...Active Shooter Incidents Increasing By: Amanda Vicinanzo, Senior Editor 10/22/2014 ( 9:40am) In partnership with Texas State University’s Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training Center, the FBI in 2014 initiated a study of active shooter incidents to provide law enforcement and first responders with data to help them better prevent, prepare for, respond and recover from future incidents. The report, A Study of Active Shooter Incidents in the United States Between 2000 and 2013, evaluated 160 active shooter incidents, including those at Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook Elementary School, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Fort Hood, the Aurora (Colorado) Cinemark Century 16 movie theater, the Sikh Temple in Wisconsin, the Washington Navy Yard and numerous other tragic shootings. Special Agent Katherine Schweit, who heads the FBI’s Active Shooter Initiative, says she hopes the study “demonstrates the need not only for enhanced preparation on the part of law enforcement and other first responders, but also for civilians to be engaged in discussions and training on decisions they’d have to make in an active shooter situation.” The FBI emphasized that the report evaluates active shootings, a term more specific than “mass shootings,” which does not encompass all mass killings or shootings in public places. The FBI defines active shooters as “individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in populated areas (excluding shootings related to gang...
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...Police Responses to Officer-Involved Shootings Introduction Both mental health counselors and police professionals have investigated and detailed the ecstatic impact of officer-involved shooting incidents. Post-shooting trauma has resulted in many departments seeking professional support for officers involved in shootings. Research shows the percentage of officers who experienced exceedingly high, moderate, or no responsive impact after involvement in a shooting. Evaluation of Personal Impact of the Study from a Police Officer’s Perspective This research has an immense personal impact on officers. The physical, psychological and emotional reactions of police officers after a shooting incident vary. If the findings of this research were to be implemented, it would have a positive, personal effect on the police officers involved in shootings (Klinger, 2006). The findings showed that most officers experience physiological, psychological, and emotional reactions just before and as they fired a gun. Their recollections of the event were found to be vague, or in extreme cases, they could not remember the incident at all. Also, exceedingly few officers experienced long-lasting negative effects after a shooting. Their post-shooting reactions were influenced by actions and attitudes of family, friends, colleagues, and investigators. These reactions lessened as activity and attention about the incident diminished (Klinger, 2006). Many police officers...
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...School shootings are becoming a massive deal now and President Trump insists that arming all teachers with guns will protect the students and prevent school shootings from happening. “But if he had a firearm, he wouldn’t have had to run, he would have shot and that would have been the end of it.”, said Trump. Having a gun during that moment would’ve saved numerous lives in the Florida incident. Parents and students are terrified of having to be going to schools where any incident like the previous school shooting in Florida can happen. A father whose daughter was shot 7 times and died in the Florida school shooting incident could not repress his emotions, Andrew Porter states, “How many schools, how many children have to get shot? It stops here, with this administration and me, because I’m not going to sleep until it’s fixed.”, parents of the victims want there to be a change and want schools to become a much safer environment for kids of all ages, instead of seeing that no one's doing anything to resolve the solution. Gun violence is getting out of hand in the...
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...SCHOOL SHOOTINGS I am going to write about the topic school shootings, based on the two texts “Warning” by Terry McCarthy and “It’s only me” by Nancy Gibbs, who both deal with an event which happened 10 years ago. A school shooting is an incident in which gun violence occurs at an educational institution. It most commonly describes an act committed by either students or intruders from outside school campus. They are to be distinguished from crowd-containment shootings enforced by law personnel and are also differentiated from other kinds of school violence, or terror attacks involving multiple weapons. The incident was committed by a, at the time, 15 year old boy called Charles Andrew Williams, Andy for short. He recently moved to Santee, California, a suburb with around 58.000 inhabitants. He was described as being a “good Christian boy” from rural Maryland. Andy was bullied at school, neglected by his father and rarely saw his mother. His parents divorced when he was 5, and things were not good at home. Even his own friends taunted him, but he just slacked it off, like he kept it all inside. His friends described him as being a “follower” and someone you could easily manipulate with. Andy started hanging out with a different group people called the “Grommits”, who were basically a couple of dope-smoking skateboarders. Andy’s friends noticed he started acting different – he ditched school and got into trouble. He talked openly about “pulling a Columbine” and some...
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...Jett, April Hope The Significance of the Columbine High School Events CRJU 2110 Assignment #2 Introduction: The Columbine High School Shooting Event occurred at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado on April 20, 1999. At the time of the shooting, I was in the seventh grade of junior high school. I can remember thinking for months after this that it could occur anywhere and I was afraid to go to school. This shooting was the most significant shooting in a school in the history of the United States of America. During this incident, two high school seniors planned and carried out a massacre. These two students were Eric Harris (eighteen years old) and Dylan Klebold (seventeen years old). After all was said and done, thirteen people plus Harris and Klebold were dead and twenty-three people were injured. These events showed this nation that schools are no longer safe and that incidents that occur in schools should be dealt with swiftly and harshly. Schools now focus on security, bullying, and response to these type incidents. Topic I – Security A. Zero Tolerance in Schools B. Preventive Measures Topic II- Bullying A. Profiling B. Communication C. Anti-Bullying Laws Topic III- Incident Response A. School System Response B. Emergency Responder Response C. Post Response I. Security A. Zero Tolerance in Schools Schools in this country have adopted a zero tolerance policy. This means that the school deals with any infraction basically...
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...Concealed Weapons at Workplaces Imagine returning home to the fact that one of your loved ones had been killed by a gunman in their workplace. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Everytown Research, one hundred sixty-five shootings in the past three years have occurred in school buildings and about three thousand fatal shootings have occurred at places of employment. Every year nearly two million people are victims of non-fatal and one-thousand are victims of fatal incidents that occur at workplaces. Because it is impossible to determine when someone will snap and how they will affect the others around them, workplace shootings are certainly the most tragic and they are also the most unpredictable. Having a concealed weapon...
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...Navy Yard Shooting On 16 September, 2013 tragedy hit the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) inside the Washington Navy Yard. Aaron Alexis, a contractor working at the Naval Sea Systems Command, began a shooting spree which lasted a little over 60 minutes and resulted in 12 deaths and several injuries. Alexis seemed to engage targets of opportunity and did not seem to target specific individuals. A report created by the Metropolitan Police Department’s Internal Review Team (2014) found that Alexis’ last exchange of gunfire was with a local law enforcement officer who was shot, but “was able to return fire, killing Alexis and ending his rampage” (p. 3). This incident was handled in a commendable manner, however there were some things that may...
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...In 2012, there were a number of mass shootings in the United States including the theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado and the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. Between these two mass shootings, thirty-nine individuals were killed but the whole country was affected (Ehrenfreund). Many feared for their lives and questioned their safety in public places, especially in schools. Following the shooting in Newtown, a nationwide debate took place about the possibility of stricter gun control laws (“U.S. Mass Shootings”). Gun control activists believe that removing or radically altering the 2nd amendment will solve America’s issue of gun violence, but doing so is not the answer. Citizens have the right to own guns, most...
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...Obviously, school shootings are a big subject in recent times, especially with the youth. Students all over the country are scared of going to school because it’s something that happens more often. I myself own a gun, and my house has multiple guns in a safe. Guns shouldn't be banned and won't be banned because it restricts our right to the 2nd amendment of rights to bear arms. There should be a further background check and a longer process in all the states, I know in Arizona, there are no laws or restrictions on buying a gun. The first article Here’s How to Prevent the Next School Shooting, Experts Say, explains my point exactly. The article express “If we're really talking about prevention, my perspective is that we should go for the public...
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...realized one of the young men matched the description of the stealing progress. Wilson radioed for backup and in little over minute and young man lay dead at the scene. He was unarmed. That young man was Michael Brown; the 18-year-old black boy who’s shooting this past summer sparked a major controversy and raised a lot of questions about Police Shootings in the U.S. and their undeniably pattern of racial issues. Currently young black males risk of being shot by police officers is 21 times more likely greater than young white males (Staples). Due to police tactics motivated by racial profiling, racially bias news and media that enhance minority stereotypes, United States law enforcement is targeting minorities that results in Police Shootings caused by racism. After Michael Brown’s tragic death, many realized that our country had seen similar circumstances like this before. A young, unarmed, black male shot dead, taking with him, the alternative perceptive of the incident in question. We are only left with shooters’ recollection of incident and possibly a few witnesses. It’s a story that we know all too well. Police shootings happen every day, but recent events begin to raise many questions; Of all these police shootings how many are black men? Who kills these young black men? Are all of the officers white? What is the cause...
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...sirens” to set the tone of the story to evoke emotions from viewers at home. Broadcast stations, like CBS, use visuals and interviews to give a clearer understanding of what happened and how it happened. However, some stations, like FOX tend to give viewers a goofy and simply non-serious report on events and incidents that occur in the nation. Then there are stations, like ABC, who simply deliver the news clearly and directly to viewers at home. News stations around the nation have different methods of delivering their news, although some of them are less beneficial than others. During NBC’s Nightly News, with Brian Williams, the Pentagon correspondant, Jim Miklaszewski, emphasizes the implications the Navy yard shooting had in the four mile radius of the incident. He states, “... nearby schools were locked down, highways shut down, the Capital closed and the Nationals game postponed.” The emphasis of these implications the shooting had on the public shows the intense and immediate fear that struck throughout Washington D.C. The emphasis constantly hits the reader with the consequences of the shooting and it allows the viewer to realize the seriousness and the gravity the incident has had on people close to the capital and national security as well. However, other news stations lack the ability to convey the seriousness of a news story to the public. FOX, for example, lacks that ability. The anchors and reporters tend to deviate from the topic, even if it’s serious, and begin to...
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...newspaper, social media, and anything anyone can think of. The media mostly talks about police officers beating or shooting a man. It’s one story after the next and the media is always on top of it. One thing they aren’t on top of is telling the people what led to the incident or why it happened. There are many police shootings that have happen all over the United States these past few years. I believe that police officers do stereotype people, such as black men to be a threat. Incidents like police shootings happen because of stereotype threats. For example, if a police officer came across a black male in a stop they would be more aware of him and ask...
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...Columbine shootings there were little to no training for the response forces to combat active shooter scenarios. Now that the nation has had more tragedies such as the theater shooting in Colorado, the New Haven, Connecticut massacre and most specifically is the shooting by an active duty US Army Major in Fort Hood, Texas. An active shooter is an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people, most often in populated areas. As these events in human history happen, leaders find a way to try and make life safer for the population. Although tragic in nature the shootings in columbine taught law enforcement that they had no plan of attack for active shooter scenarios. When the unfortunate events at Fort Hood took place, the military population specifically the Military Police had no idea how to respond (McCloskey, 2009). Now since the Fort Hood shooting there have been two more high profile cases where active shooter has taken lives in the civilian world. These most recent events the first, a shooting in a crowded theater in Colorado and the most tragic of all the shootings where 20 young elementary school students lost their lives at an elementary school in New Haven, Connecticut (Tuccitto & Sullo, 2012). Now that these events happened although tragic military leaders decided it was important to put together a response plan and perfect the response for such events. According to the Air Force Manual 31-201 Volume 4, active shooter incidents are incredibly...
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...Introduction Criminal acts, such as homicidal shootings transpire everyday. Simply shooting civilians has the ability to seriously evolve and become an active shooting emergency. An active shooting or an active shooter incident is the involvement of an individual actively engaging in killing a populated area of people. The Federal Bureau of Investigation works closely with active shooter incidents. According to the Washington Post, throughout the past seven years, averages of 16.4 of these disasters occur every year. Sixty-nine percent of them transpire in five minutes or less, thirty percent in two minutes or less. Sources also say sixty percent of these events were over before first responders arrived. The preparedness and responding of these occurrences can affect the severity of the outcome. Shooting disasters commonly happen in houses of worship, workplaces, transportation stations, community areas, and schools. Active shootings that happen in schools are incredibly dreadful because of the substantial population of children/ minors. On December 14, 2012, a local elementary school of Newton, Connecticut underwent an unexpected catastrophe. The Sandy Hook Active...
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...On April 20, 1999, the small town Columbine witnessed a terrible incident where two boys committed a massacre on their school. Columbine High School. The two boys, Dylan Klebold,17, and Eric Harris, 18, single handedly murdered 12 people and injured another 21. The number of casualties could easily have exceeded, considering that their plan didn't worked out exactly as they had planned, even though it was very thought through. Their original plan was that the bombs they had planted in the school cafeteria was to explode, and the survives would exit the school through the two main doors, of which Dylan and Eric covered one each. Luckily the bombs didn't go off. Which saved many lives, since it was to go off at the time where there would be the highest number of people at the location. The shooting began at 11:19 a.m. at the west entrance of the school. Their first victim was Rachel Scott who died of shots to the head and torso. Before entering the school and continuing the shooting, they managed to shoot 9 people. The whole incident lasted 43 minutes, where they had managed to kill 12 people and injure 21. A witness who had locked herself inside a room overhead Eric and Dylan count to 3 in unison, which was followed by two gunshots. They committed suicide. On April 20, 1999, the small town Columbine witnessed a terrible incident where two boys committed a massacre on their school. Columbine High School. The two boys, Dylan Klebold,17, and Eric Harris, 18, single...
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