Ep 115: Outside Threats
Episode 115
Published Jul 7, 2025
Last updated Feb 18, 2026
Duration: 25:29
Episode Summary
The response to active shooter incidents outdoors—such as at parks, concerts, or large public events—is fundamentally the same, but more difficult due to limited cover, unpredictable crowd movement, and challenges with securing perimeters and access for emergency vehicles. Pre-planning, clear interagency communication, flexibility are key. Today’s podcast covers these topics and more.
Episode Notes
Episode 115 of the Active Shooter Incident Management Podcast focuses on how first responders deal with active shooter threats that happen outdoors, like at concerts, fairs, parks, or theme parks. The host, Bill Godfrey, talks with experts from law enforcement and fire/EMS about what makes these outdoor incidents different and more challenging than those inside buildings.
Main Points:
- Outdoor active shooter events are harder to manage because there is less cover and the area is much bigger. Responders have to think about where crowds gather, how big the crowd might be, and where an attacker could strike. Planning ahead is very important, including working with venue staff and making sure everyone knows the emergency plan.
- The team discusses the difficulties of providing cover in outdoor environments that face threats like vehicle ramming or IEDs, highlighting the importance of area denial, physical barriers (such as movable trucks or fire trucks), and deploying quick reaction forces.
- For fire and EMS, it’s important to figure out how ambulances and rescue teams can get in and out quickly, especially if roads are blocked. They need to work closely with police to make sure they can reach injured people quickly. Pre-planning and walkthroughs with all agencies help everyone be ready.
- Communication between police, fire, EMS, and event staff is critical. Different agencies sometimes use the same words to mean different things, so misunderstandings in terminology can lead to confusion during a crisis. Regular joint training and briefings are recommended
- If an attack happens at a place that wasn’t planned for in advance, like a busy park, it’s even more difficult. Officers have to find the attacker quickly in a large, open space with lots of people running around. Most police officers who get hurt in these situations are injured outside, often while approaching the scene.
- When the shooting stops and a "warm zone" is established, RTFs must move in quickly to treat and evacuate victims, relying on law enforcement for security. Even if they don’t know if the attacker is still there, they have to act quickly because “known bleeding doesn’t stop for unknown threats.” The goal is to save lives as fast as possible, even when the threat location is uncertain.
In summary, while the fundamental response process remains the same, outdoor active shooter incidents require more complex planning and better communication, coordination, and adaptability because of increased exposure and unpredictability.
View this episode on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/Mg5qDMnIuOo
Transcript
Bill Godfrey:- If the active shooter presents itself outside, outdoors, in a big venue, or at a popular place for people to go, what's different? That's today's topic. Stick around.
Welcome to the Active Shooter Incident Management Podcast. My name is Bill Godfrey, your podcast host. I'm joined by three of my other fellow instructors here at the National Center for Integrated Emergency Response. Across the table from me is Billy Perry on the law enforcement side. Billy, good to have you back.
Billy Perry:
- Good to be back, Bill. Thanks for having me.
Bill Godfrey:
All right. We got Chad Lake on the Fire EMS side. Chad, welcome.
Chad Lake:
- Thank you very much for having me.
Bill Godfrey:
- This is your first time on the podcast, right?
Chad Lake:
- Yes, sir, it is.
Bill Godfrey:
- All right, excited to have you here. And the old veteran Ron Otterbacher on the law enforcement side. Ron, good to have you back.
Ron Otterbacher:
- Thank you. Thank you, I appreciate it.
Bill Godfrey:
- Well, guys, today's topic is the outdoor threats. And this can go from an unexpected outdoor attack to something that, you know, a planned function, a fair, a public assembly place, concert, theme park. We can go from there. And Ron, I'm going to start off with you and pose this question to you. Because I know when you were on the job, you worked for a very, very large county that had an endless stream of special events and outdoor functions, a lot of which required security and a whole bunch of theme parks in your jurisdiction. What were some of the things that were on top of your mind when you guys, you know, you got the permit in and you're having to review and set up a security plan for an outdoor venue?
Ron Otterbacher:
- First off, I wanted to know what the estimated crowd was gonna be. So you've got an idea of how many resources you need to put there first. And then you look at the venue and say, you know, where are your threats? Where could people be? Where could people potentially launch an attack at? We understand that, you know, the first place that an active shooter event occurs is usually a business, but the second one is an outdoor event. So you've got to plan on those things. The other thing is what resources are you going to bring to bear? Are you going to set yourself up for success, such as create a rescue task force and have teams deploy as task forces around the venue so that if you have to roll into a tactical operation then they're already pre-deployed and they're ready to go. You've got security with them, you've got, you know, your EMS medical folks with it and then what are you gonna do if something kicks off? How are you gonna move people? Have you got it pre-planned so that, you know, like they say "failure to plan is planning to fail" and you've got to decide what would you do if something happened and, you know, then you've got to work on that and make sure that everyone's aware of what your plans are, including the venue people, because most of the people won't have a clue. And you're trying to do whatever you can to stop the chaos that would happen.
Bill Godfrey:
- Billy, from your perspective, I know you did a very, very long time on the SWAT team. When you guys got called to do security details and were planning for these large, you know, covering these large outdoor functions, what were some of the things that were on your mind from that super intense tactical perspective?
Billy Perry:
- Well, like Ron said, and also with the bomb squad, you're looking for the probability. Where's the probability of an issue going to be? And even when you try to guess that, you're probably going to be wrong. But we look at the probability of what it is, or the likelihood of that event being a target, which that's vacillated a lot lately. Themes that were not only seemingly, but are innocuous, whatever parade it is, as innocent as it can be, ends up being a target for something. But a lot of it's the same and a lot of it's vastly different.
How are you going to stop a vehicle? Where are you going to be? The one thing, rarely do you really actually have cover. Cover is a vacillating thing in and of itself, and outside, you know you don't really have cover. And especially from the things that we worry about, which are gunfire, the elements and things that we don't want to see us. So you've got to stay constantly mindful of things like that.
Bill Godfrey:
- And Chad, on the fire EMS side, what are the things that are on your mind when you're reviewing one of these events for a pre-plan? Where do you look at it for pre-deployment and what are the decisions that are going through your head?
Chad Lake:
- I think one of our biggest issues is going to be, how do we get our transporting units in and out of the scene? What is the easiest access for that with the venue? Do they have roads already closed down and the access points of coming into those venues? And how do we get with our law enforcement to make sure that that could be a good exit route? And how long is it going to take to open that up just for fire EMS side? Pre-staging our RTF teams, excuse me, in different areas. Again, just like Ron said, you want to do that pre-planning. Definitely do a couple walkthroughs before the event takes off. But where's going to be the easiest access points for us? And then more importantly, where's our transport units and are we going to pre-stage those areas?
Bill Godfrey:
- So I know that, you know, some agencies will do an incident action plan as part of a venue pre-plan that kind of lays out whose duties are gonna be assigned. How often have you seen that occur versus not occur? And is there typically an all-hands meeting where everybody there, law enforcement, fire EMS, gets a common briefing? What are some of the good and some of the bad that you've seen, Ron?
Ron Otterbacher:
- It actually depends on the size of the event. You know, and the example I like to use is presidential visits, you know, everyone comes together and we handle it as appropriate. Smaller events, you may only have, you know, a sector sergeant doing all the planning so they may not do an incident action plan. In my mind, everyone should do one. You should know exactly what you have planned, what you have prepared for, and there should be someone review it to say, "Hey, did you think about this?" You know, just that little review before it comes up so you have a discussion and there's no reason why if we're working with the fire department, we're not talking to the fire department. We're not talking to the fire department and saying, you know, this is what our plan is, what's your plan and, you know, it's more than just show up that day and the lieutenant from the engine company and the sergeant from the patrol units are there and they never talk to each other at all.
Bill Godfrey:
- Yeah. Chad, how about you? I know you've been involved in a lot of the pre-planning for a lot of events, some big, some small. What are the things that are on your mind about putting together a plan and making sure everybody gets briefed?
Chad Lake:
- The biggest thing is, is also getting with law enforcement, doing that walkthrough with law enforcement and coming up with the what-ifs, if this happened, if this happened, what's our response look like, where do you find the areas of concern is going to be a big deal. And then constantly going and having those meetings and those conversations days, weeks in advance to do that. The hardest thing is, is when everybody's busy and trying to get on the same schedule with different agencies. And is it just law enforcement and fire? Do we want to get the emergency management involved or the EOC people? All those different components all on the same page at the same day doing these walkthroughs, that can be challenging, too. And everybody's got to prioritize that time to do that.
Ron Otterbacher:
- And we think we all speak the same language.
Billy Perry:
- And we don't.
Chad Lake:
- We do not.
Ron Otterbacher:
- And the example I like to use is, if you tell law enforcement, charge the line, we're in an ERT situation, we're moving people back. If you tell the fire department, charge the line, you got water going down range. If you tell the power people to charge the line, we're all getting electrocuted. But we all think it means the same thing and it doesn't. So we've got to make sure that our communication is squared away so everyone understands what we're talking about.
Billy Perry:
- And I think all too often we have meetings, but we have meetings that are long and that are arduous and-
Bill Godfrey:
- Not terribly useful?
Billy Perry:
- Not terrible, not useful at all, frankly. And I think that the time for planning, the time for preparation is many, many, many events before this big one. And I think having exposure with each other and understanding how we work, because there's an old Murphy's law of combat, no attack or no contact survives the plan intact. None of it. You know, I mean, everything changes and it happens in real life too.
So I think we have to be used to working with each other. We have to learn what each other's language means. And I think knowing where our crossfire situations are, where everybody's going to be, who has the main area of responsibility, that's the thing. And like Chad saying, I think having RTFs pre-deployed and used to working together is key.
Bill Godfrey:
- And so interesting, Chad mentioned, you know, when he was looking at it, what are the areas of concern? And you kind of talked about that too. You said, how do we stop a vehicle from coming in through the crowd? What in your mind would, because you can look at this from a very interesting perspective, not just as a law enforcement officer, not just as a SWAT guy, but also as a bomb guy. What in a large, let's say an outdoor concert, you know, 25, 30,000 people, what in your mind becomes some of those areas of concern that you would be like, "Hmm, we should do something there."
Billy Perry:
- I think egress, I think ways that people can get something there, whether it's a vehicle-borne IED, or whether it's something just to ram a crowd, which has become increasingly popular as of late. I mean, being aware of that and however we're going to stop that, whether it's bollards or whatever barriers, barricades we're going to use, which can be a vehicle. Fire trucks are really good at that. And, you know, what are we going to do there? I think area denial is important, but I think intelligence and awareness is nothing replaces.
Chad Lake:
- If I can add with with the barricades and stuff too, and setting it up for a good secure perimeter, will that hinder where ambulances or transporting units can come in? Because that area might be a great ambulance exchange point. But now we have to how easy it is to move barricades.
Billy Perry:
- Not.
Chad Lake:
- Obviously, we're not using plastic barrels to stop a car. But if it's a garbage truck or a fire truck, can we just get in that, move it and then bring it back? That'd be a better idea than maybe using these big barricades that we can't move.
Bill Godfrey:
- Yeah. And I know that I've seen a number of venues where they've used, you know, big public works trucks, dump trucks, cement trucks, things like that as physical barricades, and that which might allude lend itself to what you're describing, Chad, about being a movable barricade. When you're laying out the plan, we talked about, you know, the idea of your contact teams, or where you're going to put your SWAT guys, or rescue task force. But what about all the other positions that would need to be stood up if there was an event? Staging, tactical triage and transports location, should those all be pre-planned? And should we have more than one?
Billy Perry:
- Obviously, I'm a Department of Redundancy Department guy, I think two is one, one is none. So yeah, I think your QRFs, your quick reaction forces, I think, you know, your observers, your sniper observers, I think all those have to be redundant, and know where they are, know where each other is, obviously, know where your RTFs are primarily, even though they're going to have an area they respond to. But I think the role of the RTF... I don't know, I don't want to speak out of school. But I think in an outdoor event, something like that, that role could almost be tweaked, because they could have a greater propensity if they're a pre-stage unit. They have a greater propensity for firing and taking fire than in a response unit. Does that make sense?
Bill Godfrey:
- Because they're already on the field?
Billy Perry:
- Because they're already on the field. Is that? Am I saying that correctly, I guess?
Bill Godfrey:
- Well, I mean, I guess it'd be a concern whether you've got them deployed. You know, I think back to the one October attack that occurred out in Vegas. And now, it was just it was so large and just so overwhelming, that a lot of the pre-planned assumptions kind of went out of the window. And they ended up with something that overall, was too big to manage as one thing and having to split it up and do a bunch of different things. And I'm wondering, you know, when you're pre-planning an event, should that be a consideration? You know, what if this really does go sideways and we end up with hundreds injured?
Billy Perry:
- Right.
Bill Godfrey:
- Does that change the math on how you prepare?
Ron Otterbacher:
- Absolutely it does, because you've got all your pre-positioned units, and that may include people that are deployed throughout the crowd just to monitor the crowd. That would include the fire folks. But once it hits that, you've got all the follow-on responders coming. Where do they go to? How do they get in? We blocked off access. More than just the ambulance exchange point, now you've got all your follow-on units coming in to assist and they can't get in. And we talked about, you know, and we use dump trucks back for several presidential visits and clubs. Are your drivers staying with the dump trucks? Are they taking the keys out? So there's so many things you have to think about that may not be on our initial focus that you've got to consider to make sure that your response is appropriate. But in a situation like that, just as any active shooter event, you're going to have a bunch of folks. And where are you going to put those folks when they get there? How are they going to get in to where you need them?
Bill Godfrey:
- Chad, what do you think?
Chad Lake:
- Well, I think, well, going back to the RTF, too, if you're on the open area, and something does happen, would it be unrealistic to bump up more of the law enforcement side of that RTF team? So instead of the traditional two and two, what if I do two and four, because I'm open and I'm, you know, for the fire, for the protection, for the fire EMS guys, we can have more security looking out for maybe additional hazards or threats. And we can so that the fire EMS guys can go start treating and whether they're moving the patients or whatever the case may be. So maybe alter your RTF setup. And then having your command positions, having them pre-planned in a way, but again, just Bill, like you said, having them into a different what's plan A, what's plan B, what's plan C, because all that's going to change depending on where the attack is and where those hazards could be going. And then you're seeing what could happen next is something else coming behind it. So you might have to have your initial plan, your alternate plan, and then A through Z, just in case.
Bill Godfrey:
- Okay, so now let me spin us a little bit different direction. So we were talking there about the idea of a pre-planned event where we're, have some large outdoor function. Now I want you to think about instead something that is not pre-planned. Take your typical park where on the weekends, it's a very popular location for birthday parties. It's one of these very large, very nice parks. And there's typically hundreds, if not 1,000 people there on the weekends. Gatherings of people for all different kinds of celebrations, and you end up with an attack. And then this particular scenario, you have an attacker that's shooting. You've got a whole bunch of people, more than a dozen that have been already hit. When you're rolling into that as the first arriving officers, what is different about that being an outdoor area, Billy?
Billy Perry:
- Well, where are most officers shot?
Bill Godfrey:
- Outdoors.
Billy Perry:
- On the approach, correct? So, I mean, you're in the hopper. However, it is one of those dichotomies and it's one of those extenuating circumstances where for eons, officers have said, it's not my job to get shot. And my personal pet peeve is any officer that says the most important thing is for me to go home at night, 'cause that's totally contraindicative of my ethos and the law enforcement officer code of ethics. However, if they are shooting at you, it's better than them shooting at an innocent because nobody volun-told you to do this and I think you can go do it. And I think you've got to be aggressive. You've got to locate, close with, and engage. And it's crazy, it's probably the most dangerous thing that is done in law enforcement based on studies. Is that not accurate?
Bill Godfrey:
- No, that's the recent studies, and they continue to prove out that most officers are being shot on the exterior, most commonly on the approach to the building, not on the interior doing room entries where there's an inordinate amount of training taking place. Ron, how about you? You're one of the first few officers rolling in. What's on your mind that's a little bit different about it being a large outdoor area with people just kind of running everywhere?
Ron Otterbacher:
- Trying to isolate the bad guy, figure out where he's at or she's at, and trying to move towards that threat, trying to neutralize the threat. But in a building, they tend to migrate to a certain area. Out in the open, you have no idea where they could go to. You have no idea, you know, is the description you're getting a good description? Because now you've got to sort through a thousand people that are all standing there to find that needle in the haystack.
Billy Perry:
- The one negative truth.
Ron Otterbacher:
- Right, right. And so the other thing is, how are you deciding to move? You know, are you moving as a single person? If you're the first one there, yeah, you're going to move as a single person. There's so many variables that you have to look at. Where was they last seen? You know, what was the last encounter they did? You know, what type of weapon they have? You're looking at everything. And I think there's more of an unknown out in an open area than there is in a building, in my mind, just because you have no idea where they've traversed to.
Billy Perry:
- And it's a challenge. We trained in bounding.
Ron Otterbacher:
- Right.
Billy Perry:
- We train our patrol unit, you did as well. Bounding, bounding overwatch. And he would give a class on it and you would explain it. You would even model it and then they would do it primarily wrong. And then that's the last time they did it.
Bill Godfrey:
- But they remembered to do it correctly in the field.
Billy Perry:
- Right...
Bill Godfrey:
- No?
Billy Perry:
- Never, ever. And, except for never. And not that they didn't want to, it's just that's the nature of the beast. That's the way it is. And you don't have time to do, to become a master of everything, but I think that's a biggie. But we've got to find them, close with them. The other thing is getting fixated on it, because they do leave. And if they leave, you've won. And we stay focused on, they're here, they're here. Well, they're not. They're gone.
Bill Godfrey:
- So, you gave me a perfect segue, because I'm going to bring up the difficulty level here and put it to you this way. You've got over a dozen people that are down. There are just hundreds and hundreds of people screaming, running around, some hiding, fleeing. The shooting has stopped and you have no information on whether the suspect is still in the park or has left the scene, but there is no shooting going on when you arrive. How do you work to secure the area to be able to get a rescue task force in? Chad, I'm gonna come to you after.
Billy Perry:
- Allow me to quote some heroes. "Known bleeding does not stop for unknown threats." The end.
Ron Otterbacher:
- And has your planning been sufficient enough to where, you know, if you've got that big a crowd, do you have any of your armored vehicles there? Can they go up, put themselves between someone, or can we put the people we used to practice, you know, victim rescue up through the bottom of the armored personnel carriers?
Billy Perry:
- And do you know where the between is? 'Cause if they're moving, they can move anywhere. And so, I mean, sometimes you just kind of lean into the strike zone and hope it doesn't hit you and pick them up, you know? And if something, if we do get engaged, engage back.
Bill Godfrey:
- So no shootings going on. It is by now, you know, a warm zone as we've had five, 10 minutes with no gunshots fired. We need to get the rescue task forces in. What, if anything, do we do differently about how those rescue task forces move forward and engage with the patients?
Billy Perry:
- Well, we're gonna get flamed for this, but I'm gonna be like, "Chad, let's do this. We're about to write songs about us. Let's go."
Chad Lake:
- We're in. We're in.
Billy Perry:
- And make it happen.
Bill Godfrey:
- Yeah, well, Chad, what are your thoughts? Assume you're one of the rescue task force leaders on the first one going in. Being open and understanding what's going on, does it change your math on how quickly you want to get those patients up off the ground and moved where you're going to do some of your treatment? Does it affect your decision-making?
Chad Lake:
- I don't think so. If law enforcement tells us it is secured and we all know we're in a warm zone and it is secured, we're going in. We have to trust that they're going to provide our security. Let's all jump into an engine or suppression unit, drive up to the scene and we can maybe use that as a shield while we get out and we can start assessing the patients and starting to triage appropriately which ones are critical, which ones need to go. The challenge would be if it's a, you know, like I said, it's a big park and all 15 are injured are not together and you have injured 100 feet away, you need more RTFs and more resources down there, including law enforcement to secure that little area as well. That's going to be the challenge. And, but as long as law enforcement says it's secured, we have to trust that and we have to be all in.
Bill Godfrey:
- And by the way, I want to kind of define what we mean for, you know, warm zone means security measures have been taken by law enforcement. Doesn't mean it's safe.
Billy Perry:
- Nope.
Chad Lake:
- No.
Bill Godfrey:
- Doesn't mean that the security measures are adequate. It just means-
Ron Otterbacher:
- You got something there.
Billy Perry:
- And I think we have to rely on the A, B, C, D, S of cover. A is accurate fire, B is ballistics, C is actually cover, D is distance, and S is speed. And I think if we can get in there, scoop 'em, get 'em out, that's gonna be the, 'cause again, it's stopped. If they're over here and we know they're over here, it's easy to put a barricade there. If they're not, if we have no idea where the suspect is, that's where to barricade from what? 'Cause if we're barricading here, they're over here. I mean, we just have to be able to have our heads on a swivel, move quickly, assess quickly, treat quickly and move.
Bill Godfrey:
- Let me ask you this, Chad mentioned the idea of bringing the fire truck forward and trying to use it as a partial barricade, you know, at least on one side. Does that help? Does that make it better if you bring one or two fire trucks in, if your people are in a common area, you know, the typical pavilion setup where you've got a couple of pavilions that are next to each other, you know, the barbecue grills, and that's where the bulk of the people are laying, does it help to get a little bit cover either on one side?
Billy Perry:
- Yes. I'm a big fire truck fan. I've used them for class A anchors my whole career. I mean, I'll talk to a fire truck in a minute, you know? I mean, so yeah, fire trucks are cover.
Ron Otterbacher:
- Provided you put the water between you and the bad guy.
Billy Perry:
- Right, or the wheels-
Ron Otterbacher:
- Or just count on the aluminum siding of the fire truck.
Billy Perry:
- Right, no, put the water in the axles and the stuff.
Bill Godfrey:
- The hose bed, that's a good stopper too.
Billy Perry:
- Yeah, it's a really good stopper. It's a good baffle.
Bill Godfrey:
- Well, as we wrap this one up, outdoor responses, does it really change anything? Or is it really the same process, you just got more areas of exposure?
Billy Perry:
- That's it. It's the same process, but it's-
Ron Otterbacher:
- More complex.
Billy Perry:
- more complex in the sense that you don't have concealment.
Bill Godfrey:
- It's the same but harder.
Billy Perry:
- Exactly. Same but different.
Bill Godfrey:
- Same but different. All right, well, we'll wrap it up with that one there. Thank you to our producer, Karla Torres. As always, if you have some questions about this, you can put them into the comments or shoot us an email at info@c3pathways.com. That's I-N-F-O@c3pathways.com. Or if you have some particular challenges you'd like to discuss, give us a call. And until next time, stay safe.