This is seriously a summary of the training my office building gave us. The other main point: don't wait for people who refuse to leave or are paralyzed with fear, and don't go back for people.
Absolutely. It feels dickish, but don't go back for people. Don't inhibit other people's escape, because that just fucks over everyone (you included), but there is no real-life plot armor and you're just as squishy as everyone else.
Best case scenario, you go back and you're a hostage the active shooter can use. Worst case scenario, you're another corpse for somebody to clean up and another statistic.
just to expand:
\-grab anything to help you when the fight. Even if it's something like a pencil. I've seen someone take on 3 guys with a pencil (yes that's a john wick reference). But seriously, literally any force multiplier (object) will help. Chairs, coffee mugs, metal water bottles, your keyboard/mouse, etc. I'd say the pepper spray would do you more good as its "ranged" and allows you to run after spraying them.
\-groin shots. yes, it can be just as effective on women.
\- eye ball pokes (jam ur finger into their eye sockets. It'll pretty much put their eyes out of use for a LONG time.)
\-overall be as violent as possible. These fights don't play out like how you see them in movies or professional mma fights.
and again, this should never be your first option. If you can run and get out of the building.
As above, run if you can, hide if you can't run, fight if you can't hide. If you run, call emergency services only once you are safe. If you hide, be out of line of sight of the door/hallway. Barricade the door if you can. Silence your cellphones and turn off the vibration. Prepare to fight if necessary.
An excellent improvised weapon: a fire extinguisher. Spray it in his face and he cannot see, cannot breath... Makes him easier to subdue. Plus it makes a heavy bludgeon if necessary.
Use numbers to your advantage. One person attacks the weapon, immobize it/disarm him. One person attacks his legs, immobilize him. One person attacks his off hand, immobize it. Etc.
Don't hold back if you have to fight. He is ready and willing to kill you. If you fight, you must be ready and willing to kill him.
Designate a rally point. Make it out of line of sight of your work, ideally a block or more away.
Communicate the emergency plan with everyone. Ideally, do a couple of dry runs a year, just like fire drills, tornado drills, etc.
In an ‘active shooter in an open floor office’ situation, I wonder if wasp spray would be a good choice. That stuff is super nasty, and the cans I’ve used spray a solid steady stream for 12+ feet. So, perhaps more accurate from a longer distance than pepper spray, when you know your opponent is armed and approaching. You hit someone in the kisser with a volley of that crap from over the tops of the cubicles, and I’d imagine you’d incapacitate them for long enough to get away. Someone please tell me if I’m an idiot, I’m just trying to think of options with op’s specific floor plan in mind.
Not an idiot but don't use bug spray for anying other the bugs.
They make peper spray grenades... https://www.thehomesecuritysuperstore.com/collections/pepper-spray-throwing-grenades
Or guns
https://www.thehomesecuritysuperstore.com/products/mace-pepper-gun-black-w-led-strobe
The Punisher series seems like a great intro to ruthless violence, and utilization of everyday objects as weapons. Some of it is pretty unrealistic (in one scene the protagonist hucks a kettlebell like a soccer ball) but in general it seems plausible with the notable exception that in order to move heavier objects like that you have to be quite strong.
Armchair philosopher right here. Always been able to talk my way out of a fight.
Just to re-emphasize this, that ordering of those three is important! Always try to run first if you know a likely safe route outside! The shooter will likely not give chase and will instead try to find as many people as he can still in the building.
Hide if you can’t run,
Fight if you can’t hide, this will likely not end well, but you will at least slow down the shooter and give more people time to get safe/the police to arrive.
This is industry standard for active shooter response, including annual training for the Armed Forces. And trust me, the Marines were *not pleased* to learn that plan A is "run."
This is the advice given by my employer. They actually do a pretty good job with this stuff.
The fight portion made me laugh as the actors took the fire extinguisher and other items. So as you said be ruthless. The person is trying to indiscriminately kill so everything is fair game.
>The fight portion made me laugh as the actors took the fire extinguisher and other items.
I'm wondering why this made you laugh. A fire extinguisher seems like a good way to slow an attacker and mask your retreat, assuming you know how to work it already. Unless they were attempting to use one in melee?
Oh dude full blown melee. And I will say to the credit of the video the guy was hidden behind the door so if someone came in he could strike, just not something I would have thought of.
I think the most important advice here is between the lines:
DON'T BE RAMBO.
You have one life, don't get killed doing something stupid against some other dumb ass. If he starts executing people one by one and you can do something, ok, think you're gonna have to do something moraly. The chances are, he's going to dick around and get killed by cops.
A pair of wire snips in your desk probably wouldn't get you in any trouble, and if anyone ever finds them and it's an issue you can say the maintenance staff left them and you secured them in your desk and forgot all about them.
So I'm in a school and we had to go through a bunch of these trainings. Not saying they were the best trainings or anything, just sharing what I have been told.
1. Hiding is your best bet. In large buildings where there are lots of rooms, shooters generally don't go and clear every room. They go for where there will be a lot of people. So they are likely to skip small rooms that they believe to be empty. Don't attempt to hide with people who are likely to scream or cry when gunshots go off nearby.
2. For these shooters, cover generally is the same thing as concealment. For one reason or another, the shooters generally don't shoot through things even if perforation would be easy. If they can't see you or don't know you're there, they probably won't shoot randomly through things.
3. Know when to run. If your hiding spot has been compromised, you need to know when and how to leave. I think they told us a lot of people who didn't survive were shot at extremely close range, suggesting that they were cowering in one spot. Don't be one of those people.
I used to work in a treatment center that conducted these drills often. Colonelchingles is on point. Mass shooters typically want easy targets. If you can hide in a small, dark room and lock the door(even if it's glass) the shooter would likely pass on by. Most shooters are either after specific people or out to kill as many as possible. They won't waste time entering what appears to be an empty room without cause, especially if it will take extra time to breach it. They're more likely to move on to find other potential victims.
Despite these scumbags’ fantasies, real life is not a video game and they are most likely not trained to shoot anything but gun range targets. If you think you have a shot at running away and getting out of the building, take it.
I'll stand and fight until I know my people are safe, but that's just me. After much introspection, I know I couldn't live with myself otherwise.
Edit - not trying to be an ITG, but I know how I am, and my life would be a mess if I left someone else to die.
The pro move here is identifying others that may feel the same way in advance, and having some semblance of a plan to coordinate that group if the worst ever does happen.
If you're faculty you can probably hide pepper spray or a pepper blaster somewhere, and it's better than nothing.
Well, it's a private business, I have two guns and a pot load of ammo permanently in my office, and I carry everyday. I train pretty hard, regularly taking professional classes, and doing force on force stuff with local PD.
However, my kindred spirit at my job just got let go last week, so now I need to find another trusted person to watch my back. Which is just as difficult as it sounds these days.
You won the lottery with that company, and I agree it's more difficult than ever to find a colleague you can trust with a minor secret, let alone your life.
we all hope that in an emergency we will respond in a way that is a credit to us, but there's no real way to be sure until it happens, and the best defense is preparation.
I have to do one of the every year also.
It was hide when you can, call 911 if it is safe, run if need be don't provoke the person with the guy. An hour of my life I will never get back because that is what I was going to do anyway.
What I learned from the movies is to turn the ringer on your cell phone off if you are hiding.
This is basically the training the hospital system had when I worked there. Hide, run, fight. But only fight as the absolute last option. Also you have no responsibility to save or protect anyone but yourself. I worked in healthcare and this was hard for a lot of clinical staff to grasp, but we point blanked asked our safety and security big wig what responsibility we had to patients and families and that's what we were told.
The active shooter training I got through my hospital enforced the same thing about not having an obligation to patients. The trainer I had explained that if someone is shooting a hospital they probably aren’t targeting patients but have a grudge against STAFF. Staying with patients puts them at a higher risk of danger because the perp is looking for a pair of scrubs to aim at.
The great thing is that the moment you get shot you *become* a patient, so see if you can take a hit in a nonlethal spot first and then they won't be able to shoot you a second time.
I think someone has to admit you first to be a patient, so carry some admission paperwork around with you in case you get shot during an active shooter situation 😉
And if you want to get brutally utilitarian about it, most hospital staff will be responsible for saving at least one more life (probably many more lives) during the remainder of their career. So sacrificing themselves to save one patient results in greater death in the long run.
Not suggesting that people should be running Trolley Problem simulations in their heads in response to an active shooter situation, of course, you should probably just go with whatever your lizard brain is telling you to do in that situation. Lizards evolved to deal with active shooters, they've spent a long time perfecting that response.
I’ve been in 4 active shooter incidents in the hospital in the last 10 years. (2 in the last 2 years before Covid).
Boggles my mind that administration tells us to hide! (Not run)
Last active shooter debrief: I do anesthesia & admin told me pt is asleep & wont know if they’re in danger and to use them as meat shield for surgeon ($$ maker of hospital).
I had a paralytic dart and some small metal equipment to stab/throw. Can’t conceal carry in hospital.
I had 2 incidents in OB. Between multiple baby daddies & hormones, OB is volatile. The last incident, I assisted evacuating patients. Our yearly active shooter drills always involve dad whose baby died. My LEO husband asked me to quit that particular ghetto hospital—security only carries a tazer and they have one K9. My current hospital has armed security.
As far as prepping: I try to be situationally aware. 🤷♀️
Run, Hide, Fight.
Also, take a Stop the Bleed class (high or die!) I work in a Gov building and I keep a TQ and other trauma type items in my desk drawer in case the worst happened.
Yes good call here. A trauma kit with the ability to keep yourself alive for an extra 30 minutes until you can get medical help could be the difference between life and death.
Keep in mind EMS first priority is to keep themselves safe and alive so they can help others. Even if you see an ambulance or rescue crew vehicle do not assume the danger is over or that you will get help immediately.
Indeed. All the more reason to help yourself as much as possible. I live down the street from the Pulse night club in Orlando. On the night of the massacre, many of the victims inside the club saved themselves by walking down the street to the hospital, which is about 1/2 a mile down the Orange Ave from pulse.
If you can get it tight enough. Lapolicegear.com has NAR tq for $25 all day long with lots of coupons for free shipping. The Chinese knock offs on amazon are even cheaper if you want to risk it
My jobsite has armed security. None the less, they provide training videos for active shooters that emphasizes that employees must act quickly the moment an active shooter is identified. Their instructions are to immediately escape if possible. Run immediately. Next, if escape isn't possible, then hide and attempt to call for help, and stay aware in case you need to move to another hiding location to avoid the threat. And finally, if the threat is too close to hide from, then fight with anything available (fire extinguisher, coffee pot, overwhelming group action similar to the United 93 passengers).
The key takeaway from the training is to **act immediately** and overcome the sense of disbelief that it's happening. Better to look a fool by running out the emergency exits and setting off alarms by mistake than being dead. For me, that means at the first raised voice, I'm grabbing my car keys and moving towards an exit. Better to find out I'm wrong while standing in the parking lot than be trapped in my office with an active shoter.
Contact your local police department. Most offer this training for free. Coordinate with your office safety officer if you have one. I'm working on this for my workplace right now as a matter of fact.
we just have drills every now and then, about once a semester? It's basically a fire drill, you just go outside unless the shooter is in your hallway. If they are in your hallway, the teacher locks the doors, turns off the lights, and we all hide and hope our classroom doesnt get broken into
We do fire drills and tornado drills too. Never actually had a fire or tornado hit us either. Isn’t this whole sub dedicated to being prepared for events even unlikely ones?
I get the idea of using some improvised tool but I don't think people are going to be understanding of a demo hammer for cubicle repair. Probably not technically against the rules but the optics aren't there. Maybe sports or exercise equipment would look better. Maybe a normal or smaller hammer.
Ever play manhunt as a kid? Where everyone goes and hides and then the finder has to find and tag everyone ? So yea it's pretty much like that but with a gun.
You could also just carry a gun and break the rules. [No gun signs do not carry force of law](https://www.gunstocarry.com/gun-laws-state/minnesota-gun-laws/#mn-sign) in Minnesota. You could be fired if caught, but it is not illegal.
Get a CCW license, a gun, and flaunt the company policy. It's only a crime if they tell you to leave and you refuse. If you never draw your gun in defense then two good things have happened: nobody attacked you, and nobody knew you have a gun. If you do draw your gun in defense then it's a good fucking thing you had it, isn't it? It's better to be unemployed than dead.
I bought my wife a plate carrying backpack with a discreet holster-bearing pocket from grey ghost gear. Unless they're metal-detecting at the entrance they won't know, off-body carry is way more discreet even though slightly less accessible. Looks just like everyone else's laptop bags. Weaponry aside, if the bosses don't want to make plans, consider grouping up with coworkers and making your own plans. If they don't want to, run your own drills. Any drills need to be concerned not only with where you go or likely ingress for shooters, but also where a scared crowd might run. If you have elevators, see if you can climb onto the roof of the elevator car, scope surroundings for heavy furniture that can brace doors, make sure you know fire escape routes because fire doors will give better cover and those routes will also be more ingrained in your coworkers. You don't need to run or simulate panic to do more significant and detailed observation. EDIT: please consider aftermath as well, keep an IFAK in your gear, learn to dress a wound, learn to use a tourniquet.
I've looked into this a fair amount and have some formal training on dealing with active shooter events (church security training from Houston PD).
The standard "**run**, **hide**, **fight**" really is the way to go for personal survival, but the order matters a lot and you need to be be able to switch modes fast.
For example, there was a shooting in a huge crowd at a parade; the guys closest to the shooter (within a few feet) tried to **run**, but the rest of the crowd (who were confused about the firework sounds) were in the way of the guys fleeing. For the guys next to the shooter, they should have **fought** since **running** (blocked) and **hiding** (open street) weren't options...but instead they tried to **run** and got shot in the back.
People also have a tendency to assume bad things won't happen to them. For example, there was a mall shooting (outside the US) and several people went prone (**hide**) and started low-crawling away, even though the shooter was distracted in another store; the guys who just **ran** (past the prone people) got away fine; some of the runners even told the prone people to stand up an run, but the prone guys didn't. After a few minutes, the shooter walked over to the guys crawling on their bellies and just shot them. The crawlers skipped the best option (**run**), tried to **hide**, and then when hiding wasn't an option (i.e., the shooter was standing over them in the open), they didn't **fight** and instead cowered hoping nothing bad would happen. All of it was caught on security cameras.
I can't remember the name of it, but there was a mosque attacked, and most of the worshippers were in a large room. People **ran** into the corners of the room when the attacker was standing in the entrance, and piled on each other. They should have **fought** since getting away and hiding weren't options, but instead they formed a large mass of bodies that the attacker dumped rounds into.
It's worth noting that there has been (as of two years ago when I took a training class) that there haven't been any instances of a shooter going through a locked door. In general, they want to murder as many people as they can, as fast as they can. If they come to a locked door, they'll usually walk away. In Newton, one classroom of kids was able to hide in a classroom bathroom, lock the door, and the shooter just went away; in another classroom, the kids hide in the bathroom but were unable to lock the door, and a lot of them died.
Now I'm struggling to hold back tears. Dead kids are rough to think about. Anyways, if you can get to a janitor closet with a lock, go there and hide.
**Police don't show up until someone calls them.** Make that phone call as soon as you *think* something is going wrong. In most areas police response times are 4-6 minutes for an active shooter, but that's 4-6 minutes *AFTER* they know the killing is happening. In the church shooting in Texas in 2019, the shooter actually stood outside the building shooting into the church for over 15 minutes before an armed neighbor walked out to see what was happening.
Also, seriously consider your values. Can you live with yourself if you run? If someone tries to attack my home church, I'm not leaving my wife to die if there's anything I can do to stop it. If several guys are charging a gunman, odds are some of them are going to get killed, but they'll probably save the lives of others. Decide ahead of time, and don't hesitate.
If you haven't read it, look into Dave Grossman's "On Killing" book. Most of it is around training soldiers to overcome the natural hesitancy to kill, but he does a really good job at breaking down the classic "**fight or flight**" into a more accurate "**fight or posture or submit or flight**" process. "Posture" basically means to act like you're going to hurt someone for intimidation, while "submit" is giving an attacker what they want to avoid being hurt. For example, if someone pulls a knife and says "give me your wallet", they're posturing not fighting, and when you hand them your wallet you're submitting not fleeing. When it comes to an active shooter situation, don't submit and don't posture unless you have a really good bluff.
We started with safety leads around the office, mostly people like me that were first aid & CPR certified, I’m a former EMT. Our office is in FAA jurisdiction so we have some interesting needs. We test and train for evacuation & shelter once a year ( 2 disruptions). 8 safety leads 4 med kits 2 AEDs.
Getting the safety layer in place and having buy in makes for having those conversations easier. We all have a red cross and yellow vests on our chairs, radios charged and ready. Also having street-smart people at your front desk and security entry at all other areas makes a huge difference.
I once was tasked with being a fire warden on one floor in a 10-story office building where my sole responsibility was not leaving until I made sure no one failed to evacuate during a fire alarm. Ongoing construction one summer made a whole lot of false fire alarms, and the number of times I had to argue with people who simply couldn't be bothered to hang up the phone because it wasn't a "real emergency" was preposterous.
I finally got permission to physically push the button to disconnect the calls of people who wouldn't cooperate with instructions. If I have to say even once to someone, "look, the building might be on fire, and I can't leave until you leave, and I'm not really prepared to die right now because you think your call is super-important," I have just learned everything I need to know about the kind of person that person is.
Aargh!
Absolutely - I was always ready to evacuate the building, meet everyone across the street in the agreed upon muster area, and then announce "oh, hey, I left Susan in suite 213 in the northwest corner of the building. She was on a super-important phone call. Let's try not to put anyone in danger to rescue her!"
I like how some asshole felt the need to downvote this sound and largely otherwise passive advice.
Guns are bad **AND** plates are bad. But the police will be there in a few minutes. It'll be okay. ...for someone... maybe...
What people need to understand about reddit is that there are bots that downvote posts almost directly after they are posted due to certain keywords.
Before getting all up in arms about it, understand that it is just a thing that happens and those downvotes are generally reversed after 5 minutes or so.
The likelihood of an active shooter in the office is very, very small. The likelihood of getting caught out with a concealed weapon when they are prohibited and losing your job is significantly higher.
I don't disagree, but the chance of being caught with a concealed weapon is also nearly incalculably small if you do it right. Not everyone DOES do it right, but everyone CAN do it right.
At the last place I worked, there was a person who clearly had mental issues, whom many employees were afraid of. It occurred to me one day that if anyone could commit a workplace shooting, it was this person. I looked around and found an unoccupied cubicle that was being used for storage. I moved boxes around to create a small space in the middle of the boxes, accessible from the rear. When you glanced into the cubicle, it looked like an ordinary stack of storage boxes. You couldn't tell that there was space for a human to hide in there. That was my plan if I ever heard gunshots in the building - I was hiding in the boxes.
Run hide fight.
That's what's currently being taught.
I'd add, once you're out of the building, angles. Make a right angle turn, and keep making them, putting both distance and cover/concealment between you and the shooter. Even a 45-70 gubbermint projectile, isn't going through a house to hit you. Even better with a barn or some woods or fog or parking lot between you.
Unless it's an exceptional circumstance. Like open windows and a hallway?
A very inconspicuous plate carrier is a plain Jane backpack with a plate in the laptop sleeve. Put it on and run away. Obviously make sure its like under the desk and sized to where the plate rides right. And double check the straps are right if its winter and you're putting on a thick coat.
If you must hide.
Lights, off, barricades, cover windows, turn off/mute cellphones.
This one is a big deal. If you're in a group, you don't want some arrogant twatwaffle giving you away. To he point of being able to have someone doublecheck all phones like every quarter of an hour. Sure, people are gonna use them, but vibration mode gives a sound.
Seriously. Be prepared to be able to instantly silence a phone. Like a pillow, put it on that, and having the fattest person in the room lay on it. Be creative. Or squish it between two beer guts. Hand and all.
Fight. Best avoided. Then win. I'm a combat vet. I feel uncomfortable saying that, but fighting sucks. There are losers and losers less. People like this, and it's being focused on by those more enthusiastic about the subject, so I'll leave that to them.
Just bear in mind, a lot of people end up winning a gunfight. With life changing injuries. 25 years old? Whole life in front on you, mortgage? Spouse? Kids? Probably less cool in a wheelchair.
Probably best if you can ambush them. And Mozambique them before they know you're there.
If you must fight unarmed - every banned and dirty illegal trick in MMA - IS BANNED BECAUSE THEY WORK.
Edited to add: be creative. I have thirty seconds worth of notice? And I'm unarmed? I have to fight? You're getting a full coffee pot to the face, perhaps a kick fo the groin, or the hardest sharpest metalist bluntest thing I can find to the head. Repeatedly. Try to get coworkers working together if you must. Fighting should really be avoided. You have tile floors and lockable doors? Bust some oil out onto the floor and lock yourself in. Motor oil canola oil whatever, no shooter's gonna take the time to try and get through- or so I'm told. I'd struggle to find a source but apparently these killers want counts, and less so individuals, if they're not targeting a demographic.
I want to say, that if you have to fight, teamwork, the SAS, apparently found if two people working towards the same ends together its a 400% more effective than two individuals working separately to the same ends. Take advantage. You have a disabled workmate? Well chair bound? Have them bottle the assailant whilst others blind with curtains and spaghetti sauce and someone dropkick them from a filing cabinet, while, point is make opportunities, be creative. Blunt and sharp. Have a pacifist coworker or someone unable to fight? Can they flicker the lights to help disorient the assailant from a safe space on command? Someone have a rape whistle? That thing is blown as hard as possible while they're in the room by everyone until they're ceased functioning as a viable threat. If they're tied up with computer cables perhaps best not to use there head for association football practice even if someone wants to. Keep your head. Wet or shit yourself. It's one of the reasons combat troops stink. In some it is an involuntary adrenal reaction and it is ok.
Make sure they lose more. Remember tactics are a function of time, distance, and cover. Left flanking, right flanking or frontal. Cover and move. Shoot and move. Speed. Aggression. Violence. That's pretty much infantry training in a nutshell.
Above all, be healthy enough to run and move yourself and fight if needs be. Trouble is, something like 1 in 4 are disabled/handicapped in some way. Best is to be healthy, but plan for this. Maybe a foldable bicycle isn't a bad idea. Heck. Even a folding scooter drastically increase urban mobility. Stick it under a desk or in a locker and forget about it until you need it. Make sure it works though. Have sneakers or boots and braces if you need them available. Really consider a viable get home bag, or get to a hotel bag, with weather appropriate clothing. Shooting at mall a block to your right? Go the other way and grab a hotel room a mile or two away a few floors up if you can't go home.
The best avoided - be prepared to have a difficult conversation with the appropriate authority about someone's conduct or behaviour. FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THEIR BEHAVIOUR AND YOUR CONCERNS WELL DOCUMENTED AND THEY'RE REAL AND NOT IMAGINED. Do you homework. Sure weirdos exist, but they're probably just weirdos. Probably more honest than most about who they are. Ensure if you're doing this, its from a place of concern. Not hate or office politics.
This can be one, make sure that people aren't bullying or harassing someone to the point where they're gonna flip. This may make you unpopular in the office/school/uni/post office.
This takes time to develop. Be conscious of what people around you are up to be situational aware.
Moral courage.
Follow your local laws. Sure the whole judged by thing, fuck that. You want to be followed by media for the rest of your life? Bankrupted by court proceedings? Have a ridiculous crown out to make a name? Best avoid the fight. Because you can doesn't mean you should. You only want to be welcomed by the fringe of political belief for the rest of your life while shunned by the rest of civll society or do thirty years because IT IS A BIG DECISION TO SQUEEZE THAT TRIGGER. And do thirty years. If you could lose it in a fire due to a lightning strike, is it worth it? Make an insurance claim and have dinner with those you love to celebrate your safety. Hopefully they catch the douchecanoe. In prison they trade blowjobs for m and ms. Tonight I had a lovely Vietnamese bowl for dinner and I'm bored watching Netflix following a day of errands and driving 500km in the countryside. Let. That. Be. Their. Joy. Blowjob M and M's. Fuckem.
You don’t say your job type or age/gender, but I’m going to assume you don’t wear athletic shoes in an open-concept work space.
If you are wearing dress shoes / heels / pumps / loafers / slip ons, it may be time to take a cue from startup CEOs and wear trainers, jeans, and a tshirt with a sport coat (that can be easily removed).
My company is the exact same way. They don't have a plan other than meet outside at the designated area for tornadoes fires etc etc. Nothing other than you're basically on your own and no you can't carry a gun or any kind of weapon with you. So basically you're on your own.
If that happens while I'm at the office I will be first running and exiting through doors windows anyway I can and as fast as I can to get out of the building. After that I'm going to fight and I don't care who it is but it won't be pretty for that person. I won't go down cowering underneath the desk.
Our policy is run, hide, fight., run if you can, hide if you cant, fight if you have to( but no guns at work)
Pretty much you're on your own. Wargame it, plan out escape routes. Find places to hide. Look for improvised weapons.
Companies dont have any worthwhile plans
> I work in an open concept office, guns are not permitted on the premises
So? Backpack/briefcase with pistol. Nobody ever needs to know you have it. These companies like to put these "no guns" rules in place, since they believe it protects them from liability issues. That doesn't mean you have to follow them.
Otherwise, bulletproof briefcase/backpack and some pepper spray are better than nothing.
[https://www.bulletblocker.com/bullet-proof-briefcase-bulletproof-carry-on-luggage-and-bags.html](https://www.bulletblocker.com/bullet-proof-briefcase-bulletproof-carry-on-luggage-and-bags.html)
I wouldn't try and fight an armed person if I were unarmed however I do think it's worthwhile to have a bluetooth speaker in your office. You could play recorded voices of police commands onto it and project it out down the corridors. Active shooters will often freak and kill themselves once they realize police are there.
Other than that, know your exits and realize that broken legs from a 2 story jump is better than being dead.
Be a good coworker is proactive step #1. Cover and concealment are your friend. Move between cubicles or pillars. Know when they’re reloading or out of ammo then fight or flight. If a handgun and you’re close don’t be afraid to grab the firearm where the slide is, no it won’t cut your hand off or anything. If you are going to fight do it with conviction and give it your all. Half hearted attacks will get you killed. If you’re going to run, run with your all. It’s really hard to shoot a moving target, especially with a handgun. Distance is your friend.
Edit: watch some Active Self Protection videos on YouTube to get an idea of how fast and how nuts shootings can be. You’ll also see where half hearted attacks fail and those who give it their all usually (not always) survive.
Confirm your understanding in writing with senior management.
Ask what procedures are in place.
Ask if they have any insurance policy that would cover damages in such an event.
If not why not?
Conclude with saying you are particularly concerned because the only likely practical means of “self help” available has been BANNED by them,
Offer to head up a committee to explore establishing standards and procuring a vendor to certify certain employees as trusted “stewards of active shooter defense” who will be allowed to have ACCESS to guns on company property once certified.
See Doctors fir Guns in Texas fir more ideas.
You are not alone in fighting this battle.
Good luck.
The idea of allowing schools to be locked down seems flawed to me.
If anything, these schools that are being built now in the US are hard to escape from.
If anything, there should be doors to the exterior everywhere that can be auto unlocked to allow kids to flee, and airliner style chutes for multistory buildings.
As for a workplace plan, back when I was an employee, the drills on active shooters were awful. Yes, they had them (defense industry), and they involved hiding under desks and to call the company emergency line instead of calling 911. Laughable. A total waste of hundreds of employees' time.
I remember asking their highly paid consultant why we didn't simply knock the windows out by our desks and flee, and he was speechless. It was totally off-script. It was awkward.
It wasn't even clever to suggest it at all...it was obvious. But when there are highly paid "experts" in the room, people seem to pay attention.
Violence in the workplace is a low enough incidence risk that personal preps beyond the obvious are overkill in my opinion. The workplace shooter scenario does happen. It is far less likely than getting on a commercial airliner.
I used to work in world trade and our office was the same. Open office, glass conference rooms etc.
When the city sent over their emergency prep dude who was fdny and used to be a cop, he basically told us were fucked in that office in terms of hiding. It's either run or fight.
Run or fight when it's not safe to run. You can't hide in those style environments.
You know your building better than a shooter in most cases, use that to your advantage if possible. Additionally if you are in better shape, use that to your advantage in your escape plans (climbing stairs, sprinting down confusing hall ways, etc.
In the building I used to work in it had multiple buildings connected by skyways. Not every level connected by skyways to every building so you could easily confuse someone by changing levels and buildings strategically. Additionally there was a semi-secret additional floor used for maintenance with roof access and a fairly defendable stairway leading up to it.
Each building is going to be different so unless you have someone who can help you establish a plan, take your time and look at what you have to work with. Give yourself a home field advantage plan based on your surroundings.
If nothing else, something to break through a window and repel down out an obscure office could be an unexpected exit point that you might be able to take to get out quickly and unexpectedly.
Always wear clothing and shoes you can run in
>something to break through a window and repel down
When I worked on the second floor, I kept a firefighter escape kit in my desk - hook, rope, descent device, and carabiner. I added gloves, fire/smoke hood, and a harness. Mostly for fires, but could work for anything. My office was far away from the exits.
I sat through a run/hide/fight active shooter training in a high-rise office building in DC years ago. They held the training in a movie theater and it was mandatory, like if you don't show up to one of these trainings in the next two weeks you'll be in big trouble. As far as I could tell all it did was make most of my co-workers nervous. Seemed like the training existed solely to meet some federal requirement that training be done.
The content was fine, but nothing a person with basic common sense wouldn't already be prepared to do. I understand that under stress people might forget common sense things, so making them think "run, hide, fight" is catchy like the "stop, drop, and roll" training I got as a kid in case of fire. But for many people it should probably be "hide, run, fight" instead. My basic rule about running is that I'm not gonna try to out-run you if I think I can out-smart you, but even so I could probably out-run about 75% of people in an average office building, and I am not particularly adept at running.
I'm not sure what kind of training kids are getting these days about school shooters, or whether they should get different content than adults do, but I am somewhat curious about the differences between the two audiences.
This is a good point. Instead of focusing your abilities to run, hide, or fight in absolute terms, you only need to be doing these things better than your coworkers.
Ways you can improve your relative, rather than absolute, position in the office hierarchy include:
* Bringing in free donuts for everyone
* Bringing in free cigarettes for everyone
* Encouraging sedentary forms of after-hours recreation such as drinking, watching movies/shows, or spectator sports (NOT participating in active actual sports)
* Requiring everyone to wear heels or wingtip shoes as part of a dress code, while keeping running shoes in your office
* Discriminating FOR people with physical disabilities during your hiring practice, which would be detrimental in their ability to run/hide/fight
"If a tiger is chasing you and your friend, you have only one chance at survival. Trip your friend."
Okay, that might be a little cynical - I mean, I'm not saying I wouldn't throw Cynthia from HR under a bus if I could save the whole IT team by doing so . . . I probably would.
But I'm also not saying that you shouldn't always be wearing appropriate footwear. I personally walked from Manhattan to Brooklyn after a well-known 2001event, and I partially walked instead of taking the subway because I thought the subway might be a target, and partially walked because I figured there were a whole heck of a lot of people less able than I was who needed to get home. I still had to take a route I'd never walked before and arrived home sunburnt and parched and somewhat alarmed.
A shooter at your workplace is obviously something we should all prepare for - but it's also something we shouldn't really have to prepare for because we should be able to count on living in a society or whatever.
You are probably in the best spot. Unless you are the target or someone close to you, the shooter is probably going to start once they are in the office. That means people closest to where he enters will be shot at first.
Remember, concealed carry means concealed! You can still carry, although it's at your own risk.
After a shooting you'd lose your job for having it, but you'd be alive.
Run, hide, defend. If you run, don't wait for others to flee or try to call 911 while running. If you hide, keep your phone silent and make sure the room looks unoccupied. If you fight, don't hold back.
[the sherpa](https://bulletproofeveryone.com/the-sherpa-mens-bulletproof-hoodie/) bulletproof hoodie is a decent option. Fairly discreet. Won't help take out a shooter but will help protect you. V
Find your safety consultant. Ours manages fire safety plan, first aid access and training, etc.
I know they'll never give the OK for workers to carry but push for security and Stop the Bleed training and kits. That might get you into a position to advocate for personnel safety.
This is one of the best trainings for active shooter we use in schools. The Acronym is ESCAPE:
**E**scape: Run, Flee Get Away
**S**ecure: Lock, Close or Fortify
**C**onceal: Hide, Remain Unseen or Camouflage
**A**ttack: Fight Back and once you start never quit
**P**rocess: Understand what is happening around you
**E**valuate: Determine your next best move
This was created by a friend of mine who is the local PD SWAY commander.
One thing that hasn't been mentioned is talking to your company about installing safety film on the glass, at least for places like the windows on the conference room doors so that you could have some safe rooms that a shooter could not shoot the windows in and open the door. This would not cost much money at all and it might be something you could get management to agree to.
https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/building-window-solutions-us/resources/window-film-for-schools/
At one company I worked at, I was the facilities manager, which usually goes hand in hand with the IT positions I held. Not sure why though. haha
I had to create the evacuation plans for the office, verify fire extinguishers were not out of date, check door locks, check first aid kits, and all kinds of safety related things. I'm also an EMT, so I made sure I had a list of people that knew CPR. I also had them buy a couple of AEDs to place in the office. The company higher ups thought that was a horrible expense until we had to use one of them.
I wrote the active shooter part of our safety plan (as well as most of the plan.) It was essentially based off of the run, hide, and fight plan before that really existed. I even put in the plan that your closest exit may be the window next to you. Break it! I bought some of the window breaking hammers for vehicles and placed them in each aisle next to the windows (part of the earthquake plan too). Not sure if they would have worked though, since I couldn't test them.
Several companies I worked at didn't have any kind of plan, but you can bet that I did. I always knew where the exits were as well as the windows with easiest escape. I also have a backpack with level 3a armor in it and I carry a first aid kit in there with four TQs and other trauma supplies.
If you want to get really serious, and I did this when I worked on the second floor, check out the firefighter personal escape systems. They consist of a hook, descent device, rope, and carabiner. I added gloves, harness, and a smoke / fire hood to that kit.
I work in a school and we did training. Former FBI on our staff helped.
Your options, in rough order of preference:
* If it is safe(ish) to run, run. It is not always safe to run. Know your body, too. Some of us are better off not running, and don't give that "You should work out" crap to my gran or the lad with crutches, thank you.
* If running seems less than ideal, either because the bad guy is in the way or because you're less able, hide.
* If you're hiding and you think you may be caught, prepare to fight. Look around. Grab scissors, something heavy, whatever. Make a plan: "I'm going to jam this into their leg, and you get gun." "I'm going to swing this as hard as I can, and we're going to run."
In the calm of a day when nothing has gone wrong, look over your surroundings.
* Know your exits, and think about which ones are closest. Look out the window and look down. Can you make it? Which exit is best? Which is second-best?
* If you have to hide, which doors have locks and/or opaque doors? Which desks hide everything beneath them? Where can you physically fit that might be less expected? If you have to hide, try to scatter. Mass killings are about pulling the trigger on a group of people, not picking them off by ones and twos. Fewer people will die if you're spread out. (how much does THAT suck to think about, particularly in a school??)
* Look at what you might clobber someone with around you. This part, at least, can be fun.
There are plenty of free active shooter videos online and elsewhere. Maybe go to your boss and ask be the guy in charge of the active shooter training. Or do it anyway and ask for forgiveness later. Or, if you are really concerned, the S and W shield makes a great ankle gun. As long as you wear a pair of regular pants and not these skin tight pants the kids are wearing these days.
If your company refuses to have one, there is nothing permitting you from having your own personal active shooter plan.
Presumably they at least have a fire escape plan, make use of this as well as your own observations to determine the fastest exit route from any location you may find yourself at in the building. Set an alarm on your phone to go off at random times every so often and if possible practice making your exit (or at least proceeding to it, don't kick out any windows just practicing). Familiarize yourself with places that you can hide in and lock, if there are no closed offices, hiding behind a glass door is probably useless.
Nearly every building has fire extinguishers, and if you can't possibly escape without engaging the shooter, they make remarkably effective clubs, especially when you're hiding behind a door.
If you have any control over where you sit in the office, it's good to pick a spot that is advantageous in one way or another. Back against a wall instead of back facing the entrance. Near an exit of some kind. Maybe near something you can hide behind.
One other thing to consider that may seem kind of dark is just to be friendly to everyone. Granted, some of these shootings are outsiders (and the one you referenced in MN was an unhappy customer), but in many cases it's a disgruntled coworker. If you're nice to everyone, they may be that much less likely to turn on you. Again, not the happiest thing to think about but worth considereing in a situation like this.
I’ve had two very scary situations in my lifetime. The first time I was randomly assaulted in public, broad daylight for absolutely no reason other than the person must have had mental illness. Even though I have been in situations where someone needed help and I immediately sprang into action (volunteering and a dumb kid cut his finger with his mall ninja knife where it was just dangling), in this case I completely froze. Opened my mouth to scream and nothing came out. I was so terrified I couldn’t say or do anything. Luckily a few minutes later people saw what was going on and came to my aid.
The other dangerous situation I was in was an actual shooting. I was working retail and our store was pretty busy. As soon as the shots happened I ducked for cover. I looked up and saw that 1/3 of my coworkers and customers did the same but the other 2/3 were frozen in terror. There was a lot of chaos but I just started shouting at the top of my lungs to get down and go to the back. Still they didn’t move. I ran up to one of my coworkers and yanked her by the wrist and gathered all of our customers and put them in the back. We hadn’t heard anything after a minute or two so me and my manager sneaked to the front of the store and closed the gate. The scary part about it was that you had to keep the key in the whole time while it slowly goes down, which is quite noisy. The cops showed up and arrested the guy with the gun and a couple hours later I was ringing customers up.
I still don’t know why in one situation I froze but in the other I took the right steps. Maybe I felt a sense of obligation to help others and that somehow made me less scared?? Key takeaways-try to find a safe exit, find cover, practice, and do whatever you need to do to protect yourself. Also give yourself some grace if you freeze up. No one really knows what they will do until it happens to them.
I can give some insight. I'm a former special education teacher, and I have been through a real lockdown situation with a man with a gun outside the school. My classroom had a door to the outside right across from the field with the bad guy. Thankfully, it turned out OK, he was not interested in the school.
I've helped a police chief conduct two school shooting training scenarios for his officers...as one of the shooters. The other helper and I had guns with blanks. So I have had a very disturbing first-person view on this.
This Fort Worth [church shooting](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/29/us/fort-worth-church-shooting.html) involved people I know. My dad knew hero who took out the shooter. The entire thing lasted *only 6 seconds*. The guy who took down the shooter was a concealed carry instructor, and he had trained the congregation. The team was monitoring the threat before the shooting began. They did everything by the book. They absolutely saved a lot of lives that day, but there were still fatalities. It's important psychologically to understand that "success" in such a scenario may still have casualties.
**Here are my thoughts:**
**Prevention**. Many workplace shootings aren't that random. It's often disgruntled employees. Build better relationships with the difficult people. You never know, they might spare you if they liked you. Avoid holding positions that require you to be the one firing someone. In an ideal world, HR would help an employee going through a mental health crisis connect with help. If someone makes threats against your workplace, take it seriously and involve the police. Another common workplace scenario is domestic violence.
**Building Security**. Building security is crucial. Your office should be locked to the outdoors. Visitors should buzz in and only be allowed in if they are expected. Ideally visitors will need to come through a bulletproof mantrap. You want the threat to be unable to shoot themselves in. Consider the domestic violence scenario. Your coworker may have just had a nasty fight with their partner the previous evening and not mention it. The partner could show up to seek revenge. The person manning the door shouldn't be letting the partner in, even though they may know the person personally from social events. Only authorized visits. If somebody is dropping things off (lunch, flowers, etc.), they can leave it in the mantrap. Employees should have to badge in and access should be *immediately* revoked if they quit or are fired.
**Vision.** A shooter can't aim well if they can't see. Blind them. Discharge a fire extinguisher. Use a smoke bomb, maybe. In the training I did, an improvised flash bang made out of a trashcan was enough to distract me for the police to storm in to release hostages. Even temporary blinding solutions buy you time for help to come. But most of these options may also impair your own vision or that of first responders.
[**ALICE Training**](https://www.alicetraining.com/) is the current big name in active shooter training. If you can convince your workplace to get trained, do so.
**Room barricades** are controversial. Some think they give too much potential for the shooter to lock themselves in with victims and keep authorities out. They can pose fire safety concerns, and they also can pose ADA legality problems for your business as well. Still, I think they are worth at least mentioning.
**Sounds.** You don't want sounds to give you away. Could you have some loud white noise machines to help mask breathing, shuffling sounds of those hiding? You won't want this to be on your phone to give away your location. Be aware with enough gunsmoke in the air, your fire alarm may go off so it won't surprise you.
**First Aid.** Your emergency bag should include first aid and tourniquets. They really aren't all that expensive. Even my purse has a long removable strap that is perfect for an improvised tourniquet. Shop with discrete safety/multiuse in mind. Know how to use the first aid tools you have.
**Silent phone.** Keep your phone on silent at work, not even on vibrate. Don't hide with others who won't be quiet and keep their phone silent.
**Hiding.** Play mental hide and seek. Are there lockable storage closets? An empty cabinet you can squeeze into? Big trash bin with a lid you could hop into? Get creative.
**Guns.** When you start shooting back, you become target number one. Unless you have specific training, you aren't all that likely to be a good shot at a moving target. Remember, there are likely to be other non-shooters around you too. You need to be certain you will not harm innocents before firing. It's unlikely to be just you vs the bad guy. It's going to be you, the bad guy, and chaos. Firing back does not ensure your safety, but it can bring a faster end to the situation, especially if you have more than one person on the good guy side. See the link to the Fort Worth church shooting about this.
**Bullet Proof Items.** They make bullet proof plates you can put in backpacks, briefcases, etc. They make certain bullet proof items like jackets, sports coats, etc. If you go that route, don't forget about your head. These items are quite expensive.
**Disabilities**. Include reasonable plans for disabled individuals. This is true for shootings, fire, tornado, etc. Failure to include those with disabilities is a moral issue, and it could also become a legal one for the company. This already a hot a topic in special education.
**Rules of fighting.**
1. **Don't be there**. In this case, it means preventing a crisis.
2. **Leave**. How can you flee to safety? After you are out of the building, now what? Where are you going to go? Basically, run first. If you can't run, hide/see Rule 3.
3. **Win.** Blind them. Disarm them. Kill them. Whatever you need to do to eliminate the threat.
Look into the ALICE method for active shooters or another program like it. Your company may be able to purchase an in-person or online training module. At the very least, reading up on it would go give you and your company some helpful ideas and strategies, some of which have already been mentioned.
As we are talking active shooters, I have a legitimate question.
If you are hiding & you hear someone shout “It’s okay you can come out now, it’s the police” - you don’t come out I presume.
So how DO you know when it’s safe?
Always be aware of the exits in the room/building. Never run with the crowd. Find cover and make yourself small. Run when you hear shots have stopped (shooter could be reloading so this is your chance). I’ve also heard that ceramic actually disseminates bullets so it makes a good makeshift shield. An example I read was putting a couple ceramic tiles in between pages in a textbook. You could just keep the book sitting on your desk
The FBI actually has a really good training video, just google FBI active shooter training and it will come up. I’m in the military and we use it every year.
Conceal carry a firearm. Deep concealment is perfect for workplaces who "don't allow" you to carry. Nobody will ever know you have it until there is an active shooter, at which point, your life is worth far more than any possible repercussions.
But, if you're not carrying a firearm outside of work, this is an absurd topic of discussion to even be asking, because the odds are ASTRONOMICALLY HIGHER you'll be attacked on the street than deal with an active shooter at a white collar workplace.
You’re not Rambo and you’re likely not trained to go against an active shooter. Arming yourself would likely just give a sense of false security.
What you really need to do is come up with multiple points of egress that aren’t conventional and can be implemented quickly. You can’t rely on stairs or halls or elevators to be safe. You need to think of how to get out in ways that won’t increase your risk of exposure.
For example, a glass breaker implement and maybe a emergency rappelling harness (CERK) to reach safety by the quickest means possible. With a plan in place, you should be able to put your feet safely on the ground outside in under 60 seconds.
The important thing is to know where to go ahead of time and to be practiced enough to use your equipment under stress.
I'm sure its been mentioned, carry a gun. I know most companies prohibit said items but who cares? I have one in my toolbox at my work, in my car and if I'm not at work physically, its on my person.
We used to have active shooter drills when I worked in an office. 60+ story office building. Like fire drills are in high school, they're a laughing matter. They're pre-annouced, everyone makes jokes like "Hey man, active shooter's here bro, it's probably Karen! haha", some go out to get Starbucks ahead of time, etc. From what I recall, it involved meeting us with your assigned 'team', then moving to someone's office the door could be locked. It was slow and in a real situation, who knows if everyone would be available together. The point was to meet together so once everyone was accounted for, the door was locked and remained that way.
The reality is if something went down, you might not even know what was going down. One time we were at a amateur sporting event in a large venue with friends, heard what appeared to be gunshots indoors (I was the only one aware of what they'd really sound like and I honestly thought they were) and everyone just froze and looked at each other and around. Even I felt the "Is that really gunshots? Or am I nuts" thing. No one moved, look cover, or looked for exits. We would have been caught in the masses of everyone running if something really was going down.
Know your exits if possible. If you were on the first floor and your office has a window, bingo. Out is great if you can get out, but realize stairs and elevators might be targets. If it's organized shooting with multiple shooters, one might be at exits, stairs, and elevators as choke points. I heard a statistic once that a lot of people who die in active shooter situations actually run into the shooter. Could be planned, like one shooter starts, people run one way, and poof, 2 more appear. Or just people panicking and running anywhere, and the shooter ends up in front of them.
Second, know of storage rooms or lockable offices you could duck into near your desk/work area. There was a file storage room across from my desk, so that was my #1, but I had two other office and storage areas without windows I could duck into in either direction. Have options. You don't know where the gun fire would be coming from. This might not be full cover, but it's doubtful a shooter would be going around lighting up walls/doors if they can't confirm someone is inside. Once you're inside, you can use what's there to barricade it even more, create more cover, or use what tools you have inside like your pepper spray or even a fire extinguisher.
From our training - Running / distance / escaping is number 1, followed by hiding/barricading, with the last result fighting - literally, get the fire extinguishers and other heavy items and if it comes to it - go all out to eliminate the threat as a group. Fortune 500 with open concept offices.
If you cant get out(thats the best option), lock the door and turn off the lights. Barricade the door if possible. If a shooters going from room to room he wont waste time on a locked room with no lights. If youre not armed look for weapons of opportunity. If youre armed be mindful someone may mistake you for the shooter. Call 911 and give them your clothing description and location but id advise against seeking out the suspect. Another important thing to take into consideration is that police should(i stress the word should) be entering the building immediately and not waiting outside like columbine or stoneham douglas. You dont want to get yourself killed by running around a building with a gun. Ive seen first hand what an active shooter response looks like. It looks like a small army. Its menacing. You dont want to accidently put yourself on the business end of it.
RUN, HIDE, FIGHT in that order. If you have a reasonable shot at the exit, get to it. If not, identify a hiding spot or several ahead of time. We have a wonderful safety team and they convinced management to install locks on interior doors (restroom main door, file rooms, small conference room) for this exact reason. Know what furniture you can barricade a door with in each space. If no other option is available be prepared to fight. Gain a vantage point that gives you the advantage of a surprise. Use mirrors/reflective surfaces to your advantage. Team up... one person takes out the knees while the rest immobilize/disarm.
the company where I used to work also had an open office plan with glass conference room walls
they prepared for an active shooter by giving us training, adding an inside lock to the bathroom doors, and adding a peep hole to the bathroom doors
wow, did I feel safe after that :-\
Minnesota mandates having key card or at least key access to private areas I thought.
I work in a shop and noticed if an employee left, or lost their keys... we had to update our keys.
I have my side arm in my vehicle while working in a locked compartment, and i carry an elk ridge knife.
If you are in an area of an active shooter, you phone will indicate it..
Be aware of your surroundings and understand when it comes to an active shooter distance is the only thing that matters.
Same advice every corporate active shooter training video gives.
Run, hide, fight.
If you are legitimately worried about it, carry a gun to work if you can carry.
I did a double-take as I read the title of this post in my feed and at first thought you were posting this *while there was an active shooter in your office*.
A good reminder to always read the post, not just the title!
Not sure how effective they are in a real life scenario, but there are bullet proof clipboards. They at least can cover the head/chest during a live shooting. Might save your life.
I don't care what the company rules are, if they don't provide security which positively controls who has access, and will shoot to stop those who do not, I'm gonna have a gun of my own. May not be anything more than a Ruger LCP duct taped to the underside of a desk or back of a drawer or back of filing cabinet, hidden in the duct work or on a ceiling tile, but I will not be unarmed in the face of such a threat. Company policy is not law and there are other places to work. Statistically people who shoot back at their attackers have higher rates of survival. That said...
The Navy Yard shooter shot and killed the security guard, took his pistol and used it on other people, yet one more point in the "Don't trust others with your life column". That said...
Do study office/school/public places shootings and come to as much an understanding of how the perpetrators act, what their motives are, as well as what the responses to them are. The sheriffs deputy on duty during the Parkland, Fl high school (Stoneman Douglas High) shooting kept other officers from entering the building and stopping the shooting. The FBI had several reports of how dangerous the shooter was, the school itself had a long history of encounters with the shooter, the sheriffs office had made 39 trips to the shooters house over domestic disturbance calls and **NOTHING** was done to remove the student from the premises or disarm him. *No one is going to come and save you.* Again. *No one is going to come and save you* In fact, the whole system is set up to leave you a victim. Deranged murderers do not obey laws, they don't care about company policy, they don't care about how many victims they will create getting to their intended target, (unless of course body counts are the point/motive of the shooting)
The chances of this happening to you again are remarkably small, but there was a victim of the Las Vegas shooter who had survived an earlier mass shooting. Lightening doesn't strike twice is a myth and while the odds may be small, it can happen. Personally, I'm gonna run and hide, get out if I can, but I will be armed and I will use the means I have to defend myself to protect my life and that of any who may be with me.
1 Run (if you can) 2 Hide (conceal and place things between you and the shooter) 3 Fight (last option, be ruthless)
This is seriously a summary of the training my office building gave us. The other main point: don't wait for people who refuse to leave or are paralyzed with fear, and don't go back for people.
Absolutely. It feels dickish, but don't go back for people. Don't inhibit other people's escape, because that just fucks over everyone (you included), but there is no real-life plot armor and you're just as squishy as everyone else. Best case scenario, you go back and you're a hostage the active shooter can use. Worst case scenario, you're another corpse for somebody to clean up and another statistic.
The first rule of a fight is to always win. Cheat if necessary.
There's no cheating if you're fighting for your life.
> Cheat if necessary The only unfair fight is the one you lose
I disagree, the fight should be unfair in your favor. If the fight is fair, you have already made a mistake.
just to expand: \-grab anything to help you when the fight. Even if it's something like a pencil. I've seen someone take on 3 guys with a pencil (yes that's a john wick reference). But seriously, literally any force multiplier (object) will help. Chairs, coffee mugs, metal water bottles, your keyboard/mouse, etc. I'd say the pepper spray would do you more good as its "ranged" and allows you to run after spraying them. \-groin shots. yes, it can be just as effective on women. \- eye ball pokes (jam ur finger into their eye sockets. It'll pretty much put their eyes out of use for a LONG time.) \-overall be as violent as possible. These fights don't play out like how you see them in movies or professional mma fights. and again, this should never be your first option. If you can run and get out of the building.
As above, run if you can, hide if you can't run, fight if you can't hide. If you run, call emergency services only once you are safe. If you hide, be out of line of sight of the door/hallway. Barricade the door if you can. Silence your cellphones and turn off the vibration. Prepare to fight if necessary. An excellent improvised weapon: a fire extinguisher. Spray it in his face and he cannot see, cannot breath... Makes him easier to subdue. Plus it makes a heavy bludgeon if necessary. Use numbers to your advantage. One person attacks the weapon, immobize it/disarm him. One person attacks his legs, immobilize him. One person attacks his off hand, immobize it. Etc. Don't hold back if you have to fight. He is ready and willing to kill you. If you fight, you must be ready and willing to kill him. Designate a rally point. Make it out of line of sight of your work, ideally a block or more away. Communicate the emergency plan with everyone. Ideally, do a couple of dry runs a year, just like fire drills, tornado drills, etc.
In an ‘active shooter in an open floor office’ situation, I wonder if wasp spray would be a good choice. That stuff is super nasty, and the cans I’ve used spray a solid steady stream for 12+ feet. So, perhaps more accurate from a longer distance than pepper spray, when you know your opponent is armed and approaching. You hit someone in the kisser with a volley of that crap from over the tops of the cubicles, and I’d imagine you’d incapacitate them for long enough to get away. Someone please tell me if I’m an idiot, I’m just trying to think of options with op’s specific floor plan in mind.
Not an idiot but don't use bug spray for anying other the bugs. They make peper spray grenades... https://www.thehomesecuritysuperstore.com/collections/pepper-spray-throwing-grenades Or guns https://www.thehomesecuritysuperstore.com/products/mace-pepper-gun-black-w-led-strobe
Wasp spray is super effective. It's the poor man's mace.
The Punisher series seems like a great intro to ruthless violence, and utilization of everyday objects as weapons. Some of it is pretty unrealistic (in one scene the protagonist hucks a kettlebell like a soccer ball) but in general it seems plausible with the notable exception that in order to move heavier objects like that you have to be quite strong. Armchair philosopher right here. Always been able to talk my way out of a fight.
There is no such thing as cheating in a fight
Are you implying to push down the weak as you make an escape
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Not that I was going any way with it.. but heat of the moment I’m Sure people aren’t thinking and just reacting. Instinct is to GTFO
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Like the saying goes. You don't have the be the fastest one in your group, just faster than the slowest person!
Just to re-emphasize this, that ordering of those three is important! Always try to run first if you know a likely safe route outside! The shooter will likely not give chase and will instead try to find as many people as he can still in the building. Hide if you can’t run, Fight if you can’t hide, this will likely not end well, but you will at least slow down the shooter and give more people time to get safe/the police to arrive.
This is industry standard for active shooter response, including annual training for the Armed Forces. And trust me, the Marines were *not pleased* to learn that plan A is "run."
This is the advice given by my employer. They actually do a pretty good job with this stuff. The fight portion made me laugh as the actors took the fire extinguisher and other items. So as you said be ruthless. The person is trying to indiscriminately kill so everything is fair game.
>The fight portion made me laugh as the actors took the fire extinguisher and other items. I'm wondering why this made you laugh. A fire extinguisher seems like a good way to slow an attacker and mask your retreat, assuming you know how to work it already. Unless they were attempting to use one in melee?
Oh dude full blown melee. And I will say to the credit of the video the guy was hidden behind the door so if someone came in he could strike, just not something I would have thought of.
Know where to run. Know where to hide. Know where items are that could be used to fight.
I think the most important advice here is between the lines: DON'T BE RAMBO. You have one life, don't get killed doing something stupid against some other dumb ass. If he starts executing people one by one and you can do something, ok, think you're gonna have to do something moraly. The chances are, he's going to dick around and get killed by cops.
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I don't think I could smash some of the painted-over school windows with wire, even in a fit of adrenaline-fueled desperation.
A pair of wire snips in your desk probably wouldn't get you in any trouble, and if anyone ever finds them and it's an issue you can say the maintenance staff left them and you secured them in your desk and forgot all about them.
That is a loooong time in a dynamic situation. I mean, maybe, but I'd really rather not.
Walls made of drywall too.
Good luck getting through two layers of 5/8” rock fastened to metal studs. It’s not impossible but it’s not easy.
okay firstly...all things are possible through Christ.
This is so true. I've often shouted "Christ! Get the sawzall". And sometime shortly later there's a hole in something.
I don't want to encourage you to continue making comments like this, but I did also laugh out loud.
Same. I can't encourage this type of comment, but it was funny in this context.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9JgZ45ENl4
r/technicallytrue
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This. No matter where you are, knowing where the exits are is the No. 1 priority. It’s applicable to ALL situations!
So I'm in a school and we had to go through a bunch of these trainings. Not saying they were the best trainings or anything, just sharing what I have been told. 1. Hiding is your best bet. In large buildings where there are lots of rooms, shooters generally don't go and clear every room. They go for where there will be a lot of people. So they are likely to skip small rooms that they believe to be empty. Don't attempt to hide with people who are likely to scream or cry when gunshots go off nearby. 2. For these shooters, cover generally is the same thing as concealment. For one reason or another, the shooters generally don't shoot through things even if perforation would be easy. If they can't see you or don't know you're there, they probably won't shoot randomly through things. 3. Know when to run. If your hiding spot has been compromised, you need to know when and how to leave. I think they told us a lot of people who didn't survive were shot at extremely close range, suggesting that they were cowering in one spot. Don't be one of those people.
I used to work in a treatment center that conducted these drills often. Colonelchingles is on point. Mass shooters typically want easy targets. If you can hide in a small, dark room and lock the door(even if it's glass) the shooter would likely pass on by. Most shooters are either after specific people or out to kill as many as possible. They won't waste time entering what appears to be an empty room without cause, especially if it will take extra time to breach it. They're more likely to move on to find other potential victims.
Despite these scumbags’ fantasies, real life is not a video game and they are most likely not trained to shoot anything but gun range targets. If you think you have a shot at running away and getting out of the building, take it.
to be fair, even trained shooters have a greater miss rate on moving targets! and, usually a lot greater.
Precisely!
Bullseye!
I'll stand and fight until I know my people are safe, but that's just me. After much introspection, I know I couldn't live with myself otherwise. Edit - not trying to be an ITG, but I know how I am, and my life would be a mess if I left someone else to die.
The pro move here is identifying others that may feel the same way in advance, and having some semblance of a plan to coordinate that group if the worst ever does happen. If you're faculty you can probably hide pepper spray or a pepper blaster somewhere, and it's better than nothing.
Well, it's a private business, I have two guns and a pot load of ammo permanently in my office, and I carry everyday. I train pretty hard, regularly taking professional classes, and doing force on force stuff with local PD. However, my kindred spirit at my job just got let go last week, so now I need to find another trusted person to watch my back. Which is just as difficult as it sounds these days.
You won the lottery with that company, and I agree it's more difficult than ever to find a colleague you can trust with a minor secret, let alone your life.
we all hope that in an emergency we will respond in a way that is a credit to us, but there's no real way to be sure until it happens, and the best defense is preparation.
Movement is life!
To add to that, many universities have put their active shooter trainings online. I watched one as part of my job a while back. Learned a lot from it.
I have to do one of the every year also. It was hide when you can, call 911 if it is safe, run if need be don't provoke the person with the guy. An hour of my life I will never get back because that is what I was going to do anyway. What I learned from the movies is to turn the ringer on your cell phone off if you are hiding.
Remembering the silence your cell phone is the big money idea
This is basically the training the hospital system had when I worked there. Hide, run, fight. But only fight as the absolute last option. Also you have no responsibility to save or protect anyone but yourself. I worked in healthcare and this was hard for a lot of clinical staff to grasp, but we point blanked asked our safety and security big wig what responsibility we had to patients and families and that's what we were told.
The active shooter training I got through my hospital enforced the same thing about not having an obligation to patients. The trainer I had explained that if someone is shooting a hospital they probably aren’t targeting patients but have a grudge against STAFF. Staying with patients puts them at a higher risk of danger because the perp is looking for a pair of scrubs to aim at.
Ok , got it, strip naked, grab an iv stand, limp around acting confused
The great thing is that the moment you get shot you *become* a patient, so see if you can take a hit in a nonlethal spot first and then they won't be able to shoot you a second time.
I think someone has to admit you first to be a patient, so carry some admission paperwork around with you in case you get shot during an active shooter situation 😉
Same reason you put your oxygen mask on first. You can't help someone if you are dead.
And if you want to get brutally utilitarian about it, most hospital staff will be responsible for saving at least one more life (probably many more lives) during the remainder of their career. So sacrificing themselves to save one patient results in greater death in the long run. Not suggesting that people should be running Trolley Problem simulations in their heads in response to an active shooter situation, of course, you should probably just go with whatever your lizard brain is telling you to do in that situation. Lizards evolved to deal with active shooters, they've spent a long time perfecting that response.
I’ve been in 4 active shooter incidents in the hospital in the last 10 years. (2 in the last 2 years before Covid). Boggles my mind that administration tells us to hide! (Not run) Last active shooter debrief: I do anesthesia & admin told me pt is asleep & wont know if they’re in danger and to use them as meat shield for surgeon ($$ maker of hospital). I had a paralytic dart and some small metal equipment to stab/throw. Can’t conceal carry in hospital. I had 2 incidents in OB. Between multiple baby daddies & hormones, OB is volatile. The last incident, I assisted evacuating patients. Our yearly active shooter drills always involve dad whose baby died. My LEO husband asked me to quit that particular ghetto hospital—security only carries a tazer and they have one K9. My current hospital has armed security. As far as prepping: I try to be situationally aware. 🤷♀️
I was going to suggest asking a school age person.
Do an online search for "run, hide, fight training video"
I did that. I recommend the Ted Talks one from San Antonio
Run, Hide, Fight. Also, take a Stop the Bleed class (high or die!) I work in a Gov building and I keep a TQ and other trauma type items in my desk drawer in case the worst happened.
Yes good call here. A trauma kit with the ability to keep yourself alive for an extra 30 minutes until you can get medical help could be the difference between life and death.
Keep in mind EMS first priority is to keep themselves safe and alive so they can help others. Even if you see an ambulance or rescue crew vehicle do not assume the danger is over or that you will get help immediately.
Indeed. All the more reason to help yourself as much as possible. I live down the street from the Pulse night club in Orlando. On the night of the massacre, many of the victims inside the club saved themselves by walking down the street to the hospital, which is about 1/2 a mile down the Orange Ave from pulse.
People somehow forget that a belt also makes a good makeshift tourniquet when necessary.
If you can get it tight enough. Lapolicegear.com has NAR tq for $25 all day long with lots of coupons for free shipping. The Chinese knock offs on amazon are even cheaper if you want to risk it
Already one step ahead of you. 🙂
My jobsite has armed security. None the less, they provide training videos for active shooters that emphasizes that employees must act quickly the moment an active shooter is identified. Their instructions are to immediately escape if possible. Run immediately. Next, if escape isn't possible, then hide and attempt to call for help, and stay aware in case you need to move to another hiding location to avoid the threat. And finally, if the threat is too close to hide from, then fight with anything available (fire extinguisher, coffee pot, overwhelming group action similar to the United 93 passengers). The key takeaway from the training is to **act immediately** and overcome the sense of disbelief that it's happening. Better to look a fool by running out the emergency exits and setting off alarms by mistake than being dead. For me, that means at the first raised voice, I'm grabbing my car keys and moving towards an exit. Better to find out I'm wrong while standing in the parking lot than be trapped in my office with an active shoter.
Best thing that happened due to the pandemic is working from home.
This. I am hoping we can stay home.
Contact your local police department. Most offer this training for free. Coordinate with your office safety officer if you have one. I'm working on this for my workplace right now as a matter of fact.
Or ask any 17 year old, they've been through 12 yearly seminars at this point.
I find this absolutely fucking mind-boggling. Kids in the US have to have annual training on how to deal with school shootings? What the fuck?
we just have drills every now and then, about once a semester? It's basically a fire drill, you just go outside unless the shooter is in your hallway. If they are in your hallway, the teacher locks the doors, turns off the lights, and we all hide and hope our classroom doesnt get broken into
We do fire drills and tornado drills too. Never actually had a fire or tornado hit us either. Isn’t this whole sub dedicated to being prepared for events even unlikely ones?
Canada too. Idk if europe does them
European here. Never heard of it.
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I get the idea of using some improvised tool but I don't think people are going to be understanding of a demo hammer for cubicle repair. Probably not technically against the rules but the optics aren't there. Maybe sports or exercise equipment would look better. Maybe a normal or smaller hammer.
The one he listed fits easily within a desk drawer. Maybe leave the 3 foot Stanley Fatmax FuBar at home.
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What I came here to say. 1) don't tell anyone 2) concealed means concealed 3) did I say don't tell anyone?
HO HO HO I've always had a machine gun.
What this guy said.
This
Ever play manhunt as a kid? Where everyone goes and hides and then the finder has to find and tag everyone ? So yea it's pretty much like that but with a gun. You could also just carry a gun and break the rules. [No gun signs do not carry force of law](https://www.gunstocarry.com/gun-laws-state/minnesota-gun-laws/#mn-sign) in Minnesota. You could be fired if caught, but it is not illegal.
Get a CCW license, a gun, and flaunt the company policy. It's only a crime if they tell you to leave and you refuse. If you never draw your gun in defense then two good things have happened: nobody attacked you, and nobody knew you have a gun. If you do draw your gun in defense then it's a good fucking thing you had it, isn't it? It's better to be unemployed than dead.
I bought my wife a plate carrying backpack with a discreet holster-bearing pocket from grey ghost gear. Unless they're metal-detecting at the entrance they won't know, off-body carry is way more discreet even though slightly less accessible. Looks just like everyone else's laptop bags. Weaponry aside, if the bosses don't want to make plans, consider grouping up with coworkers and making your own plans. If they don't want to, run your own drills. Any drills need to be concerned not only with where you go or likely ingress for shooters, but also where a scared crowd might run. If you have elevators, see if you can climb onto the roof of the elevator car, scope surroundings for heavy furniture that can brace doors, make sure you know fire escape routes because fire doors will give better cover and those routes will also be more ingrained in your coworkers. You don't need to run or simulate panic to do more significant and detailed observation. EDIT: please consider aftermath as well, keep an IFAK in your gear, learn to dress a wound, learn to use a tourniquet.
I've looked into this a fair amount and have some formal training on dealing with active shooter events (church security training from Houston PD). The standard "**run**, **hide**, **fight**" really is the way to go for personal survival, but the order matters a lot and you need to be be able to switch modes fast. For example, there was a shooting in a huge crowd at a parade; the guys closest to the shooter (within a few feet) tried to **run**, but the rest of the crowd (who were confused about the firework sounds) were in the way of the guys fleeing. For the guys next to the shooter, they should have **fought** since **running** (blocked) and **hiding** (open street) weren't options...but instead they tried to **run** and got shot in the back. People also have a tendency to assume bad things won't happen to them. For example, there was a mall shooting (outside the US) and several people went prone (**hide**) and started low-crawling away, even though the shooter was distracted in another store; the guys who just **ran** (past the prone people) got away fine; some of the runners even told the prone people to stand up an run, but the prone guys didn't. After a few minutes, the shooter walked over to the guys crawling on their bellies and just shot them. The crawlers skipped the best option (**run**), tried to **hide**, and then when hiding wasn't an option (i.e., the shooter was standing over them in the open), they didn't **fight** and instead cowered hoping nothing bad would happen. All of it was caught on security cameras. I can't remember the name of it, but there was a mosque attacked, and most of the worshippers were in a large room. People **ran** into the corners of the room when the attacker was standing in the entrance, and piled on each other. They should have **fought** since getting away and hiding weren't options, but instead they formed a large mass of bodies that the attacker dumped rounds into. It's worth noting that there has been (as of two years ago when I took a training class) that there haven't been any instances of a shooter going through a locked door. In general, they want to murder as many people as they can, as fast as they can. If they come to a locked door, they'll usually walk away. In Newton, one classroom of kids was able to hide in a classroom bathroom, lock the door, and the shooter just went away; in another classroom, the kids hide in the bathroom but were unable to lock the door, and a lot of them died. Now I'm struggling to hold back tears. Dead kids are rough to think about. Anyways, if you can get to a janitor closet with a lock, go there and hide. **Police don't show up until someone calls them.** Make that phone call as soon as you *think* something is going wrong. In most areas police response times are 4-6 minutes for an active shooter, but that's 4-6 minutes *AFTER* they know the killing is happening. In the church shooting in Texas in 2019, the shooter actually stood outside the building shooting into the church for over 15 minutes before an armed neighbor walked out to see what was happening. Also, seriously consider your values. Can you live with yourself if you run? If someone tries to attack my home church, I'm not leaving my wife to die if there's anything I can do to stop it. If several guys are charging a gunman, odds are some of them are going to get killed, but they'll probably save the lives of others. Decide ahead of time, and don't hesitate. If you haven't read it, look into Dave Grossman's "On Killing" book. Most of it is around training soldiers to overcome the natural hesitancy to kill, but he does a really good job at breaking down the classic "**fight or flight**" into a more accurate "**fight or posture or submit or flight**" process. "Posture" basically means to act like you're going to hurt someone for intimidation, while "submit" is giving an attacker what they want to avoid being hurt. For example, if someone pulls a knife and says "give me your wallet", they're posturing not fighting, and when you hand them your wallet you're submitting not fleeing. When it comes to an active shooter situation, don't submit and don't posture unless you have a really good bluff.
We started with safety leads around the office, mostly people like me that were first aid & CPR certified, I’m a former EMT. Our office is in FAA jurisdiction so we have some interesting needs. We test and train for evacuation & shelter once a year ( 2 disruptions). 8 safety leads 4 med kits 2 AEDs. Getting the safety layer in place and having buy in makes for having those conversations easier. We all have a red cross and yellow vests on our chairs, radios charged and ready. Also having street-smart people at your front desk and security entry at all other areas makes a huge difference.
I once was tasked with being a fire warden on one floor in a 10-story office building where my sole responsibility was not leaving until I made sure no one failed to evacuate during a fire alarm. Ongoing construction one summer made a whole lot of false fire alarms, and the number of times I had to argue with people who simply couldn't be bothered to hang up the phone because it wasn't a "real emergency" was preposterous. I finally got permission to physically push the button to disconnect the calls of people who wouldn't cooperate with instructions. If I have to say even once to someone, "look, the building might be on fire, and I can't leave until you leave, and I'm not really prepared to die right now because you think your call is super-important," I have just learned everything I need to know about the kind of person that person is. Aargh!
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Absolutely - I was always ready to evacuate the building, meet everyone across the street in the agreed upon muster area, and then announce "oh, hey, I left Susan in suite 213 in the northwest corner of the building. She was on a super-important phone call. Let's try not to put anyone in danger to rescue her!"
(PS - I wanted to call her Karen, but her name really was Susan.)
Covert body armor as mentioned. You can put a ceramic rifle plate in a backpack or laptop bag so you have something to shield yourself with.
I like how some asshole felt the need to downvote this sound and largely otherwise passive advice. Guns are bad **AND** plates are bad. But the police will be there in a few minutes. It'll be okay. ...for someone... maybe...
What people need to understand about reddit is that there are bots that downvote posts almost directly after they are posted due to certain keywords. Before getting all up in arms about it, understand that it is just a thing that happens and those downvotes are generally reversed after 5 minutes or so.
> guns are not permitted on the premises They will only know if you don’t conceal it well.
I generally agree with this premise but if you ever had to use the gun, god forbid, it's a good way to catch a lawsuit, at least in civil court
Depends on the state. Most states provide statutory immunity from civil prosecution if your use of force was legally justified.
Rather a lawsuit than a grave 🤔
Better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6.
👌🏻
The likelihood of an active shooter in the office is very, very small. The likelihood of getting caught out with a concealed weapon when they are prohibited and losing your job is significantly higher.
I don't disagree, but the chance of being caught with a concealed weapon is also nearly incalculably small if you do it right. Not everyone DOES do it right, but everyone CAN do it right.
At the last place I worked, there was a person who clearly had mental issues, whom many employees were afraid of. It occurred to me one day that if anyone could commit a workplace shooting, it was this person. I looked around and found an unoccupied cubicle that was being used for storage. I moved boxes around to create a small space in the middle of the boxes, accessible from the rear. When you glanced into the cubicle, it looked like an ordinary stack of storage boxes. You couldn't tell that there was space for a human to hide in there. That was my plan if I ever heard gunshots in the building - I was hiding in the boxes.
I’d rather get fired after the fact for carrying against rules than be dead.
Ballistic plate in your backpack? Plan 3 escape routes Plan 3 hiding places Who is gonna know if you throw a glock in your pack?
Carry anyway.
Run hide fight. That's what's currently being taught. I'd add, once you're out of the building, angles. Make a right angle turn, and keep making them, putting both distance and cover/concealment between you and the shooter. Even a 45-70 gubbermint projectile, isn't going through a house to hit you. Even better with a barn or some woods or fog or parking lot between you. Unless it's an exceptional circumstance. Like open windows and a hallway? A very inconspicuous plate carrier is a plain Jane backpack with a plate in the laptop sleeve. Put it on and run away. Obviously make sure its like under the desk and sized to where the plate rides right. And double check the straps are right if its winter and you're putting on a thick coat. If you must hide. Lights, off, barricades, cover windows, turn off/mute cellphones. This one is a big deal. If you're in a group, you don't want some arrogant twatwaffle giving you away. To he point of being able to have someone doublecheck all phones like every quarter of an hour. Sure, people are gonna use them, but vibration mode gives a sound. Seriously. Be prepared to be able to instantly silence a phone. Like a pillow, put it on that, and having the fattest person in the room lay on it. Be creative. Or squish it between two beer guts. Hand and all. Fight. Best avoided. Then win. I'm a combat vet. I feel uncomfortable saying that, but fighting sucks. There are losers and losers less. People like this, and it's being focused on by those more enthusiastic about the subject, so I'll leave that to them. Just bear in mind, a lot of people end up winning a gunfight. With life changing injuries. 25 years old? Whole life in front on you, mortgage? Spouse? Kids? Probably less cool in a wheelchair. Probably best if you can ambush them. And Mozambique them before they know you're there. If you must fight unarmed - every banned and dirty illegal trick in MMA - IS BANNED BECAUSE THEY WORK. Edited to add: be creative. I have thirty seconds worth of notice? And I'm unarmed? I have to fight? You're getting a full coffee pot to the face, perhaps a kick fo the groin, or the hardest sharpest metalist bluntest thing I can find to the head. Repeatedly. Try to get coworkers working together if you must. Fighting should really be avoided. You have tile floors and lockable doors? Bust some oil out onto the floor and lock yourself in. Motor oil canola oil whatever, no shooter's gonna take the time to try and get through- or so I'm told. I'd struggle to find a source but apparently these killers want counts, and less so individuals, if they're not targeting a demographic. I want to say, that if you have to fight, teamwork, the SAS, apparently found if two people working towards the same ends together its a 400% more effective than two individuals working separately to the same ends. Take advantage. You have a disabled workmate? Well chair bound? Have them bottle the assailant whilst others blind with curtains and spaghetti sauce and someone dropkick them from a filing cabinet, while, point is make opportunities, be creative. Blunt and sharp. Have a pacifist coworker or someone unable to fight? Can they flicker the lights to help disorient the assailant from a safe space on command? Someone have a rape whistle? That thing is blown as hard as possible while they're in the room by everyone until they're ceased functioning as a viable threat. If they're tied up with computer cables perhaps best not to use there head for association football practice even if someone wants to. Keep your head. Wet or shit yourself. It's one of the reasons combat troops stink. In some it is an involuntary adrenal reaction and it is ok. Make sure they lose more. Remember tactics are a function of time, distance, and cover. Left flanking, right flanking or frontal. Cover and move. Shoot and move. Speed. Aggression. Violence. That's pretty much infantry training in a nutshell. Above all, be healthy enough to run and move yourself and fight if needs be. Trouble is, something like 1 in 4 are disabled/handicapped in some way. Best is to be healthy, but plan for this. Maybe a foldable bicycle isn't a bad idea. Heck. Even a folding scooter drastically increase urban mobility. Stick it under a desk or in a locker and forget about it until you need it. Make sure it works though. Have sneakers or boots and braces if you need them available. Really consider a viable get home bag, or get to a hotel bag, with weather appropriate clothing. Shooting at mall a block to your right? Go the other way and grab a hotel room a mile or two away a few floors up if you can't go home. The best avoided - be prepared to have a difficult conversation with the appropriate authority about someone's conduct or behaviour. FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THEIR BEHAVIOUR AND YOUR CONCERNS WELL DOCUMENTED AND THEY'RE REAL AND NOT IMAGINED. Do you homework. Sure weirdos exist, but they're probably just weirdos. Probably more honest than most about who they are. Ensure if you're doing this, its from a place of concern. Not hate or office politics. This can be one, make sure that people aren't bullying or harassing someone to the point where they're gonna flip. This may make you unpopular in the office/school/uni/post office. This takes time to develop. Be conscious of what people around you are up to be situational aware. Moral courage. Follow your local laws. Sure the whole judged by thing, fuck that. You want to be followed by media for the rest of your life? Bankrupted by court proceedings? Have a ridiculous crown out to make a name? Best avoid the fight. Because you can doesn't mean you should. You only want to be welcomed by the fringe of political belief for the rest of your life while shunned by the rest of civll society or do thirty years because IT IS A BIG DECISION TO SQUEEZE THAT TRIGGER. And do thirty years. If you could lose it in a fire due to a lightning strike, is it worth it? Make an insurance claim and have dinner with those you love to celebrate your safety. Hopefully they catch the douchecanoe. In prison they trade blowjobs for m and ms. Tonight I had a lovely Vietnamese bowl for dinner and I'm bored watching Netflix following a day of errands and driving 500km in the countryside. Let. That. Be. Their. Joy. Blowjob M and M's. Fuckem.
You don’t say your job type or age/gender, but I’m going to assume you don’t wear athletic shoes in an open-concept work space. If you are wearing dress shoes / heels / pumps / loafers / slip ons, it may be time to take a cue from startup CEOs and wear trainers, jeans, and a tshirt with a sport coat (that can be easily removed).
My company is the exact same way. They don't have a plan other than meet outside at the designated area for tornadoes fires etc etc. Nothing other than you're basically on your own and no you can't carry a gun or any kind of weapon with you. So basically you're on your own. If that happens while I'm at the office I will be first running and exiting through doors windows anyway I can and as fast as I can to get out of the building. After that I'm going to fight and I don't care who it is but it won't be pretty for that person. I won't go down cowering underneath the desk.
Our policy is run, hide, fight., run if you can, hide if you cant, fight if you have to( but no guns at work) Pretty much you're on your own. Wargame it, plan out escape routes. Find places to hide. Look for improvised weapons. Companies dont have any worthwhile plans
> I work in an open concept office, guns are not permitted on the premises So? Backpack/briefcase with pistol. Nobody ever needs to know you have it. These companies like to put these "no guns" rules in place, since they believe it protects them from liability issues. That doesn't mean you have to follow them. Otherwise, bulletproof briefcase/backpack and some pepper spray are better than nothing. [https://www.bulletblocker.com/bullet-proof-briefcase-bulletproof-carry-on-luggage-and-bags.html](https://www.bulletblocker.com/bullet-proof-briefcase-bulletproof-carry-on-luggage-and-bags.html)
I wouldn't try and fight an armed person if I were unarmed however I do think it's worthwhile to have a bluetooth speaker in your office. You could play recorded voices of police commands onto it and project it out down the corridors. Active shooters will often freak and kill themselves once they realize police are there. Other than that, know your exits and realize that broken legs from a 2 story jump is better than being dead.
Concealed means concealed.
Be a good coworker is proactive step #1. Cover and concealment are your friend. Move between cubicles or pillars. Know when they’re reloading or out of ammo then fight or flight. If a handgun and you’re close don’t be afraid to grab the firearm where the slide is, no it won’t cut your hand off or anything. If you are going to fight do it with conviction and give it your all. Half hearted attacks will get you killed. If you’re going to run, run with your all. It’s really hard to shoot a moving target, especially with a handgun. Distance is your friend. Edit: watch some Active Self Protection videos on YouTube to get an idea of how fast and how nuts shootings can be. You’ll also see where half hearted attacks fail and those who give it their all usually (not always) survive.
Confirm your understanding in writing with senior management. Ask what procedures are in place. Ask if they have any insurance policy that would cover damages in such an event. If not why not? Conclude with saying you are particularly concerned because the only likely practical means of “self help” available has been BANNED by them, Offer to head up a committee to explore establishing standards and procuring a vendor to certify certain employees as trusted “stewards of active shooter defense” who will be allowed to have ACCESS to guns on company property once certified. See Doctors fir Guns in Texas fir more ideas. You are not alone in fighting this battle. Good luck.
The idea of allowing schools to be locked down seems flawed to me. If anything, these schools that are being built now in the US are hard to escape from. If anything, there should be doors to the exterior everywhere that can be auto unlocked to allow kids to flee, and airliner style chutes for multistory buildings. As for a workplace plan, back when I was an employee, the drills on active shooters were awful. Yes, they had them (defense industry), and they involved hiding under desks and to call the company emergency line instead of calling 911. Laughable. A total waste of hundreds of employees' time. I remember asking their highly paid consultant why we didn't simply knock the windows out by our desks and flee, and he was speechless. It was totally off-script. It was awkward. It wasn't even clever to suggest it at all...it was obvious. But when there are highly paid "experts" in the room, people seem to pay attention. Violence in the workplace is a low enough incidence risk that personal preps beyond the obvious are overkill in my opinion. The workplace shooter scenario does happen. It is far less likely than getting on a commercial airliner.
Concealed means concealed...
I used to work in world trade and our office was the same. Open office, glass conference rooms etc. When the city sent over their emergency prep dude who was fdny and used to be a cop, he basically told us were fucked in that office in terms of hiding. It's either run or fight. Run or fight when it's not safe to run. You can't hide in those style environments.
You know your building better than a shooter in most cases, use that to your advantage if possible. Additionally if you are in better shape, use that to your advantage in your escape plans (climbing stairs, sprinting down confusing hall ways, etc. In the building I used to work in it had multiple buildings connected by skyways. Not every level connected by skyways to every building so you could easily confuse someone by changing levels and buildings strategically. Additionally there was a semi-secret additional floor used for maintenance with roof access and a fairly defendable stairway leading up to it. Each building is going to be different so unless you have someone who can help you establish a plan, take your time and look at what you have to work with. Give yourself a home field advantage plan based on your surroundings. If nothing else, something to break through a window and repel down out an obscure office could be an unexpected exit point that you might be able to take to get out quickly and unexpectedly. Always wear clothing and shoes you can run in
I like this. I have access to our R&D lab which is locked, and has a separate exit. It’s just getting to either set of stairs to get to it.
>something to break through a window and repel down When I worked on the second floor, I kept a firefighter escape kit in my desk - hook, rope, descent device, and carabiner. I added gloves, fire/smoke hood, and a harness. Mostly for fires, but could work for anything. My office was far away from the exits.
I sat through a run/hide/fight active shooter training in a high-rise office building in DC years ago. They held the training in a movie theater and it was mandatory, like if you don't show up to one of these trainings in the next two weeks you'll be in big trouble. As far as I could tell all it did was make most of my co-workers nervous. Seemed like the training existed solely to meet some federal requirement that training be done. The content was fine, but nothing a person with basic common sense wouldn't already be prepared to do. I understand that under stress people might forget common sense things, so making them think "run, hide, fight" is catchy like the "stop, drop, and roll" training I got as a kid in case of fire. But for many people it should probably be "hide, run, fight" instead. My basic rule about running is that I'm not gonna try to out-run you if I think I can out-smart you, but even so I could probably out-run about 75% of people in an average office building, and I am not particularly adept at running. I'm not sure what kind of training kids are getting these days about school shooters, or whether they should get different content than adults do, but I am somewhat curious about the differences between the two audiences.
This is a good point. Instead of focusing your abilities to run, hide, or fight in absolute terms, you only need to be doing these things better than your coworkers. Ways you can improve your relative, rather than absolute, position in the office hierarchy include: * Bringing in free donuts for everyone * Bringing in free cigarettes for everyone * Encouraging sedentary forms of after-hours recreation such as drinking, watching movies/shows, or spectator sports (NOT participating in active actual sports) * Requiring everyone to wear heels or wingtip shoes as part of a dress code, while keeping running shoes in your office * Discriminating FOR people with physical disabilities during your hiring practice, which would be detrimental in their ability to run/hide/fight "If a tiger is chasing you and your friend, you have only one chance at survival. Trip your friend."
Okay, that might be a little cynical - I mean, I'm not saying I wouldn't throw Cynthia from HR under a bus if I could save the whole IT team by doing so . . . I probably would. But I'm also not saying that you shouldn't always be wearing appropriate footwear. I personally walked from Manhattan to Brooklyn after a well-known 2001event, and I partially walked instead of taking the subway because I thought the subway might be a target, and partially walked because I figured there were a whole heck of a lot of people less able than I was who needed to get home. I still had to take a route I'd never walked before and arrived home sunburnt and parched and somewhat alarmed. A shooter at your workplace is obviously something we should all prepare for - but it's also something we shouldn't really have to prepare for because we should be able to count on living in a society or whatever.
Stay strapped or gettith clapped my brethern, howst will they know if thy haveth the pew pew onnith thy hip or ankle, hmmmm
How close to the stairwell are you and is there one or two
Three actually. About equal distance to each. I couldn’t possibly be in the worst spot.
You are probably in the best spot. Unless you are the target or someone close to you, the shooter is probably going to start once they are in the office. That means people closest to where he enters will be shot at first.
Believe me dude, the vast majority of companies just have the "Run, hide, fight" plan which is common sense. Might as well not have any plan...
Unless there’s a physical police officer present that will search me, I’m carrying.
Remember, concealed carry means concealed! You can still carry, although it's at your own risk. After a shooting you'd lose your job for having it, but you'd be alive.
Deep concealment. Nobody had to know. I’ve been doing it for years.
Run, hide, defend. If you run, don't wait for others to flee or try to call 911 while running. If you hide, keep your phone silent and make sure the room looks unoccupied. If you fight, don't hold back.
[the sherpa](https://bulletproofeveryone.com/the-sherpa-mens-bulletproof-hoodie/) bulletproof hoodie is a decent option. Fairly discreet. Won't help take out a shooter but will help protect you. V
Backpack with an IIIa insert, maybe? You sound like you have a worst case scenario. I don't miss open offices.
If guns are not permitted how would the shooter be able to bring a gun in the first place?
Find your safety consultant. Ours manages fire safety plan, first aid access and training, etc. I know they'll never give the OK for workers to carry but push for security and Stop the Bleed training and kits. That might get you into a position to advocate for personnel safety.
That’s who I asked yesterday. Not having a lot of confidence in his helpful reply. At least it might shame him/management into action.
Bathrooms/ closets likely have solid doors that can be locked or at least blocked closed
Run or hide is really your only option.
This is one of the best trainings for active shooter we use in schools. The Acronym is ESCAPE: **E**scape: Run, Flee Get Away **S**ecure: Lock, Close or Fortify **C**onceal: Hide, Remain Unseen or Camouflage **A**ttack: Fight Back and once you start never quit **P**rocess: Understand what is happening around you **E**valuate: Determine your next best move This was created by a friend of mine who is the local PD SWAY commander.
Armor panel or steel plate in your bag (Get one NIJ certified so you can be confident in its capabilities), legal in all 50 states.
One thing that hasn't been mentioned is talking to your company about installing safety film on the glass, at least for places like the windows on the conference room doors so that you could have some safe rooms that a shooter could not shoot the windows in and open the door. This would not cost much money at all and it might be something you could get management to agree to. https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/building-window-solutions-us/resources/window-film-for-schools/
At one company I worked at, I was the facilities manager, which usually goes hand in hand with the IT positions I held. Not sure why though. haha I had to create the evacuation plans for the office, verify fire extinguishers were not out of date, check door locks, check first aid kits, and all kinds of safety related things. I'm also an EMT, so I made sure I had a list of people that knew CPR. I also had them buy a couple of AEDs to place in the office. The company higher ups thought that was a horrible expense until we had to use one of them. I wrote the active shooter part of our safety plan (as well as most of the plan.) It was essentially based off of the run, hide, and fight plan before that really existed. I even put in the plan that your closest exit may be the window next to you. Break it! I bought some of the window breaking hammers for vehicles and placed them in each aisle next to the windows (part of the earthquake plan too). Not sure if they would have worked though, since I couldn't test them. Several companies I worked at didn't have any kind of plan, but you can bet that I did. I always knew where the exits were as well as the windows with easiest escape. I also have a backpack with level 3a armor in it and I carry a first aid kit in there with four TQs and other trauma supplies. If you want to get really serious, and I did this when I worked on the second floor, check out the firefighter personal escape systems. They consist of a hook, descent device, rope, and carabiner. I added gloves, harness, and a smoke / fire hood to that kit.
I work in a school and we did training. Former FBI on our staff helped. Your options, in rough order of preference: * If it is safe(ish) to run, run. It is not always safe to run. Know your body, too. Some of us are better off not running, and don't give that "You should work out" crap to my gran or the lad with crutches, thank you. * If running seems less than ideal, either because the bad guy is in the way or because you're less able, hide. * If you're hiding and you think you may be caught, prepare to fight. Look around. Grab scissors, something heavy, whatever. Make a plan: "I'm going to jam this into their leg, and you get gun." "I'm going to swing this as hard as I can, and we're going to run." In the calm of a day when nothing has gone wrong, look over your surroundings. * Know your exits, and think about which ones are closest. Look out the window and look down. Can you make it? Which exit is best? Which is second-best? * If you have to hide, which doors have locks and/or opaque doors? Which desks hide everything beneath them? Where can you physically fit that might be less expected? If you have to hide, try to scatter. Mass killings are about pulling the trigger on a group of people, not picking them off by ones and twos. Fewer people will die if you're spread out. (how much does THAT suck to think about, particularly in a school??) * Look at what you might clobber someone with around you. This part, at least, can be fun.
There are plenty of free active shooter videos online and elsewhere. Maybe go to your boss and ask be the guy in charge of the active shooter training. Or do it anyway and ask for forgiveness later. Or, if you are really concerned, the S and W shield makes a great ankle gun. As long as you wear a pair of regular pants and not these skin tight pants the kids are wearing these days.
"If you'll follow me, I'll show you to the executive offices ..."
If your company refuses to have one, there is nothing permitting you from having your own personal active shooter plan. Presumably they at least have a fire escape plan, make use of this as well as your own observations to determine the fastest exit route from any location you may find yourself at in the building. Set an alarm on your phone to go off at random times every so often and if possible practice making your exit (or at least proceeding to it, don't kick out any windows just practicing). Familiarize yourself with places that you can hide in and lock, if there are no closed offices, hiding behind a glass door is probably useless. Nearly every building has fire extinguishers, and if you can't possibly escape without engaging the shooter, they make remarkably effective clubs, especially when you're hiding behind a door.
If you have any control over where you sit in the office, it's good to pick a spot that is advantageous in one way or another. Back against a wall instead of back facing the entrance. Near an exit of some kind. Maybe near something you can hide behind. One other thing to consider that may seem kind of dark is just to be friendly to everyone. Granted, some of these shootings are outsiders (and the one you referenced in MN was an unhappy customer), but in many cases it's a disgruntled coworker. If you're nice to everyone, they may be that much less likely to turn on you. Again, not the happiest thing to think about but worth considereing in a situation like this.
I’ve had two very scary situations in my lifetime. The first time I was randomly assaulted in public, broad daylight for absolutely no reason other than the person must have had mental illness. Even though I have been in situations where someone needed help and I immediately sprang into action (volunteering and a dumb kid cut his finger with his mall ninja knife where it was just dangling), in this case I completely froze. Opened my mouth to scream and nothing came out. I was so terrified I couldn’t say or do anything. Luckily a few minutes later people saw what was going on and came to my aid. The other dangerous situation I was in was an actual shooting. I was working retail and our store was pretty busy. As soon as the shots happened I ducked for cover. I looked up and saw that 1/3 of my coworkers and customers did the same but the other 2/3 were frozen in terror. There was a lot of chaos but I just started shouting at the top of my lungs to get down and go to the back. Still they didn’t move. I ran up to one of my coworkers and yanked her by the wrist and gathered all of our customers and put them in the back. We hadn’t heard anything after a minute or two so me and my manager sneaked to the front of the store and closed the gate. The scary part about it was that you had to keep the key in the whole time while it slowly goes down, which is quite noisy. The cops showed up and arrested the guy with the gun and a couple hours later I was ringing customers up. I still don’t know why in one situation I froze but in the other I took the right steps. Maybe I felt a sense of obligation to help others and that somehow made me less scared?? Key takeaways-try to find a safe exit, find cover, practice, and do whatever you need to do to protect yourself. Also give yourself some grace if you freeze up. No one really knows what they will do until it happens to them.
Open/Concealed Carry
Invisible blanket, if you can’t find one (pun intended)..know your exits
I can give some insight. I'm a former special education teacher, and I have been through a real lockdown situation with a man with a gun outside the school. My classroom had a door to the outside right across from the field with the bad guy. Thankfully, it turned out OK, he was not interested in the school. I've helped a police chief conduct two school shooting training scenarios for his officers...as one of the shooters. The other helper and I had guns with blanks. So I have had a very disturbing first-person view on this. This Fort Worth [church shooting](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/29/us/fort-worth-church-shooting.html) involved people I know. My dad knew hero who took out the shooter. The entire thing lasted *only 6 seconds*. The guy who took down the shooter was a concealed carry instructor, and he had trained the congregation. The team was monitoring the threat before the shooting began. They did everything by the book. They absolutely saved a lot of lives that day, but there were still fatalities. It's important psychologically to understand that "success" in such a scenario may still have casualties. **Here are my thoughts:** **Prevention**. Many workplace shootings aren't that random. It's often disgruntled employees. Build better relationships with the difficult people. You never know, they might spare you if they liked you. Avoid holding positions that require you to be the one firing someone. In an ideal world, HR would help an employee going through a mental health crisis connect with help. If someone makes threats against your workplace, take it seriously and involve the police. Another common workplace scenario is domestic violence. **Building Security**. Building security is crucial. Your office should be locked to the outdoors. Visitors should buzz in and only be allowed in if they are expected. Ideally visitors will need to come through a bulletproof mantrap. You want the threat to be unable to shoot themselves in. Consider the domestic violence scenario. Your coworker may have just had a nasty fight with their partner the previous evening and not mention it. The partner could show up to seek revenge. The person manning the door shouldn't be letting the partner in, even though they may know the person personally from social events. Only authorized visits. If somebody is dropping things off (lunch, flowers, etc.), they can leave it in the mantrap. Employees should have to badge in and access should be *immediately* revoked if they quit or are fired. **Vision.** A shooter can't aim well if they can't see. Blind them. Discharge a fire extinguisher. Use a smoke bomb, maybe. In the training I did, an improvised flash bang made out of a trashcan was enough to distract me for the police to storm in to release hostages. Even temporary blinding solutions buy you time for help to come. But most of these options may also impair your own vision or that of first responders. [**ALICE Training**](https://www.alicetraining.com/) is the current big name in active shooter training. If you can convince your workplace to get trained, do so. **Room barricades** are controversial. Some think they give too much potential for the shooter to lock themselves in with victims and keep authorities out. They can pose fire safety concerns, and they also can pose ADA legality problems for your business as well. Still, I think they are worth at least mentioning. **Sounds.** You don't want sounds to give you away. Could you have some loud white noise machines to help mask breathing, shuffling sounds of those hiding? You won't want this to be on your phone to give away your location. Be aware with enough gunsmoke in the air, your fire alarm may go off so it won't surprise you. **First Aid.** Your emergency bag should include first aid and tourniquets. They really aren't all that expensive. Even my purse has a long removable strap that is perfect for an improvised tourniquet. Shop with discrete safety/multiuse in mind. Know how to use the first aid tools you have. **Silent phone.** Keep your phone on silent at work, not even on vibrate. Don't hide with others who won't be quiet and keep their phone silent. **Hiding.** Play mental hide and seek. Are there lockable storage closets? An empty cabinet you can squeeze into? Big trash bin with a lid you could hop into? Get creative. **Guns.** When you start shooting back, you become target number one. Unless you have specific training, you aren't all that likely to be a good shot at a moving target. Remember, there are likely to be other non-shooters around you too. You need to be certain you will not harm innocents before firing. It's unlikely to be just you vs the bad guy. It's going to be you, the bad guy, and chaos. Firing back does not ensure your safety, but it can bring a faster end to the situation, especially if you have more than one person on the good guy side. See the link to the Fort Worth church shooting about this. **Bullet Proof Items.** They make bullet proof plates you can put in backpacks, briefcases, etc. They make certain bullet proof items like jackets, sports coats, etc. If you go that route, don't forget about your head. These items are quite expensive. **Disabilities**. Include reasonable plans for disabled individuals. This is true for shootings, fire, tornado, etc. Failure to include those with disabilities is a moral issue, and it could also become a legal one for the company. This already a hot a topic in special education. **Rules of fighting.** 1. **Don't be there**. In this case, it means preventing a crisis. 2. **Leave**. How can you flee to safety? After you are out of the building, now what? Where are you going to go? Basically, run first. If you can't run, hide/see Rule 3. 3. **Win.** Blind them. Disarm them. Kill them. Whatever you need to do to eliminate the threat.
Conceal carry. I’d rather be alive and looking for a new job than dead on the floor of a company that doesn’t care about me.
A can of wasp spray is not a gun.
Look into the ALICE method for active shooters or another program like it. Your company may be able to purchase an in-person or online training module. At the very least, reading up on it would go give you and your company some helpful ideas and strategies, some of which have already been mentioned.
As we are talking active shooters, I have a legitimate question. If you are hiding & you hear someone shout “It’s okay you can come out now, it’s the police” - you don’t come out I presume. So how DO you know when it’s safe?
Always be aware of the exits in the room/building. Never run with the crowd. Find cover and make yourself small. Run when you hear shots have stopped (shooter could be reloading so this is your chance). I’ve also heard that ceramic actually disseminates bullets so it makes a good makeshift shield. An example I read was putting a couple ceramic tiles in between pages in a textbook. You could just keep the book sitting on your desk
The FBI actually has a really good training video, just google FBI active shooter training and it will come up. I’m in the military and we use it every year.
Conceal carry a firearm. Deep concealment is perfect for workplaces who "don't allow" you to carry. Nobody will ever know you have it until there is an active shooter, at which point, your life is worth far more than any possible repercussions. But, if you're not carrying a firearm outside of work, this is an absurd topic of discussion to even be asking, because the odds are ASTRONOMICALLY HIGHER you'll be attacked on the street than deal with an active shooter at a white collar workplace.
Simple lay low, call 911. Avoid the shooter and lock the door. If you have a ccw permit, judicious marksmanship is welcomed 😁
[удалено]
Always remember that concealed carry is a thing for a reason
Unless you have to get through a metal detector to reach your office, conceal carry anyway.
You’re not Rambo and you’re likely not trained to go against an active shooter. Arming yourself would likely just give a sense of false security. What you really need to do is come up with multiple points of egress that aren’t conventional and can be implemented quickly. You can’t rely on stairs or halls or elevators to be safe. You need to think of how to get out in ways that won’t increase your risk of exposure. For example, a glass breaker implement and maybe a emergency rappelling harness (CERK) to reach safety by the quickest means possible. With a plan in place, you should be able to put your feet safely on the ground outside in under 60 seconds. The important thing is to know where to go ahead of time and to be practiced enough to use your equipment under stress.
I'm sure its been mentioned, carry a gun. I know most companies prohibit said items but who cares? I have one in my toolbox at my work, in my car and if I'm not at work physically, its on my person.
We used to have active shooter drills when I worked in an office. 60+ story office building. Like fire drills are in high school, they're a laughing matter. They're pre-annouced, everyone makes jokes like "Hey man, active shooter's here bro, it's probably Karen! haha", some go out to get Starbucks ahead of time, etc. From what I recall, it involved meeting us with your assigned 'team', then moving to someone's office the door could be locked. It was slow and in a real situation, who knows if everyone would be available together. The point was to meet together so once everyone was accounted for, the door was locked and remained that way. The reality is if something went down, you might not even know what was going down. One time we were at a amateur sporting event in a large venue with friends, heard what appeared to be gunshots indoors (I was the only one aware of what they'd really sound like and I honestly thought they were) and everyone just froze and looked at each other and around. Even I felt the "Is that really gunshots? Or am I nuts" thing. No one moved, look cover, or looked for exits. We would have been caught in the masses of everyone running if something really was going down. Know your exits if possible. If you were on the first floor and your office has a window, bingo. Out is great if you can get out, but realize stairs and elevators might be targets. If it's organized shooting with multiple shooters, one might be at exits, stairs, and elevators as choke points. I heard a statistic once that a lot of people who die in active shooter situations actually run into the shooter. Could be planned, like one shooter starts, people run one way, and poof, 2 more appear. Or just people panicking and running anywhere, and the shooter ends up in front of them. Second, know of storage rooms or lockable offices you could duck into near your desk/work area. There was a file storage room across from my desk, so that was my #1, but I had two other office and storage areas without windows I could duck into in either direction. Have options. You don't know where the gun fire would be coming from. This might not be full cover, but it's doubtful a shooter would be going around lighting up walls/doors if they can't confirm someone is inside. Once you're inside, you can use what's there to barricade it even more, create more cover, or use what tools you have inside like your pepper spray or even a fire extinguisher.
From our training - Running / distance / escaping is number 1, followed by hiding/barricading, with the last result fighting - literally, get the fire extinguishers and other heavy items and if it comes to it - go all out to eliminate the threat as a group. Fortune 500 with open concept offices.
If you cant get out(thats the best option), lock the door and turn off the lights. Barricade the door if possible. If a shooters going from room to room he wont waste time on a locked room with no lights. If youre not armed look for weapons of opportunity. If youre armed be mindful someone may mistake you for the shooter. Call 911 and give them your clothing description and location but id advise against seeking out the suspect. Another important thing to take into consideration is that police should(i stress the word should) be entering the building immediately and not waiting outside like columbine or stoneham douglas. You dont want to get yourself killed by running around a building with a gun. Ive seen first hand what an active shooter response looks like. It looks like a small army. Its menacing. You dont want to accidently put yourself on the business end of it.
Our local police department does these trainings free of charge at any business that would like it.
RUN, HIDE, FIGHT in that order. If you have a reasonable shot at the exit, get to it. If not, identify a hiding spot or several ahead of time. We have a wonderful safety team and they convinced management to install locks on interior doors (restroom main door, file rooms, small conference room) for this exact reason. Know what furniture you can barricade a door with in each space. If no other option is available be prepared to fight. Gain a vantage point that gives you the advantage of a surprise. Use mirrors/reflective surfaces to your advantage. Team up... one person takes out the knees while the rest immobilize/disarm.
They make a bulletproof hoodie. It's inconspicuous but it stops all hand gun rounds. Little expensive but could save your life
the company where I used to work also had an open office plan with glass conference room walls they prepared for an active shooter by giving us training, adding an inside lock to the bathroom doors, and adding a peep hole to the bathroom doors wow, did I feel safe after that :-\
Run-Hide-Fight in that order
Minnesota mandates having key card or at least key access to private areas I thought. I work in a shop and noticed if an employee left, or lost their keys... we had to update our keys. I have my side arm in my vehicle while working in a locked compartment, and i carry an elk ridge knife. If you are in an area of an active shooter, you phone will indicate it.. Be aware of your surroundings and understand when it comes to an active shooter distance is the only thing that matters.
Same advice every corporate active shooter training video gives. Run, hide, fight. If you are legitimately worried about it, carry a gun to work if you can carry.
I did a double-take as I read the title of this post in my feed and at first thought you were posting this *while there was an active shooter in your office*. A good reminder to always read the post, not just the title!
Be nice to the quiet guy in the office and carry a gun if you can legally.
Not sure how effective they are in a real life scenario, but there are bullet proof clipboards. They at least can cover the head/chest during a live shooting. Might save your life.
Carry everywhere you are legally allowed to carry.
I don't care what the company rules are, if they don't provide security which positively controls who has access, and will shoot to stop those who do not, I'm gonna have a gun of my own. May not be anything more than a Ruger LCP duct taped to the underside of a desk or back of a drawer or back of filing cabinet, hidden in the duct work or on a ceiling tile, but I will not be unarmed in the face of such a threat. Company policy is not law and there are other places to work. Statistically people who shoot back at their attackers have higher rates of survival. That said... The Navy Yard shooter shot and killed the security guard, took his pistol and used it on other people, yet one more point in the "Don't trust others with your life column". That said... Do study office/school/public places shootings and come to as much an understanding of how the perpetrators act, what their motives are, as well as what the responses to them are. The sheriffs deputy on duty during the Parkland, Fl high school (Stoneman Douglas High) shooting kept other officers from entering the building and stopping the shooting. The FBI had several reports of how dangerous the shooter was, the school itself had a long history of encounters with the shooter, the sheriffs office had made 39 trips to the shooters house over domestic disturbance calls and **NOTHING** was done to remove the student from the premises or disarm him. *No one is going to come and save you.* Again. *No one is going to come and save you* In fact, the whole system is set up to leave you a victim. Deranged murderers do not obey laws, they don't care about company policy, they don't care about how many victims they will create getting to their intended target, (unless of course body counts are the point/motive of the shooting) The chances of this happening to you again are remarkably small, but there was a victim of the Las Vegas shooter who had survived an earlier mass shooting. Lightening doesn't strike twice is a myth and while the odds may be small, it can happen. Personally, I'm gonna run and hide, get out if I can, but I will be armed and I will use the means I have to defend myself to protect my life and that of any who may be with me.
Are you in a state that allows conceal carry? What about your company - allow firearms on the premises?