Ep 59: Top 5 ASIM Misconceptions
Episode 59
Published Nov 13, 2023
Last updated Feb 18, 2026
Duration: 40:23
Episode Summary
When we talk about active shooter incident management, have you ever wondered what are the big misconceptions? That's today's topic -- the TOP 5 misconceptions of Active Shooter Incident Management.
Episode Notes
In this episode we debunk five of the biggest misconceptions of Active Shooter Incident Management. Pete Kelting, Don Tuten, Jill McElwee, and Bill Godfrey set the record straight with detailed explanations, facts, and statistics. The number one may shock you -- don't miss this episode!
View this episode on our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jmWWDV6Qy8
Transcript
Bill Godfrey:When we talk about active shooter incident management, have you ever wondered what are the big misconceptions? That's today's topic. Stick around, we're gonna talk about the top five misconceptions of active shooter incident management. Welcome to the "Active Shooter Incident Management" podcast. My name is Bill Godfrey, podcast host. Sitting with me is Don Tuten, one of our law enforcement instructors. Across to the table, Peter Kelting, another one of our law enforcement instructors. And Jill McElwee, back in the house. One like myself on the fire EMS side. Welcome everybody. So today's topic is the top five misconceptions of active shooter incident management. And we actually did a little bit of polling with the instructors, and we used a fancy thing called nominal grouping technique to figure out what the top five was. So there's a little bit of science, and I emphasize the word little bit of science, but these really did stick out as the top five. So starting with number five, schools are the most common target. That is the number five biggest misconception. Peter, lead us off.
Pete Kelting:
I think schools always comes up as the most common target because it's something that's very emotional to all of us. We have children from the community to the first responders, and again, the media coverage of those events at the schools. Obviously, they're heart-wrenching, they're tragic, and you know, we see it all the time. So, however, that's not the case by our statistics that show that you know, schools is not the main venue of active shooter events.
Bill Godfrey:
That's right, it is actually number three. Businesses are the most common target. Over half of active shooter events occur at businesses. Number two is open-air venues like concerts and outdoor venues, and number three is schools which had been declining, but we also don't really know what our impact of COVID was on those numbers yet, but school sits number three. But why do you think that is, Don? Why is there so much impression in the general public and amongst responders that schools are that biggest target?
Don Tuten:
Yeah, I think Pete hit on it. I think it gets the majority of the media coverage that tugs on people's emotions. I mean, listen, any active shooter event where people lose their lives is tragic. Any one of them. But it brings it home a little bit more when you know there's, and I hate to use the word defenseless, but I don't know of another word right now, but a person sitting in class, doing what they're supposed to do, they have no way of defending themselves whatsoever, and an assailant goes in and takes you know, young people's lives. I mean and I think that gets sensationalized without looking at any statistics. I hate to say this, but it brings in ratings for news agencies, and it is something that this entire country, no matter what, doesn't matter what political venue that you believe in, anything that deals with kids getting killed, it brings everybody together.
Jill McElwee:
Yeah, you have that added component for of the parents because there's that you know, at a business, there's typically there those that aren't involved. Once the investigation has come to a point where it's appropriate, they're gonna get in their vehicle, they're gonna drive home, but with an active shooter at a school, with a school incident, then we're talking about children who we have parents, That reunification concept adds that added layer. So typically when we, in the response arena, start thinking active shooter, and as with most things, we go to what is, I'll say the worst, now they're all, but what is gonna cost us or cause us the most work or the amount of components affiliated with that. And with a school shooting, it just raises that level of response to that next level where we have added responsibilities for reunifying children, for getting the names and identification. Children don't run around with driver's license typically, unless you're in a you know, an age appropriate school. So with the identification, there's just a lot of added components to that. So I think it rises to that level. So when we start, when you say active shooter, along with the attention that it gets in the media as a responder, I start thinking man, is this a school? Because if it's a school, then I know we need to make sure we're covering down on, you know, all of those added components.
Don Tuten:
Well, in 25, what was it, 23, 25 years ago when Aurora happened that was kind of got, that got the nation's attention on how important this response is, how important law enforcement and fire department is on going to these events. And I think a lot of people still go back to that event that just encapsulated the United States during that time.
Bill Godfrey:
You talking about Columbine?
Don Tuten:
In Columbine.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah.
Don Tuten:
Absolutely.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, I think so. I think it's a pretty understandable phenomenon, especially given what each of you has said. We worry more about schools. It's a collection of kids, not adults. And it's a high density collection of kids, which makes them very unwitting, potential targets in these attacks and horrible, tragic events every single time. But I think the emotional connection to that is what gives it an outsized proportion in our mind about the frequency of the attacks. But here's the funny thing, funny's not the right word. Here's the challenge for me. I'm not so sure that the focus on schools is misplaced. There's far more that can go wrong in school attacks than we would typically see at a more common business. The collection of kids, a very potentially high density collection of kids. If you get a shooter on campus that's already gotten past whatever security measures, there's a delay. These campuses are laid out. In some cases they're a little bit confusing.
Law enforcement, the school resource officer knows their way around campus like it's their house, but the average patrol officer may not. And so, and then Jill, you mentioned the reunification working with the school, compliments of social media. The parents will be at the perimeter before we have a perimeter set. We've had instances where parents are wanting to charge in and we're getting confrontations between parents and law enforcement. In some cases violent confrontations between parents and law enforcement. And I understand the psychology of all that, but those are challenges that are very, very unique to schools. And so even those schools are the number three target. And it's below 20%. It's actually, it was at 19% prior to COVID and now it's less than that. But I suspect the 19-20 percent's probably about right. But it's sitting in the number three slot. I think that having it top of mind for responders is probably a good thing because if you can handle a school incident, you'll be able to handle the open air venue. You'll be able to handle the business. Would you anybody disagree? Agree?
Pete Kelting:
Not at all. The complexity of the school is just up there. It's you know, it's top of our concerns. You know, as we just discussed, we may be saying a you know, a ranking order, but it's kind of like watching a horse race. You know, they're crossing the finish line within milliseconds.
Bill Godfrey:
Yes.
Jill McElwee:
Good point.
Pete Kelting:
You know, our preparedness for any active shooter event, especially schools, needs to be topnotch, you know, ready for that complexity.
Don Tuten:
And it's changed. I mean listen, since you know, since Columbine school safety has been, there's more awareness for school safety now, it's harder for law enforcement. You actually have to train with your fire department personnel. I mean how are you gonna get in schools? They lock schools down now where, you know, businesses and open-air venues do not have that challenge. So, and it's something that we continuously train to. And then that is you know, I hate to use the word standard, but we've put that as listen, we have to be able to handle this. And I think you mentioned it, the rest kind of, hate to use the word fall into place. 'cause that's really the, once again, not the right word, but that's one of the hardest.
Bill Godfrey:
They're not as difficult as challenged.
Don Tuten:
It's not as difficult as challenged. Exactly. Exactly.
Bill Godfrey:
And it's interesting you mentioned the security measures, Don, that have come up over the last several years. And always dangerous to do math live on air. I think you mentioned that in our earlier podcast.
Jill McElwee:
Ugh, never do math in public.
Bill Godfrey:
But about five years ago, school shootings were sitting in the number two spot at about 25%. Businesses has always been the most common target. But just five years ago they were at 25%. We were at 19% before COVID. And of course it's dropped since then. I expect that number will bounce back up a little bit. Point being that we've dropped six percentage points in four or five years, even though the dataset includes data from 21 coming on 22 years now of data that's been tracked. And when you look at the numbers, that's a statistically significant change. In other words, some of the safety measures that have been put in place have had an impact, a very positive impact to reduce the frequency of these tragic events. What's very frustrating to me is that we don't know what it was that did it. We don't know whether it was putting school resource officers on campus, putting armed people on campus, putting security screening on campus, putting fences around campuses, training teachers and administrators the awareness, we don't know. I mean, it might have been a combination of all the above, but-
Jill McElwee:
May be situationally dependent too, Bill. It could be that this is what had an impact on this region or this school, but this school, it required a couple of those. I think it's like with a disease process, you know, and when the docs tell us these are the five things I need you to do. One or a combination of these five things are gonna straighten you up, you know? And so it's just taking lessons learned and realizing that if you had a soft, you know, if the school's a soft target, let's not make it a soft target. So that's one thing. You know, and just combating these challenges one by one.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, I think so. It's just, it's so frustrating to me as a nation, we're spending billions of dollars to try to make our schools a little bit safer. Something we've done worked and we don't know what it is.
Don Tuten:
Well, and it's accepted. The more we do for schools, it's accepted. You don't get pushback from the communities because everybody wants our kids to be safe versus businesses, there's a fine line between over security and hampering you know, people coming into your business and having an open, you know, open dialogue with people. So that's-
Bill Godfrey:
Very true. Okay let's move on to the number four misconception, most common misconception. And that is law enforcement doesn't use ICS. We've heard this one time and time again.
Don Tuten:
Yeah, I can, and I know Pete and I both, and you guys know this as well. Throughout the country, well, number one, I guess if you have to define ICS, what is ICS and is it, you know, we talk about it in our class, is it backing up with a 18 wheeler full of paperwork and having to go through each paperwork? But it's basically, it's a management system. And we've been doing this for years. Maybe we just didn't call it, and we both have, you know, law enforcement and fire, but maybe we didn't call it ICS. But with that said, you know, over the past 20 years, I think all law enforcement agencies to some extent understand the importance of being on the same page with our fire brothers and sisters and having an incident that runs strategically, that's well versed out, that has many players that come into it. And it's basically the understanding of how, you know, the incident command system works.
Pete Kelting:
No, I can't agree more with Don. As you know, we say in the class, we use ICS just from the first officer on scene, right, that takes charge of the scene and starts, you know, separating out the responsibilities and delegating the rest of the response to that scene. We kind of joke about it on a barking dog call, right? But no, we've been practicing ICS for years now. And I think we, from law enforcement, we recognize that the more we're organized and the more we're disciplined, then the more we can focus on, you know, a proven process and put that into place and make good strategic decisions utilizing all the information and intelligence that's available to us as we work through our command.
Bill Godfrey:
And I know the three of you have heard me say this in many, many classes as kind of part of my standard shtick when we talk about ICS and law enforcement because we have heard this as we travel across the country. And I always say the same thing respectfully to those law enforcement officers who think they don't use ICS, I disagree. And here's why. And I walk 'em through the example. When the first officer shows up and they're the only one there, who's in charge? Well, that officer is. And when the sergeant shows up, who's in charge? The sergeant is. When the lieutenant shows up, who's in charge, Most of them say the sergeant 'cause we don't let lieutenants take charge of anything. But the the point being is that there's already an established hierarchy that law enforcement has been using for years and years and years and years, and it works well. And fundamentally it is roots that is the incident command system. Who's in charge? Who am I working for? Who is working for me? What is my mission? What is my task and purpose?
Don Tuten:
Absolutely.
Bill Godfrey:
What do I have to report to my, who is my boss who's working for me? That's it. And now we've, the fire service and FEMA, we meant well, we meant well
Jill McElwee:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
But yeah, it didn't go so good. We've convinced law enforcement that, to your point, Don, ICS means an 18 wheeler tractor truck is gonna back up with paper and vomit paper on your scene.
Jill McElwee:
There's a form for that.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, there is. There is. And it's not, that's not what ICS is.
Jill McElwee:
Right.
Bill Godfrey:
And so when you, I think when you take it down to that level, at least it's been my experience as we travel the country for law enforcement officers, it just kind of disarms the hesitation and the angst about it. We don't want you to change how you're doing that. The sergeant still has management responsibilities. Lieutenant has management responsibilities up and down the food chain. In fact, the only really thing we're asking you to do is just call yourself something different on the radio. So if you're seven Mary three day to day, if you're the incident commander, you're command on the radio. If you are the one running tactical, Don, you're tactical on the radio.
Don Tuten:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
If Pete's on a contact team, he's contact one, contact two, contact three. And so I think when you break it down to that level, it's disarming for most law enforcement, or at least it seems to be in my experience. Would would you agree Jill?
Jill McElwee:
Oh yeah. I think that you just hit it on the head. It's just taking that negative connotation that we find from some of the classrooms. Like oh, that FEMA stuff. You know, it's like that's FEMA stuff. This is you know, we just, we learned tragically as a nation that we needed a national incident management system, that's NIMS. And one of the four components of NIMS is the incident command system. And it's simply, you know, at its ground level, is there a chain of command? We'll do our agencies, we operate with a chain of command every day. You know, we test for that, you know? We test to make rank.
Don Tuten:
It's no different than what we've always done. But we've learned to document it. That's the biggest things we've learned to document it so the next person coming in-
Jill McElwee:
Nothing. Absolutely. Yes.When we bring in multiple agencies. And when we're looking at an active shooter incident, it's typically multiple agencies, multiple disciplines, and we've all gotta talk that same language. And so that's at its ground level, that's what it is. So once we remove and we realize that we're not filling out two 14's, or you know, 4, 5, 9, 6, 7, 8, 4, you know, you should start naming the number of form that once we remove that connotation, and typically we get buy-in and for those we don't get buy-in, we just don't tell 'em that what they're doing is ICS.
Pete Kelting:
Yeah. And I think, I mean, like Don said, from a law enforcement perspective, our organizational charts are basically an ICS system.
Jill McElwee:
That's it.
Pete Kelting:
As we go out through our daily progress, right. I think what we have always done is look at maybe a couple weaknesses or failures of a part of the ICS system, IE staging for law enforcement. And that's been a challenge for us coming up through the years. And all of a sudden if we think oh, we're not doing that well, then we're not following ICS. It's just one small component. And we've made great strides to improve our staging efforts on a law enforcement side.
Bill Godfrey:
And before we leave this topic, I'll leave a a little tip for my law enforcement brothers and sisters that are listening on this one. When, not if, but when you run into that fire and EMS person who just knows everything about ICS, Jill alluded to this earlier, ask 'em to tell you what the difference between ICS and NIMS is.
Jill McElwee:
Right.
Bill Godfrey:
And they, 98% are gonna tell you it's the same. It is not. The national incident management system is the overarching thing that includes prevention and all the other kind of stuff. ICS is a part of NIMS and it directs how you manage the incident. So it's just little trivia for my law enforcement brothers and sisters when they need to-
Jill McElwee:
Bless their heart.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah give a little chin music to that all knowing firefighter that they're gonna run into. You guys are laughing.
Don Tuten:
Or forestry.
Pete Kelting:
We hold onto that so we can kick back from the donut jokes.
Bill Godfrey:
Okay, moving on. So that was number four. Number three, the number three biggest misconception in active shooter incident management is that active shooter events are mass casualty incidents. And that is categorically false. Active shooter events can be mass casualty incidents, but in fact most of them are not. And bear with me here a little bit so we all make sure we're on the same page with the statistics lesson. Everybody understands what average is. But let's talk about the median number. So the median is the middle of the dataset. So if you take all the active shooter events over the last 22 years since, you know, going through Columbine, and you take the fewest shot to the most shot, so the ones, the twos, threes, fours, fives up to what was Aurora then Pulse, now currently standing at Vegas at the top, the median of that is the middle point of that dataset. So halfway through that number laid out in order. Median number shot is three. And of those three shot, two are killed. I'm sorry, median number shot is three. Of those three that are shot, one is killed. Three shot, one of which is killed. That's not a mass casualty incident.
Jill McElwee:
Not by definition.
Bill Godfrey:
No. And how often do our listeners who are out there working the streets run car accidents with three or four people involved/ Depending on the jurisdiction they're in, that could be an everyday occurrence or a once a week occurrence. But you don't treat that as a mass casualty incident. And the impact to that us at an active shooter event is that it can slow things down. You know, and the clock is ever present.
Jill McElwee:
Right. And that's where, and in class we talk about this a lot with, especially the fire folks that oftentimes we have, we get a nice cool piece of equipment or a tool and we wanna use it, you know, and with an active shooter, we're thinking mass casualty and we're preparing, you know, and maybe initially we don't know the number. So we start preparing. So we park our ambulances over to the side and we use that crew to lay out the tarps, to lay out our red tarp, our yellow tarp, our green tarp. When the entire time we're doing this, we've got a clock just ticking. And on a shooting incident, we've got penetrating wounds, which means blood's not where it's supposed to be. We need this person to be transported. So if we're just laser focused on preparing for that mass casualty, we're missing the big, the the most important point, the big picture that this person has gotta get to where they can get that ultimate definitive treatment, which is in an operating room and transporting. And I think because there's that added component of knowing that this is a crime scene, that we're gonna have to go in potentially at more times than not with a security element around us on the EMS side, to get those that have been shot to a casualty collection or from a casualty collection point to that ambulance. You know, we start adding that extra component. And it's so unnecessary oftentimes where it's just listen to what you have, the numbers are gonna direct you and guide you. And so those, but preparing for that mass casualty is important. But, and I'll tell you on that back end, on the hospital end, as a nurse, I wanted to know at the trauma center, so how many are we talking, and I need numbers, not a lot or many, you know. I need numbers because we've got operating rooms that need to either be cleared or prepped for the number of people that are coming. So that's where you know, preparing for that mass casual casualty, but yet recognizing the actual number that we have.
Don Tuten:
I think a lot of it goes back and we talk about it in class, the Los Angeles airport, you know, the media shows, I mean, hundreds of people running, you know, out of a terminal area where-
Bill Godfrey:
And if you've ever flown through LAX, you understand why you would be thinking active shooter mass casualty.
Don Tuten:
Absolutely.
Bill Godfrey:
I get that completely. The place is a zoo.
Don Tuten:
Absolutely. So I think that's a mentality that is, you know, one of those things where people don't know, they don't do this type of work, they don't understand exactly what the reality is. I mean, you know, of how these things operate. You automatically think that there's hundreds of people killed.
Jill McElwee:
Yeah.
Don Tuten:
I mean, and in that case there's thousands of people running and there was, I think only one killed. So it's a you know, it's one of those things where it's education. I think it's a misconception of it's gonna be horrible and terrible and it's the worst of the worst. Where the reality is hey listen, let's go in there, let's do our job. Let's communicate exactly what we have, and then let's make it go away as fast as we can.
Jill McElwee:
Those contact teams, those initial contact teams, that information that they can give over the radio back to tactical, who can then turn to the triage officer and then triage can then in turn to let transport know, okay, we had three in the first room there. You know, if they're still at this, say we have three wounded here, then two in the next, we can start doing that math. You know, 'cause we'll have a board and we don't have to do it in public. But that's you know, knowing those numbers is so important. And we stress that in our classes. And it's great to know the why. The why is, the reason that we call hospitals and get those bed counts and how many reds, how many yellows, how many greens can you take? It's not just so that they can have a welcome committee. They're clearing operating rooms, they're calling in surgeons, they're canceling elective surgery so that they can, at the minute that patient rolls into the emergency room, we're taking them straight up to that operating room for that, to stop that bleeding and to fix whatever injury they have.
Pete Kelting:
Yeah, and Bill, you know, we talk about this in class is you know, getting that MCI thought process accurately analyzed because over convergence, over response of resources and personnel gaming it so to speak, because that's the way we think we need to set up when we start getting into the complex coordinated attack. You know, did we over respond? Did we over converge on a single incident when something else could pop off somewhere else close And then we need to you know, step back and punt it.
Don Tuten:
Resources for that.
Bill Godfrey:
Good point.Certainly. And before we leave this, I want to be explicit in this example for everybody, whether you're law enforcement, fire, EMS, medically trained or not. Pretty common for people to use helicopters for transporting critical trauma. Now not everybody does it, it depends on your geography and it depends on your availability of an EMS helicopter. But most everybody, if they don't use 'em, knows what it looks like. And I always use the example of okay, so the you got a bad trauma call, patient's critical, need to get 'em into the trauma center as quickly as possible. The helicopter lands, you load that patient up and 90 seconds later that helicopter is airborne. I mean that helicopter's on the ground for less than two minutes. And everybody always looks at me and they look at each other and they look back at me and they start just unconsciously shaking their head like no dude, what are you talking about? The helicopter's on the ground, 10, 15 minutes. You know, the crew is playing you know, 20 questions to stump the chump with you, reassessing your patient, changing 'em over to the other thing. And next thing you know, you called this multimillion dollar vehicle to transport the patient because we were in a hurry and 10 to 15 minutes it's sat on the ground with the blades spinning around in the air and that's the clock going tick, tick, tick. And that's a separate problem. It has nothing to do with active shooter events, but it illustrates the very issue that comes up. If you treat, if you have an active shooter event, that is not a mass casualty. It's three or four people that have been shot, but you set up the red, yellow, green tarps, and you treat it that way where you're delaying putting that patient that came out onto an ambulance, all you've done is added an extra 10, 15 minutes while the blades are just spinning around. And that's not in the best interest of that patient. That's not in the survivability of that patient. And so I always use that example to kind of illustrate the point of why it matters if it's not a mass casualty, don't treat it as one because you actually introduce delays and delays get people killed.
Jill McElwee:
That's the key.
Pete Kelting:
Well said.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah.
Jill McElwee:
It's another unit. That's another unit of blood, another unit of time.
Bill Godfrey:
Yes. All right, so that was number three. Active shooter events are not mass casualty incidents. They can be, but they are most often not. Number two. Number two, the law enforcement command doesn't get set up until the first law enforcement supervisor gets there.
Don Tuten:
Yeah, I think you alluded to it earlier, that is false. Like with any call that law enforcement goes on, the first officer on scene has command and control of that scene, period. Whether it is a barking dog call, like you said earlier, or whether it is a, you know, critical incident, any critical incident. They're the first eyes on scene. They're have the responsibility of doing that initial assessment, making you know, tactical decisions right then and there that's gonna impact other responding officers. So I think in law enforcement we understand that really well, but it's an easy out for people. A lot of times they use that as an easy out because they want to go, a lot of times people either do not want to take that role, so that's their excuse they come up with, or it's, once again, it's just an easy way out. I'd much, I don't wanna do that job. I don't wanna be responsible for you know, x, y, z. So I wanna be a ground pounder, so I don't know what do you think?
Pete Kelting:
No, I mean I agree wholeheartedly. You look at an agency that may feel that way and I would have to submit that you dial back to where are you at training, where are you providing the opportunities for your folks coming into the agency to grow in leadership and you know, tactical awareness, command decision making so that you can delegate that command at the earliest point in the process so that you're not feeling like well, no one can make a decision. We can't move left or right before the, you know the sergeant gets on the scene or lieutenant gets on the scene. I think you're behind the eight ball or behind the curve if you're not forward thinking on that and getting that developed early on.
Don Tuten:
Yeah, and it's training. Pete-
Bill Godfrey:
I was just gonna say, aside from training, how much does giving officers the opportunity to practice it on other incidents, how much does that play into it?
Don Tuten:
Once again, I think they do it every single day because we communicate on every single call. If you think about it, especially on, let's say a burglary in progress, a robbery in progress, a critical incident with a shooting. You're setting up perimeters, you're giving suspect description out as quick as possible. You're having rescue come to a certain location, you're doing all the things that a supervisor does already.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah. So why aren't they formally, what is it, are we gonna see a point in time when law enforcement formally adopts the position that if they've got multiple units on a single incident, somebody needs to take charge, take command?
Pete Kelting:
I think it's the word liability comes into play sometimes. I think agencies need to be able to, you know, trust their personnel in the sense that they're gonna make the decision that's needed at the time. And then, you know, we will worry about everything else later and that we can act quickly to stop something that's in progress.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah. I know, and I'm gonna speak for myself, Jill, I was about to speak for both of us. I was on the job when ICS came into the fire service and we all had to kinda learn it and the way that it became second nature, and it took a while, you know, that whole 150 years of tradition unimpeded by progress, we mean that.
Jill McElwee:
Yes.
Bill Godfrey:
We take that stuff really seriously. It took a while, but the rule became if you had more than one unit on the scene and a unit, because the fire department doesn't ever work alone. So if a unit was there, you had at least two people, if not more. If you had more than one unit on a scene, somebody was required to establish incident command. And then if the incident grew, that command structure grew from there. I know that there's a handful of law enforcement agencies in the US that have taken that posture. I wonder if we'll see that over time. Because I think the lack of using it frequently is part of what makes people so uncomfortable with it. And if it were second nature and something that was done all the time, like every one of the things that you just mentioned, the burglary, the robbery, the bank robbery, the, you know, I don't know.
Don Tuten:
Right, sure.
Bill Godfrey:
Don, whatever those-
Don Tuten:
Insert here. Right.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, insert here. The typical law enforcement call and certainly violent event law enforcement calls where you've got more than one officer going, seems like a perfect opportunity to begin exercising this on a regular basis when you're setting up perimeters, all that other kind of stuff to get people a little more comfortable with the concepts and the terminology. And then as we've said previously, all of us, sometimes you just gotta wait it out. Sometimes you have to give time, time.
Don Tuten:
Yeah.
Jill McElwee:
And that first time you go on the radio and assume command at a call, I mean it, the first time you do it is like whew, you know, there's a nice swallow before you key that mic. But when it's done on a routine basis, then it becomes just that. It becomes routine and then it's not, you know, because once you realize or you look at the big picture, that tells everyone else responding, this is where you need to respond to, where I am, especially the person that's going to assume command from me, which is what you really want to happen. So that's, it's so key and that routine introduction of that, are key.
Pete Kelting:
Yeah. I think it goes hand in hand with just the way we changed our response for active shooter, which we're talking about, right. It's the same thing with changing our mindset on who's in charge, who can take command. Not the old adage of, you know, who, like you said, they're taking command when they get on the scene, well who does he or she think they are?
Jill McElwee:
Exactly.
Pete Kelting:
I'm the sergeant.
Don Tuten:
It's the norm now too. You gotta think about this. We're old guys. So we always took direction. Think about it. Now-
Pete Kelting:
It's expected now.
Don Tuten:
This job has expounded into the expectation of the first officer in the scene. Whether it's to stop a threat or whether it's to give guidance and direction for other officers coming, that that is the norm now. Not saying it wasn't back 30 years ago, 30 plus years ago when we started, but this is a different dynamic now. Now the responsibility has been changed in training. So I think it's a lot more understood.
Pete Kelting:
Yeah, I used to kind of joke about you're a certain rank today, right, a deputy or police officer, or you know, or firefighter or whatever. And then tomorrow you're a the next rank up. What was the 24 hour difference between the decision?
Don Tuten:
Absolutely.
Jill McElwee:
There you go
Pete Kelting:
Yesterday and the decisions you're gonna make today.
Jill McElwee:
Great point, Pete.
Pete Kelting:
You know.
Bill Godfrey:
The experience to get to it, I think that's great. All right, so that was the number two. Law enforcement command doesn't start till the first supervisor gets there. That is false. As Don said, it starts with the first arriving officer, whether they formally declare it or not. We're trying to clean that up. But there's a process in place. The number one, number one biggest misconception about active shooter events is that the incidents end in suicide almost all the time. How many times have you guys heard this one?
Don Tuten:
Every class.
Jill McElwee:
Every one. Yeah, every class.
Don Tuten:
Everybody raises their hand until we educate 'em.
Bill Godfrey:
The categorically false. These things end in suicide about 36% of the time. Less than a third. Well actually, see, never do math in public.
Jill McElwee:
Oh yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
Slightly more than a third.
Pete Kelting:
Get the calculator out.
Bill Godfrey:
Whatever.
Jill McElwee:
It's one of life's greatest lessons.
Bill Godfrey:
They meant what I knew. There's, it's not the majority.
Pete Kelting:
I mean I think there's a lot of variables there, Bill. You look in years past, just from the coverage of anything media wise, you know, there wasn't an avenue for it to be just spread across the world as quickly as it is today.
Don Tuten:
Yep.
Pete Kelting:
And then couple that with, you know, what goes on now with terrorism since 9-11 and the individual, the bad actors, you know, moment of fame that they're looking for, the message or agenda they're trying to push is totally different from 10, 15, 20 years ago to today in what they're trying to accomplish.
Don Tuten:
Yep.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, and I think the other thing that we really have to keep in mind, you know, we were joking on our, one of our previous podcasts about you know, the two things that people don't like is the way things are and change. And change is hard, right? Change is hard. But I think it's important to remember that things do change over time, including with the bad guys and the way they attack. And we are fundamentally, over the last two to three years of data, we are seeing not just a soft shift, but a dramatic shift in behavior on the scene. So for those that are not following what I'm talking about, we've had, just like schools have had a statistically significant decline. We have had a huge drop in active shooter events ending in suicide. It has been more than a 15% drop, but that's a 15% drop in three years across 20, more than 20 years of data. So it's a huge drop off. And the example I would use is think about the last handful of active shooter events that you can remember hearing about on the news. How many of them ended in suicide versus shooting it out with the cops, fleeing the scene, or some other-
Don Tuten:
Incident.
Bill Godfrey:
Some other, you know, being subdued, some other type of outcome being taken into custody. What we are seeing in the last three years is a huge swing. They're not killing themselves. They're either choosing to shoot it out with law enforcement or they're fleeing the scene. Both of which have huge implications for law enforcement on management of these events. 'Cause if they do flee the scene, now you've not only got the event, you got a manhunt you gotta manage.
Don Tuten:
Yep.
Bill Godfrey:
And if you've got somebody that's hell bent on shooting it out with your officers, that is a huge threat in its own. So, you know, what are your thoughts on the change we're seeing?
Pete Kelting:
I think in years past bad actors at that time, the reason they probably took their life was 'cause they wanted to not face incarceration. Right, it was whatever the agenda was for them for the day. Personal, individual, it was done. It wasn't looking for a message, an agenda. And today in these events, you know, they're not afraid to die. Actually, they want, like you just said, they want to get in that shootout. They want to be seen. They're not afraid of being incarcerated for the rest of their life 'cause they can continue to carry on their message.
Don Tuten:
Well, and their message now can be live streamed.
Pete Kelting:
Absolutely.
Don Tuten:
And that's another piece of it now. I mean, we're seeing a lot more events now where people are going on some form of a live stream and-
Bill Godfrey:
Showing a manifesto.
Pete Kelting:
Socialism, and look at me.
Don Tuten:
Correct. And that's a piece of it also. It doesn't fulfill that fantasy or message or whatever that case may be for that one person. That is fulfilling it by going through with it and then trying to continue, you know, letting this thing run out.
Bill Godfrey:
And Pete, to your point, and I'm, let me be very clear, this is my personal opinion, I don't think incarceration worries anybody anymore.
Don Tuten:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
I don't think it's much of a deterrent. I think they don't believe it'll happen to them. They'll get away with it. They won't get caught. If they do get caught, their lawyer will be able to get 'em off with a slap on the wrist.
Don Tuten:
Sympathizers
Bill Godfrey:
I just don't think that that's a fear anymore. So there I you've got more that go into it that are looking for this is the way they're gonna end their life. You know, they're gonna make a statement and be done with it. And then you got those that want the statement or seeking attention. But like you said, Pete, they they don't really care, incarcerated, non incarcerated. they're gonna go on about their days.
Pete Kelting:
And I think-
Bill Godfrey:
And again, just my personal-
Don Tuten:
They're no longer a public disgrace.
Pete Kelting:
Right and I think the reason why we bring up these statistics is 'cause it also has an effect on how we keep our response in focus, right? You know, in years past, we may have not have been, you know, as agile to move left or right with something that we think is gonna end relatively quickly because the bad actor's gonna take their life. Now we have to be ready for that drawn-out event, that complexity of the event, managing it from all facets, like you said, you know, different scenes, different areas outside the jurisdiction. So it's huge for us.
Don Tuten:
Yeah, two or three steps ahead. for every call.
Bill Godfrey:
And let me punctuate it as we wrap up on our time. Let me punctuate it with this statistic on that specific topic. Most active shooter events, the active killing is over before the first law enforcement officer gets there. 57% of 'em. So it's a little over half. However, for the ones that are still ongoing when the law enforcement gets there, 80% of the time, 80. Everybody hear me right? 80% of the time that killing does not stop until law enforcement does something to stop it.
Don Tuten:
Yep.
Bill Godfrey:
And that's the cold heart reality of where we are today. Jill, Pete, Don, thank you for coming in today. I appreciate it. Appreciation to our audience for tuning in. If you have not liked or subscribed, please do so whether you're consuming this on YouTube or on your favorite place to record podcasts or listen to podcasts, and please share it with the people that you work with. The more that we get this information out, the more lives that can ultimately be saved. Thank you to our producer, Karla Torres. And with that, until next time, stay safe.