SHOULD SCHOOL CHILDREN BE TAUGHT TO FIGHT BACK AGAINST ARMED INTRUSION?

Should School Children Be Taught to Fight Back Against Armed Intrusion?

Sherri L. Warnock

School invasions are modern phenomena rightly invoking the utmost of media attention and public concern. Although we have experienced only a few school shootings throughout the nation, public perception is that the frequency of such threats is on the rise. Consequently, public confidence in school officials to adequately provide safe learning environments for students is dwindling. After broadcasts of recent incidents depicting images of children gunned downed in their schools, particularly those of five innocent Amish girls, individual parents began taking a personal stance asking, “Can this happen in my child’s school?” “What can be done to prevent it?” And, “What should my child do in the face of imminent danger?” Many parents are disappointed to learn that security measures in most schools are either non-existent or inconsistently maintained.

In response to parental demands, some schools in large cities have implemented various security measures such as security guards, hall monitors, metal detectors, and so on. These measures certainly aide in reassuring anxious parents, and by limiting access, they may prevent violence familiar to urban schools such as drug deals gone bad or domestic disputes, but they provide little defense against armed intrusion. Taking advice from a Secret Service study completed after Columbine, most programs developed to thwart armed attacks have centered on identifying troubled students with the potential of resorting to this type of violence. However, it is not only troubled students the school community needs to fear; it is also the deranged citizen or the fanatical terrorist. Because these acts provide the most notoriety, children and schools are prime targets for horrifying acts of violence that, to say the least, aggrieves and astounds civilized communities. To be able to perform these violent acts unimpeded is the primary motivation of the perpetrator. The notoriety as a result of the violence is the desired consequence.

Just south of Ft. Worth, in the small town of Burleson, Texas, students were being trained to immediately fight back against an armed intruder. Relying on the theory that there is safety in numbers and on the advantage of taking a gunman by surprise, students and teachers were encouraged to throw objects, make a lot of noise, and even rush the gunman, in the hopes of gaining control of the situation and limiting the number of potential deaths. Robin Browne, a major in the army reserves in Great Britain, and an instructor for Response Options takes credit for designing the course, which admittedly has its risks. “This is not a burglar! This is not a bank robber!” claims Browne in a statement to ABC news. “This is someone who has come onto school property with the express intention of using a deadly weapon to hurt and dominate people who cannot necessarily defend themselves.” Browne likens this person to a serial killer; power and control over life and death being the ultimate aim of the intruder. “We are dealing with a predator here and a predator, when he is offered prey, and the prey gives in, will take advantage of that prey. What we are teaching here is for the children not to allow the predator to take control.” Conceding that the first person to take the initiative and attack the gunman may be mortally wounded, Browne asserts that the surrender of this one person’s life, or the lives of a few, may save the lives of many others. “He won’t be able to shoot the fourth, fifth, eighth, twentieth, or thirtieth.”

At first, parents, students, teachers, and other local community members seemed to embrace this sort of take charge mentality, often citing the success of those who took the risk and fought back against the high-jackers’ of United flight 93 intended for the Pentagon. However, safety experts outside of Burleson have taken exception to the program. “When it comes to fighting an attacker, even SWAT teams have a hard time knowing what to do. How can we expect kids to know what to do,” asks Ronald Stephens, executive director of National School Safety in a statement to ABC news. Critics of the fight back program have caused Burleson to rethink its position and curtail further training in these methods.

In searching blogs for remarks from parents in various parts of the United States, I found a prevailing sense of helplessness. Many of these remarks centered on individual advice that parents are giving to their youngsters should they be faced with the unlikely event of a school intruder. One parent in a letter to the editor of Salon.com remarked that police departments should rethink their method of response to school invasions because they are so very different from bank hostage situations. “Bad guys in a bank can hold on to the dream of escaping with money, bad guys in a school aren’t there to impose their method of teaching trig.” This parent goes on to advise his youngster “don’t wait and listen to the police or your teachers…The teachers are unable and unprepared to deal with a shooter…run like hell, or fight, but fight to kill.”

William Lassiter, manager of the North Carolina based Center for the Prevention of School Violence seems to agree with the sentiments of the above anonymous parent. In a statement to the Portsmouth Herald local news, Mr. Lassiter declares that fighting back is worthy of further consideration and may bear some merit given observations from recent attacks. “At Columbine, teachers told students to get down and get on the floors, and gunmen went around and shot people on the floors. I know this sounds chaotic and I know it doesn’t sound like a great solution, but its better then leaving them there to get shot.” In defense of the abandoned fight back program, Jeanie Gilbert, district director of emergency management for Burleson said, “We want them to know if Miss Valley says to run out of the room screaming, that is exactly what they need to do.”

It is a sad commentary that we even have to think about such things. It seems rather utilitarian philosophically that your child may have to consider risking life and limb in order to save fellow classmates. In fact, in light of the infrequency of such events, it is very unlikely that youngsters you may know and love will be faced with making such a decision. But, then again, one never knows. Who would have guessed that just such an occurrence would have happened in Columbine or Bailey, Colorado? Or, Essex, Virginia? Or, of all places Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania? These tragedies have had a reverberating effect bordering on paranoia nationwide.

Recently, I have been working as a substitute school teacher for kindergarten through twelfth grades, to include special education, in local schools throughout Franklin County, Ohio. I was working in a cross categorical classroom at a middle school in the southern part of the county. Excitedly, a teacher from another classroom came in and told us to turn on our television. She announced that there were shots fired near a MRDD school in the downtown area, and they were “locked down.” At the same time, four bodies had been discovered in Florida. There was no further news coverage of the downtown shots fired. I looked around my tiny classroom in a modular building a short distance from the main building and I asked myself what I would do if a gunman were to walk in that classroom right then! I had two girls in wheel chairs with multiple disorders and virtually unable to communicate. I had two autistic children who required the repetition of simple instruction. I had one boy who might comprehend what was going on, but who would most likely have questioned the gunman too much. I had two teacher’s aides, but what did they know about such situations? What had they been trained to do? How could I protect them? I am a former police officer and soldier, but I would have been as much of a target as they were; unarmed except for my wits.

At another time, in another district, I was teaching a middle school reading class when an alarm sounded. A PA announcement was made, “Intruder drill.” Children were up and drawing blinds, one closed the classroom door, and they all gathered in a corner of the room. One mass of about twenty five students. One large target. I don’t think that I have yet comprehended the gravity of this situation in its entirety. I asked questions of other teachers present that day, and they informed me that this was the response that the local police department had instructed them in. I kept my opinion to myself, but I think a better response would have been to stand ready to attack should a gunman come through the door, or better yet, to stand ready for an escape.

Security cameras and metal detectors may deter some criminal objectives, but schools will remain an inviting mark for victimization, because they have an ample supply of desirable assets, children. Children offer the least resistance, and are of little or no threat to what Major Browne has aptly termed a predator. And, children are valued above all else in most societies, particularly ours. Set in a susceptible environment that is lenient by nature in order to produce the most conducive of learning situations, a predator can easily take advantage of the given circumstance. It is best if both teachers and students are educated, trained and prepared to understand and analyze the nature of the threat, as well as the intent of the perpetrator. We fear most what we know the least about. We fear the unknown. We can eliminate this fear, at least in part through knowledge and practice; developing the same mindset amongst all those most likely to be targeted.

Unlike a burglar or bank robber, whose intent is to steal money or property and escape, the school shooter is a predator whose intent is to cause fear, to dominate, and to hurt others through the indiscriminate use of a firearm. They have no fear, especially of dying, as is evidenced by the commission of suicide upon impending capture. We should not expect our children and teachers to sit huddled gravely together with their hands positioned passively in their laps awaiting rescue that may take hours to begin, or to be executed either one at a time or en-mass. In spite of the risks, fighting back may be the only option to the excessive loss of precious lives. And, if this is the case, then doesn’t it make sense to be prepared? Doesn’t it make sense that every student and teacher be thinking in a like manner? To react in the same way? Response Options believes that “proactive planning and prior preparation instills a commitment to and personal confidence in taking rapid and positive action should a critical incident occur.” Teachers and students are taught to “get inside the attacker’s decision cycle, and get them off-balance through the application of organized chaos devised to counter, confound, confuse, and defeat” the intruder.

School intrusion incidents such as we are discussing here really are quite rare, and the best response is a well practiced and rehearsed response. Responses born of paranoia and misperceptions of a growing need to fortify our schools with a myriad of inconsistent and ill maintained security measures is not sensible, nor reasonable. Locked doors, metal detectors, hall monitors and so on are effective if they are maintained and implemented professionally. Probably the worst offenders are the ones who are the most concerned. Parents! They complain about restrictions that limit their access to the school and their children. Teachers could be more diligent in confronting strangers by simply asking, “May I help you?” Again this comes down to training and information sharing. It is our first line of defense and warrants our best efforts. But, when all else fails, lets be sensible and prepared. Let’s be prepared to escape or fight back!