Recent tragic mass shooting events cause many to ask, “What would I do?” Or, alternatively, “What should I do?” Active shooter situations are often over within 10 to 15 minutes, and what you do in that short time span may be crucial to mitigate harm. To answer these questions, Officer Jeff Labuguen with the Honolulu Police Department presented training programs on responding to active shooter events to HEC members on December 13 and January 5. The programs provided valuable information on actions to take to prevent and respond to an active shooter situation.
Using a training system that is both backed by the FBI and used as a current national standard for Law Enforcement Agencies, Officer Labuguen provided valuable insight into best practices that can best be summed up as “Have a plan and practice it.” Officer Labuguen stressed the importance of observing and recognizing employee behavior that may present signs of possible workplace violence, and described the Honolulu Police Department’s internal “Early Employee Recognition System (EERS) policy that requires frontline supervisors to recognize warning signs among employees and work to support and address workplace violence issues before things escalate.
Officer Labuguen also emphasized how important it is to develop workplace violence response protocols, train employees on how to implement them, and practice the implementation steps whenever possible. He cited research explaining that individuals go through three preliminary stages of processing and responding to a disaster or threat of harm: (a) denial (“that’s not gunfire, it’s fireworks”); (b) deliberation (“it is gunfire and now what should I do?”); and (c) a decisive moment (“this is what I’m going to do”). When people are in denial of a disaster situation as it unfolds, these kinds of delays limit adequate response time to find a path out of harm’s way. When people do not have a plan for responding to threats, their response time is further delayed while they deliberate the appropriate response before taking decisive action to move forward.
To reduce these delays, Officer Labuguen emphasized the importance of developing response plans and regularly practicing them with employees. Evacuation and/or lockdown drills should be included on workplace calendars and treated seriously upon implementation. Plans and drills should train employees on three courses of action (1) avoid/run; (2) deny/hide; and (3) defend/ hurt.
The first thing an individual should do in response to an active shooter situation is to run as fast as they can away from the threat. S/he should not take her/his belongings or stop for others, although s/he can instead warn them while continuing to run. If running is not an option, then an individual should take steps to hide in a secure place, preferably behind (and away from) locked, solid doors and glass windows. Bathrooms or closets can be a good hiding spot. Cell phones should be silenced and lights should be turned off. If hiding is ineffective, then an individual should plan strategies to inflict enough injury on a threat to stop them from causing harm. For example, if you are found hiding in a workplace kitchen, grab a pot of hot coffee to throw at the threat to buy time to get away.
Officer Labuguen stressed that the mindset individuals must maintain in crisis situations is that they will survive and make it home to see their families. Individuals must remember that even if they get shot, it does not mean that they are going to die. Police response time to active shooter reports is three or four minutes, and their first priority once on the scene is to work in hunt teams to find and neutralize the threat.
As he closed the training, Officer Labuguen explained that HPD is available to assist employers with onsite active shooter training and threat assessments. These community outreach activities are ways to ensure that businesses and individuals have the information they need to have a plan and know how to respond to a worst-case scenario should it ever come up.