One of the hottest topics in law enforcement today is that of an active shooter. The active shooter has been involved in U.S. for decades causing fear and death. What recently seemed to bring this type of killer out into the worlds view again and majorly change the way law enforcement viewed handling this type of incident was the horrific shootings and killings done on April 20, 1999 at the Columbine High School in Colorado.
An active shooter is an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and other populated area. In most cases, active shooters use firearms and there is no pattern or method to their selection of victims. Active shooter situations are unpredictable and evolve quickly. https://www.dsac.gov/topics/active-shooter-resources
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The active shooter has been around for decades. The first ever actual recorded incident of an active shooter in the U.S. was in 1927, in Bath Township, Mich. Andrew Keyhoe, was apparently upset about school taxes, and facing financial problems with the thought of possibly losing his farm. He began his killing spree by killing his wife. He then set fire to his house to distract the local police and fire department. Keyhoe then drove to town and blew up the school with dynamite killing many students and faculty. While the town gathered around the school in rescue efforts, Keyhoe then detonated his car which was parked in the school parking lot. His car was filled with shrapnel, killing himself and more. As a result, a total of 45 children and adults were killed, including him. This type of killing continued to occur, but didn’t draw widespread media attention over the years until August 20, 1986 when U.S. Postal employee Patrick Henry Sherrill killed 14 employees at his workplace in Edmond, Oklahoma using two pistols. He then committed suicide. This incident spread across the nation and, along with other shootings involving postal employees, caused the phrase “going postal” to become a part of our language. While the active shooter incidents still continued over time, they again dropped from the media headlines until the Centennial Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta, GA at the 1996 Summer Olympics. The key incident that was the changing point in how law enforcement, as a whole, would handle the active shooter was the mass killing on August 20, 1999 at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Kehoe http://www.timetoast.com/timelines/active-shooters-in-history Before Columbine, there were no specific “response plans.” Many agencies responded as they always had, with additional officers and firepower and, most times, the SWAT team would be activated.
No specific training or major policy changes happened. Active shooter incidents are now not only known nationally, but internationally known as well. A standard style of training has been developed for law enforcement in responding to these incidents in order for all responding agencies to have the same knowledge of how to handle this situation. Law enforcement agencies have moved forward in training that now meets the needs to help an active shooter situation. Law enforcement officers now have updated their equipment as far as weapons for be equal to the subject if not greater, entry tools, ballistic vests and shields, and different tactics to neutralize the threat rather than contain and negotiate. Upon arrival to the scene of an active shooter, the action for the first responders is to act immediately and head to the threat and neutralize it. There is no more waiting for SWAT to show up since the average arrival time for a SWAT team to arrive on seen and be put into action is around 50 minutes, whereas the average response time for first responder officers is around 3 minutes. https://leb.fbi.gov/2014/january/active-shooter-events-from-2000-to-2012 An active shooter tries to inflict as much damage as soon as possible before help …show more content…
arrives. Training?
More or less incidents? The amount of active shooter events has been on the rise since 2000. In the majority of all related incidents, the main choice of weapon has been the handgun. The next choice was some type of rifle. And finally, about 2 percent have used some type of IED. With tougher gun laws potentially coming into play and the amount of information that can be found on the Internet, it seems that, in the future, we may see more incidents involving IEDs.
New policies? Have been adopted from the local level all the way up to the federal level in dealing with active shooters. Policies have various approaches from solo officers going in to engage the threat, to forming contact teams usually comprised of at least four officers, too additional officers arriving to form up secondary teams for extraction, evacuation, or perimeter security
Look at the mental health side of this?? On the mental health side of this issue, Chief Riesling of the University of Wisconsin posited five phases active shooters go through. In the first phase the shooters seem to fantasize or are obsessed with other incidents. In the second phase they plan out what they intend to do. Phase three, they prepare and start acquiring what they will use to carry out their mission. Phase four is practicing how they will carry out the incident. Phase five, the actual mission. The mind set for an active shooter doesn’t appear to just snap and do it. The idea seems as it has been building
and growing in them for some time before the idea of carrying it out actually happens.
John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo are two murderers that are known as the Beltway Sniper. Muhammad and Malvo killings are known to be random, which categorizes their killings as a killing spree. During the duration of their killing spree, they caused major panic throughout the United States. This notorious shootings that terrorized the United States took place in 2002. The shootings ended up taking the lives of 10 individuals and injuring 3 others (Blades, 2005, para.1). The shooting at the time it took place is considered unique because their weapon of choice to carry out their plan was a sniper rifle. What is unique about this case is that investigators and criminal theorist
Over the past years media has been overwhelmed with news about mass shootings happening around America and if mental illness is the primary cause of the violent act. On February 2014, Jonathan M. Metzl and Kenneth T. MacLeish published their article “Mental Illness, Mass Shootings, and the Politics of American Firearms” in the American Journal of Public Health that addresses the issue that mental illness has very little to do mass shootings which is commonly used on the aftermath of the shooting
Homicides due to active shooter incidents are caused by emotional abuse, stalking, threats and more commonly termination of employment. Ways of combating this issue effectively will be by implementing policies and procedures such as buddy systems and prevention programs are likely to be effective.
Shen, Aviva. "A Timeline of Mass Shootings in the US since Columbine." ThinkProgress RSS. Center for American Progress Action Fund, 14 Dec. 2012. Web. 17 Nov. 2013.
Over the last decade or so, the United States of America has been shaken by an epidemic of terrifying mass shootings, devastating slayings of unexpecting victims, and unnerving annihilations of the innocent. There is no specific target, no explicitly sought-out group, nor definite individual. From a classroom of first-graders, to a crowded movie theatre, to a U.S. Naval yard, the location seems at most, random, other than that it is almost always a public place. The perpetrators responsible for these horrific murders also vary, and often surprise those who thought they knew them. However, while the occurrences of mass shootings are unpredictable and always shocking, most have one thing in common: the use, or rather misuse, of assault weapons-automatic or semiautomatic military style rifles. To ensure the safety, security, and well-being of the people of the United States, the government should ban assault weapons.
The history of school shootings has shown an increase in mass school shooting. The very first known school shooting in the United States occurred on July 26, 1764 in present-day Greencastle, Pennsylvania. As part of the Pontiac's Rebellion, four Lenape Native Americans entered the school house and started shooting, killing the schoolmaster Enoch Brown and about nine students. Only two students survived the massacre (“History”). Since the 1700s the United States society has changed in many ways. Schools have become more than just one room school houses and each grade has its own teacher. Furthermore, the problem of school shootings has not decreased but rather increased over the years. On the one hand, reports from the Centers for Disease Control showed that in general school violence decreased from 1992 to 200...
Lankford also states that in paragraph 4: They are felt like they have been given false hope as they were told that success and wealth comes from hard work. Not really seeing the the true success they thought could be succeed when failing making them turn on other people. I think people should understand these people with these kind of certain mental problem than to study which can help reduce mass killers, “The vast majority of people with mental illness are not violent and never will be.” ( Swanson ) Meaning a few people are, but it's hard to identify these types of people as Jonathan Metzl said in the last paragraph: “So there’s no psychiatric test that can prevent a mass shooting mass. They are hard to predict.” We, ourselves have to remind one another that we are all humans and not everyone think the same way or the way you predicted them
One of the most eye opening school shootings was on April 20, 1999 in Littleton, Colorado. Thirteen students were killed and twenty wounded in the middle of the day while attending school at Columbine High School. Two armed students opened fire just outside the building, then moved inside and gunned down more students and faculty members. This rampage lasting for just under 45 minutes. The students then turned the guns on themselves and ended their lives. The police did not show up in a reasonable time, which lead families to file lawsuits against the police department and the school. There was only one resource officer in the high school, during this time. He was located in the parking lot to watch kids drive in and out. One of the parents of the victims said, "There was no one in that school that had a gun other than the two killers, and ...
It is a sad time in American history when one can easily recount recent school shootings in their own area. This ease stems from a sharp increase in the number of firearms brought into elementary and middle schools across the country, with an intense focus on the issue beginning after the shooting of 20 children from Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut. Most school shooters are male, white, and often upper middle class. They are also more, often than not, under some type of mental stress that is causing them to create this type of violence in our communities. In fact, many school shooters are never suspected of doing any harm to their peers and teachers until it is much too late.
...ental illness. The article says, “a case usually begins with a gut feeling that something is off” (“Trigger warnings”). Workshops on mental illness should be carried out in schools and workplaces. These workshops should educate people on signs to look out for. Also educate people on who they should talk to if they notice strange behavior. According to the same article “threat assessment is essentially a three part process: identifying, evaluating, and then intervening” (“Trigger warnings”). With more people being educated about this more mentally ill people can be helped and more shootings can be prevented.
When the news reports a shooting, I start to panic and worry for the victims involved. I don’t typically start to wonder about how long the shooter was active and for how many minutes, so when reading the FBI Active Shooter report I was shocked to have found out most shooting happen within minutes. The report states “In 64 incidents where the duration of the incidents could be ascertained, 44 (69.0%) of 64 incidents ended in 5 minutes or less, with 23 ending in 2 minutes or less.” Leaving many civilians in dangerous situations because by the time a law enforcement officers arrives the shooting will stereotypically be over. I find this fact very unsettling because civilians rely on law enforcement officers to keep them safe, but not even law
Although most security measures passively make schools safer, it is not nearly enough to prevent an individual who intends on creating mass violence from completing his or her task. State representatives, national organizations, school staff, and parents need to come together to figure out the most reliable ways to prevent an active shooter situation from occurring in their schools. One solution that has been active is many schools have partnered with local law enforcement agencies to provide a police officers to patrol school grounds....
As firearm technology evolves, weapons become more efficient. These improvements come from the increasing ammo capacity, rate of fire, accuracy, and overall user friendliness. According to everytownresearch.org, roughly 91 Americans are killed each day as a result of gun violence. Currently, the murder rate of the U.S. is 25 times more than the average of other countries. The United States has also endured various mass shootings. Incidents such as the Columbine High School massacre and the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting have inspired the awareness of gun control. Although the government has been debating ways to reduce this violence, no major reforms have been developed. In response to these rates, President Obama delivered the “Address
Police and military personnel train for months and run countless mock drills to learn how to diffuse situations. They still do not know just how they would react in a real life active shooter situation. There are too many factors that can go wrong in that kind of situation. There might be other students that decide to react and just shoot the first person they see with a gun. Now you have several trigger happy people running around with guns for law enforcement to distinguish if they are a threat or ally. Any of these can result in more unnecessary injuries or
Eighty-nine people die from gun violence in the United States every day according to the Brady Campaign , from school children to victims of domestic violence to people going about their daily lives. As we mourn the lives of those killed in incidents of gun violence across the country, we need to take action. We should all do everything in our power to keep tragedies like this from happening again. When it comes to addressing mass shootings, we need new answers