“Stop, drop and roll” was drilled into our heads from commercials and catchy posters and is still used as a slogan today, in case you don’t remember the ads from the ’80s, about what to do if you or someone catches on fire.

Today’s training is supposed to prepare me for a different threat.

I sit in view of one of two main doors once you’ve used card access to gain entry from the elevators.  I’m often the person approached when the UPS guy is lost, or a new employee is turned around.  In the case of an attack, I’d be the first to go down, so I’m not sure what the Active Shooter Training can help me do.  But still, now I feel prepared (do I, really)?

It’s a sad state of affairs that workplaces, be it building security or corporations who initiate the need are now hiring trainers (ex-FBI, police and criminology majors) to give worst case scenarios for how to keep your cool and act in a shooter situation.     The best case scenario is that not as many people die that could.  The worst case is Vegas.  Or worse to come.

The eventuality is both fascinating and terrifying. We know it’s nearly a daily occurrence and no forum or location is safe.  From a concert to a movie theater to the mall to a church (or two) to a house party to an elementary school to a high school to another school to a school to a school to a school…

How can you be prepared?

Just this year, there was a “credible threat” at a nearby law office and I literally reached in the drawer, grabbed my purse and left the building, got in my car and went home.  It only occurred to me as I was in the elevator going down, that if there were a shooter coming in…I just volunteered to be first.

Barricade

Hide

Be silent

Escape

Don’t engage directly unless you’re in a desperate, last stand.

Those all sound pretty obvious, unless of course you’re in a panic.  But things that stuck out were

turn off all sounds to your cell phone

when you exit the building or are rescued, leave with your hands up and spread wide open (or you may be mistaken for the shooter)

understand if the cops rough you up and throw you on the ground and search you.  They don’t have time for niceties and gentle treatment. (And it’s better than treatment you may get if you resemble the alleged shooter).

The whole point of this blog is not to argue a side, or debate or agree.  It’s just to digest

this is where we are now