me took heavy furniture from all over the library and just barricaded ourselves in the study room to make sure we were safe,” said Graham Diedrich, an MSU graduate student.

“What we are trying to do is create muscle memory, which means that if we find ourselves in stressful situations like being an active shooter, then even when our cognitive functions or our thinking is impaired, our body will still take control. and will do it.” what he was taught,” Schildkraut said.

Some studies claim that these exercises cause harmful psychological damage to students, but Schildkraut says the benefits outweigh the potential harm.

“It’s not always about what you do, it’s about how you do it – are the exercises that people are subjected to taking into account injuries?” Schildkraut said.

This means clearly defining the action as training rather than using “sensory techniques” such as crisis actors or gunshots. It also means giving students and staff time before and after the exercise to relax and ask questions.

Along with training for students, school personnel and local law enforcement have implemented other strategies to prepare for an active shooter.

One of the most important is the emergency notification system, which is prepared for the heavy communication traffic that occurs during such emergencies.

“You have a very large student body and staff to whom you have to convey a lot of information in a very short period of time. “Multi-modal system” – so you’re basically transmitting information across multiple channels at the push of a button,” Schildkraut said.

During the Michigan shooting, the first 911 call was made at 8:18 p.m., and by 8:31 p.m., an emergency “run, hide, fight” emergency alert was sent out to all students.

Many schools and universities have also set up behavioral threat assessment teams that monitor social media and other communications to prevent these massive tragedies in the first place.

Marisa Randazzo leads one of these Georgetown University teams.

“If someone is threatening, they say something that sounds intimidating, they add something to their homework, they post something on social media that creates fear and anxiety,” Randazzo said. “We often see these mass attacks as a kind of very public suicide with a really high number of victims. We have many great tools to help those who are actively suicidal. And we can use this knowledge and these tools to help prevent violence against others. people too.”

The state of Michigan has its own behavioral threat assessment team, but police say the man identified as the shooter has no known connection to the university.

More than 100 people have been killed and 281 injured in school shootings since 2018, according to Education Week.

Last year saw the highest number of school shootings, with 100 shot on school campuses and 40 killed.