School Safety News » Threat Assessment

Columbine. Anniversaries are important – even the bad ones.

Brad — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 13:24:09 +0000

On April 20, 1999 two cowards made their way into history by murdering 12 students and a teacher. For most, this anniversary will pass unnoticed. For some, the Columbine anniversary will bring powerful memories of an awful tragedy.

For a very few, the Columbine anniversary will invoke grandiose ideations of violence and immortality that fuel school shooters.

While most attack anniversaries pass without “copy cat” attacks, it is important that school administrators pause to consider the situational awareness of their school.

While it may not be feasible to implement a threat assessment program prior to April 20th, there is plenty of time to ask teachers and counselors if there are any students exhibiting indicators that anyone a concern for their safety or the safety of others. Students exhibiting these indicators need help; whether or not they actually intend on carrying out an attack. Remember the cardinal rule in assessing potentially violent behavior: It is not if the person makes a threat, it is if they pose a threat.

Remember, the cowards at Columbine did not just snap. Theirs was a building process that culminated just one day after the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombings (April 19, 1995).

For those of us that will remember Columbine, let’s remember the victims

Cassie Bernall
Steve Curnow
Corey DePooter
Kelly Fleming
Matt Kechter
Daniel Mauser
Daniel Rohrbough
Rachel Scott
Isaiah Shoels
John Tomlin
Lauren Townsend
Kyle Velasquez
Coach Dave Sanders

…and never again speak the names of their killers.

This post is provided by SafePlans (www.safeplans.com), an all-hazards preparedness solution including emergency plans, staff training, and detailed site mapping.

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Case Study – Fighting Back Against a School Shooter

Brad — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 19:02:36 +0000

Lately it seems there has been a lot of interest in schools and colleges instructing teachers to fight back when confronted with an armed attacker. Certainly the thought of having teachers (and even students) being told to throw books and fight back against a gunman is incredible and counter-intuitive. Luckily no one ever told by Ryan Crowley, Jake Ryker, Josh Ryker, Douglas Ure, Davis Ure, Ada Walberger, Joshua Pearson and Travis Weaver not to fight back against a school shooter. In 1998, these seven students prevented an attacker from killing more of their schoolmates.

On May 20, 1998, 15year-old Kipland (Kip) Phillip Kinkel was expelled from school for possessing a loaded firearm. His father, Bill Kinkel, a 59 year-old Spanish teacher picked him up from the police station, where they stopped at a Burger King on the drive home.

This was not Kip’s first mishap and his obsession with guns was well known to his parents. In fact, his Dad even purchased him numerous weapons for Kip despite disturbing tendencies such as building bombs, torturing neighborhood cats, throwing rocks of freeway bridges and treatment for mental disorders that included hallucinating and hearing voices.

Bill Kinkel’s inability to grasp just how dangerous Kip was concluded around 6pm that day when Kip shot him in the back of the head while his Dad was seated at the Kitchen table. A little later that evening, Kip waited in the garage for his mother Faith’s return. After helping her unload groceries from the car, he shot her twice in the back of the head. Upon realizing she was still alive, he shot her three more times in the face and once more in the heart.

That night Kip prepared himself for one final attack; arming himself with three guns, two knives and enough ammunition to kill over 1,000 people. To ensure this was indeed his last stand, Kip taped one .22 and one 9mm caliber to his chest. This last reserve of bullets was to guarantee he would be able to kill himself regardless which weapon was in his when the time came.

Kip drove his mother’s Ford Explorer to Thurston High School, where he arrived in time to reach the cafeteria by 7:55 am; the time it was the most crowded. On his approach to the cafeteria, Kip warned a friend not go to into the school. Seconds later, just outside the cafeteria, Kip shot Ben Walker in the back of the head.
Less than 20 yards away, Kip zeroed in on his next victim; shooting Ryan Atterberry in the side of the face. Despite, being shot in the face at point blank range, Ryan would survive. Moments later Kip was inside the cafeteria that was packed with over 250 students. Using a semi-automatic .22 caliber rifle, Kip fired nearly 50 rounds; wounding 25 people. After the initial spray of gunfire, Kip started selecting his targets, killing Mikael Nickolauson.

Shortly after killing Mikael, Kip’s realized his magazine was empty when he attempted to shoot another student. This brief window of opportunity was exploited by Ryan Crowley, Jake Ryker, Josh Ryker, Douglas Ure, Davis Ure, Ada Walberger, Joshua Pearson and Travis Weaver. The seven students, two of whom were shot and injured in the process, overpowered Kinkel and stopped the killing.

Kip Kinkel murdered his parents, two students and wounded 25 others. He was sentenced to 111 years in prison without possibility parole. The very same day as Kips’ attack a plot by three six graders to carry out an ambush style attack was uncovered in St, Charles, MO.

Fighting back against an attacker should be taught as a last resort as part of a larger security strategy that includes threat assessment and physical security. All security procedures should be developed in conjunction with local law enforcement and trained experts.

This post is provided by SafePlans (www.safeplans.com), an all-hazards preparedness solution including emergency plans, staff training, and detailed site mapping.

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Train the Plan

Brad — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 01:57:04 +0000

An untested and untrained plan is little more than theory. After developing school/college emergency plans a training program should be designed to educate students, parents, teachers, staff, crisis team members and administrators in threat assessment procedures, emergency response, management policies and procedures. Once training is implemented, exercises should be conducted to test the plans and training.

Currently, most educational facilities have adopted a training philosophy that embraces performing extremely well under reasonable conditions, rather than performing reasonably well under extreme conditions. For example:

Lockdown, Weather, Earthquake & Fire Drills Deficiencies
Staff has advanced knowledge of the exact time of the drill and the drill occurs when all students are in the classroom.

Solution
After two or three successful drills, limit advanced knowledge to the day of the event and implement the drills during transition times. Note: Avoid conducting drills during meal periods, due to the costs associates with missed lunches. To test response, set up a mock lunch period with students and staff.

Once you have your drills up and running, it is time to conduct training exercises. Tabletop & functional exercises use vivid scenarios, guided by experienced and certified facilitators, to engage participants in discussions of how they would respond to hypothetical events. Tabletops are designed to be a non-threatening and relatively low cost approach to validating capabilities. Use Homeland Security Exercise Evaluation Program (HSEEP) based exercises to explore and validate plans, identify logical or structural conflicts or gaps in those plans and develop specific areas for further study and improvement. Scenario should be coordinated/developed with local emergency management and public safety.

Stay safe

Brad

This post is provided by SafePlans (www.safeplans.com), an all-hazards preparedness solution including emergency plans, staff training, and detailed site mapping.

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Predicting Violent Behavior

Brad — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 01:18:58 +0000

As we approach the anniversary of the Columbine tragedy, it is still apparent that our nation’s schools are still in desperate need of formal threat assessment programs to help predict – and thereby prevent- targeted school violence. The first step in implementing your school’s (or district’s) program is to develop a formal threat assessment policy.
A solid policy should set a baseline that establishes what type of behavior will be assessed or investigated. It is important to remember that the key is not who makes a threat but rather who poses a threat. Your policy may be to investigate and assess every threat of violence, no matter how unlikely. However, you should never wait for a threat. Inappropriate behavior and communications, while not a threat, are often a much better predictor or violent behavior. An example of inappropriate behavior is demonstrated in this poem written and submitted to a teacher weeks before the author opened fire on his classmates and teachers:

Sinking into bed
Homicidal feelings fill my head
Suicidal thoughts not gone but not fleeing
Because it is other people’s death I’m seeing
Suicide or Homicide
Homicide or Suicide
Into sleep I’m sinking
Why me I am thinking
Homicidal and suicidal thoughts intermixing
I know my life’s not worth fixing.
Now matter what the media “experts” say, the behavioral process leading to violence is observable; if you are in a position to observe the behavior and you know what to look for. Teachers and counselors are almost always in the position to observe the indicators of this building process. That is why providing training in identifying pre-incident indicators is critical in the success of a good threat assessment program. By knowing what to look for and reporting indicators of violent behavior, teachers and counselors allow the system to work.
Another important aspect of your policy is the development of a threat assessment team. This team can be comprised of administrators, school counselors, teachers, mental health professionals and law enforcement, will review cases to determine if the student in question poses a threat and what course of action to take with the student. Case management is an often overlooked aspect of threat assessment. As Gavin de Becker points out in his book “The Gift of Fear”, an assessment is looking at a snap shot in time of that person’s life, as the person’s life changes (for better or worse) so does the assessment.
Threat assessment is certainly a new area for most school administrators, but there is help. The United States Secret Service has developed a school assessment program and Gavin de Becker, who is widely regarded a world leader in security and predictive behavior has a comprehensive system and several books on the subject of predicting violence.