In a New York Times guest essay Monday, Katherine Schweit, a retired FBI agent who also organized and oversaw the bureau's active shooter program, asked some introspective questions about the program's evolution — just six days after the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, which led to the deaths of 19 children and two adults.
Here are some excerpts from Schweit's guest piece:
"I'm wondering what I might have missed when I was asked to start the FBI's active shooter program 10 years ago. Did I have my team focus on the wrong problems? Did I spend my budget wisely to find ways to save lives? Every shooting is evaluated in three parts:
- "How could we have prevented the shooting?"
- "Did we respond effectively to save lives?"
- "How are we helping the community recover?"
Citing Schweit's piece, the FBI designated 61 shootings in 2021 as active shooter attacks — up from 40 in 2020 and 30 in 2019.
As such, Schweit initially determined that federal officials were performing better, in terms of response time to a potential shooting incident.
"But if the 78 minutes that the police in Uvalde waited before confronting the gunman at Robb Elementary are any indication, the answer is: We aren't. Waiting so long, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety said Friday, 'was the wrong decision. Period.'"
So, what prompted the long response time with Uvalde police officials? It remains a vital question, says Schweit.
"In the past two years, the Uvalde school district has hosted at least two active shooter trainings," said Schweit, while citing a Times report.
"[One training session] was two months ago. Current protocol and best practices say officers must persistently pursue efforts to neutralize a shooter when a shooting is underway. This is true even if only one officer is present. This is without question the right approach."
Schweit added: "We need to understand why that protocol was not followed in Uvalde. I am still confident the FBI's focus on training to this standard was right, but I'm less confident in its execution. The officers who responded may have been unprepared for conflict, which can lead to fatal results. Law enforcement officers need to be mentally prepared before they arrive on the scene, so they can respond immediately.
"Repetitive training builds practice and confidence. Big gatherings for training every few years are more expensive and less effective for muscle memory. Instead, departments should consider more virtual tabletop exercises they can run through in an afternoon.
"Have officers walk through schools and talk with one another about how they would respond. Require officers to check all their gear before they begin a shift."
Schweit later wrote:
"[Today's] schools, at best, are giving lip service ... [to fleeing]. Most schools that train for a shooting urge students, teachers and other staff members to lock out or hide from a shooter, but almost never to run for their lives if they can.
"My friend Frank DeAngelis, a retired principal of Columbine High School in Colorado, told me he wished his students and faculty had been taught to flee. At Sandy Hook, nine first-graders survived when they were able to flee their classroom, thanks to their brave teacher Victoria Leigh Soto, who was shot and killed when she stood in front of the killer.
"I still have nightmares about details from school shootings in which survivors told me they huddled under their desks, hoping against logic that the shooter would not see them. It's hard to shed the images of victims' bodies found huddled under plastic tables, behind cloth partitions or together in a group against a wall.
"I remember telling my children that if someone approached them in a car while they were walking, they should run as fast and as far as possible. Yet in many school settings we have mistakenly discouraged students from trying their best to simply stay alive."
Schweit summarized her piece with one closing thought:
"We're told the best way to learn is from the mistakes we make. According to data from the FBI, in recent years the average number of casualties per active shooter attack has declined even as the number of attacks has increased. I think this reflects better policing and improved public awareness.
"Still, police will not likely be there in the critical first minutes of an attack on a school. In the aftermath of the wrenching tragedy in Uvalde, it's clear that, nearly 10 years after Sandy Hook, we must ask ourselves if the training designed to safeguard us against killers in our schools is the training that is working."
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