Ep 85: Common Misconceptions Revisited
Episode 85
Published Jun 17, 2024
Last updated Feb 18, 2026
Duration: 42:20
Episode Summary
On our first podcast in 2018, we discussed the common misconceptions surrounding Active Shooter Incident Management. Today we will examine the progress we’ve made since then and explore the current areas that need our attention.
Episode Notes
Back in 2018 we identified seven common misconceptions about Active Shooter Incident Management, ranging from excessive focus on neutralizing the threat to a lack of integration across disciplines. Today we will revisit these topics to assess our progress and identify areas that still need improvement. We will also examine new misconceptions that have emerged and discuss strategies to overcome them.
View this episode on YouTube at https://youtu.be/ymZZxZhY86g
Transcript
Bill Godfrey:Six years ago we did our very first podcast of top misconceptions about active shooter incident management, and we thought it was past time to revisit that and see what progress we've made, if any, on those misconceptions and what new ones we may have today. Stick around, that's today's topic.
Welcome to the Active Shooter Incident Management Podcast. My name is Bill Godfrey, your podcast host. I am joined today by two of our fantastic NCIER instructors here at the National Center for Integrated Emergency Response. Billy Perry, back in the house, Billy, good to have you.
Billy Perry:
Great to be here, thank you for having me.
Bill Godfrey:
And Peter Kelting, also back in the house, both of you guys, law enforcement. Pete, good to have you here.
Pete Kelting:
Also, Bill, great to be here.
Bill Godfrey:
Yep, and you guys have been with us a very long time, so a lot of years. In fact, Pete, I'm trying to remember, you may have been on the very first podcast recording. I don't recall, do you remember that?
Pete Kelting:
I think I might have.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, it's a long time ago. So anyways, I was really interesting kind of revisiting these misconceptions that we listed back then. And we have made some progress on some, but there's some that are still need a little love, and I think we've got some new ones to talk about. So that's kind of what I wanted to hit today.
So the very first thing was the misconception of this is really, active shooter response is really mostly about law enforcement and about the first responders and not thinking about the fact that it starts with dispatch and we need to include them with training. And that was our first one, how do you think we've done on that one, Pete?
Pete Kelting:
Oh, Bill, I think we've come a long way. Even our deliveries now, we always ask about specifically dispatchers, you know, what type of training they've had. Are they included in the active shooter training? Do they feel like they're a part of the event as it unfolds? And I think we're seeing a huge step forward in that. And the confidence from dispatch knowing how important their role is if an active shooter event kicks off in their jurisdiction.
Bill Godfrey:
Billy, what's your thoughts?
Billy Perry:
Totally agree, and you can see it across the board and it has become a challenge in that aspect. We're gonna talk about it in a minute, but dispatchers have an even higher turnover than the officers do. And just keeping up with that though has proved to be challenging. But we've made leaps and bounds in that arena.
Bill Godfrey:
And I would tend to agree with both of you, I think that the awareness that we need to include dispatchers as part of the entire system response has certainly increased. But do you think that we've crossed the chasm, do you think that we've passed the halfway marker, hit the tipping point on that? Or do you think there's still quite a bit of room for improvement in getting that level of training to the bulk of dispatchers in the US?
Pete Kelting:
I think it also has to play upon the size of the department.
Billy Perry:
Correct.
Pete Kelting:
Training budgets and priority to include them. We have come across agencies during deliveries that are a little smaller in nature and they find a struggle to include their dispatchers and get them involved with that type of training. But I still think we've really made a huge step forward in the progress of having an overall response start with the importance of dispatch.
Bill Godfrey:
What do you think, Billy? You think we've crossed the tipping point?
Billy Perry:
I think it's halfway between the two. I think we've made great strides, but we've not quite hit the tipping point. I think we're close, but I think we're constrained economically by what Pete was saying, by the size of an agency and quite honestly the knowledge. You don't know what you don't know. We run into that all the time.
Bill Godfrey:
That very, very good point. Okay, so moving on to the next one. Was the tendency on training, active shooter training to overfocus on neutralizing the threat to the exclusion of everything else? Have we made progress, are we at the tipping point? Do we still have some room for improvement, Billy?
Billy Perry:
I could talk for hours on just this. I think it vacillates and I think it looks like a sinus wave. I think there's times that we do really, really well at it and there's times we are terrible at it. I think we can look back in history, we see where we as law enforcement, as Pete and I, as we have, our colleagues have gone in and eradicated the problem and we've been able to move forward and then there's been times that we've had a stop and horrific things have happened. And I'm not gonna mention anything specific, but we all know what I'm talking about. So I think we've done really good in certain aspects but I think it vacillates unfortunately.
Bill Godfrey:
Pete, what do you think, the overfocus on neutralizing the threat and training? Have we made progress? Are we at the tipping point, room for improvement?
Pete Kelting:
Again, we've made progress. I mean, you're talking about 2018 when we first talked about this and we look at, you know, the deliveries that we are on and hearing the feedback from the agencies and how they're able to cross that line and connect the dots. It's, you know, can we keep the priority, you know, how long can we keep the number one song in the priority and focus on expanding all of the disciplines of first responders into an active shooter event? So I think we're getting there. We're kind of past that tipping point a little bit.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, I think so too, I think we've made really good progress in raising awareness that it's more than just neutralizing the threat. There's a lot more involved. I still think that there's a lot of room for improvement there. I still think we have a number of agencies across the country that haven't really, they're aware of it, but they haven't really changed how they're doing things, I guess is what I'm trying to say. You know, they're aware we need to do more. They're aware that they need to be training with their fire department and their EMS and their 911 center, but yet day to day, push comes to shove, the training calendar comes out and we're still doing the same stuff.
Billy Perry:
Well, and let me hit you with a little counter. Are they aware that they need that? Are they aware that somebody has told them that they need that?
Bill Godfrey:
Well, that's a good, it's a good question.
Billy Perry:
And I think it's the latter more than the former. I think that they're aware that somebody told them that they needed that. But I think that, you know, there's an old saying that when you're up to your tail in alligators, it's hard to remember that your initial mission was to drain the swamp. And I think that there are six-
Bill Godfrey:
That's a Florida saying, right?
Billy Perry:
It probably is and at least South Georgia, you know, but I think, you know, they're so busy with the day-to-day that they lose sight of something that is probably in truthfulness, a low percentage happening, a low frequency happening. And so they don't invest a lot of time and resources into it, truthfully.
Bill Godfrey:
I think you're probably on target there. It's what training officer, regardless of the rank and frankly regardless of discipline, 'cause fire and EMS have the same issues.
Billy Perry:
They do.
Bill Godfrey:
You know, you've got 20 pounds of stuff to fit into a one pound day. What's not gonna get done, what's gonna get cut? And it seems like every year they change the standards and they require more required training. Oh, well we made it a law. Well, great, you have 400 hours of mandatory training and a capacity to do 200, what now? So I do think we've still got some room to improve on this one just a little bit. I think the awareness is a lot better.
Billy Perry:
The awareness is definitely better, a hundred percent.
Bill Godfrey:
Ok. Then this one, which was a significant challenge six years ago. The tendency for fire EMS across the country to stage and wait for a secured scene or an all clear from law enforcement. Where are we at on that one, Pete?
Pete Kelting:
We were talking about it earlier. I mean, this one I think we've made great leaps and bounds. I think most agencies realize that, you know, law and fire have to work together. You have to train independently of your disciplines. You have your single mission hat with law enforcement, single mission hat with fire. And if you don't put 'em together, we look now where agencies used to not even really understand what the term RTF was. They were still trying to choose different models of how to respond from the fire side, a little bit on the law enforcement side too. I think we've seen a great merge towards the middle and the relationships with your fire and EMS across the country to be able to train together quicker, keep it in a priority and execute what we're training.
Bill Godfrey:
Billy.
Billy Perry:
A hundred percent agree. I do not know of a progressive city in the nation that is not running RTFs.
Bill Godfrey:
I think that this one, we can check off the list as a prop by and large. That's not to say that there still aren't some places because there are.
Pete Kelting:
A few outliers.
Bill Godfrey:
We have some outliers, but I think that we are well, well past the tipping point that we're past the majority and if I had to guess, I would say that we're upwards of the 80-20, maybe even 90-10. There's still a handful of holdouts on the fire and EMS side that either, you know -
Pete Kelting:
Size of agency
Bill Godfrey:
old school chiefs, size of agency,
Pete Kelting:
Rural
Bill Godfrey:
doesn't think it fits,you know, or they just haven't gotten around to it.
Billy Perry:
Ships too big to turn.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, that kind of stuff. But I think, I'm glad to say that I think we've turned a corner on that one. I think that one's really good, okay, now the next one.
A lack of integration across disciplines. And let me frame this one. We know that across the country, police and fire and EMS respond together on calls on a daily basis. Work together a lot, there is a difference between working together on each other's calls with very distinct missions and having to integrate into each other's teams to accomplish a single mission with a joint objective.
And that was where the idea of integration was born from. Is that because what we're talking about with trying to have fire and EMS personnel on a rescue task force with law enforcement security, it's tantamount to saying, Billy, Pete, I know you guys are cops, but grab this hose and come on inside with me, it'll be fine. Right? It took us a little bit to make some progress on that, but there's been a lot of gaps and it required a shift in thinking, it required a shift in training, it required a shift in execution. So what do you think, Billy? Are we there, tipping point, still a lot of ways to go, what's your thoughts.
Billy Perry:
Again, not trying to be, you know, non-committal. I think there's, I think we still have a ways to go, but I think we've come a long way. I don't think we've hit a tipping point by any means, personally, but I think we've come a long way.
Bill Godfrey:
Pete.
Pete Kelting:
I think it's agency and jurisdictional bound sometimes too. It's relationships. It's trust. It's, you know, getting over the old turf wars where, you know, early on a, you know, fire service couldn't come up on a law enforcement channel. Law enforcement couldn't come up on a fire service channel. I mean, those type of things, those relationships, the trust, the training is the way to integrate and from even police dispatch to fire dispatch normally always being separated. You see now where, you know, they're building dispatch centers together. I mean the integration is key to being successful at the end of the day. And trust, trust that what, you know, the fire service is inviting us in to do with them, and the same with law enforcement.
Billy Perry:
And Pete, that changes with leadership.
Pete Kelting:
Absolutely.
Billy Perry:
That, I mean, 'cause you can do really well under one, am I right?
Pete Kelting:
Absolutely.
Billy Perry:
Under one set of leaders and then go backwards with another and vice versa.
Bill Godfrey:
Which is very disheartening.
Billy Perry:
Very.
Bill Godfrey:
It's disheartening enough to see it. But to be a part of that agency and live it is very disheartening. I do want to tweak this one a little bit because when we talked about it originally, we were talking about the integration across disciplines, but since then we came to realize that we have an integration problem within disciplines, but across agencies. So in other words, law enforcement working with another law enforcement. Fire EMS working with other fire EMS.
Billy Perry:
A fed working with a local.
Bill Godfrey:
Get out of here.
Billy Perry:
Crazy.
Bill Godfrey:
Cats and dogs living together.
Pete Kelting:
What's wrong with that?
Billy Perry:
Exactly.
Bill Godfrey:
So where are we at on that? We've made progress, we're at the tipping point? We've got a long road ahead of us?
Pete Kelting:
I think we've made progress. We see the federal agencies as a part of our training, where we used to not have that. We have a lot of federal agency leadership come to the local jurisdiction and say, hey, how can I help? How can I get my folks involved and how can we train together? I mean, we're seeing more and more of the national response of everybody being involved, even if it doesn't go to the full end of the runway for that. But everybody gets involved. I think we're moving in that direction.
Billy Perry:
I think we're moving that direction too. I was reminded last week that we still have a way to go. I was doing an active shooter training with an adjacent county and I was talking about how we get along so much better now and they go, not really. And I'm like, well blame a last. I mean, you know, thought we did, you're here.
Pete Kelting:
It's back to what you just said, leadership.
Billy Perry:
It is, seriously. And so but it was sobering, you know, and like, well, okay, let me readjust, but yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
And I, you know, I acknowledged this on some earlier podcasts. I think I've said it a couple of times, but in my time, when I was active duty and was in senior level leadership roles, including that as a fire chief, I'm embarrassed and ashamed to say that I did view some issues through the lens of competition and territorialism. And it affected how well we worked with neighboring agencies and the effort that we made to work with them, the effort that we made to train with each other and to work together.
And so I, on the one hand, I do understand where that comes from and I'm empathetic to those feelings because I was there and I understand how easy it is to get sucked into that. You're fighting for your existence in your organization, your budgets and everything else. And sometimes you can be dealing with a neighbor who is interested in taking over your area and maybe even trying to put you outta business with aggressive tactics. And so that's not fake. It's real, but it doesn't excuse the reality that our job is to serve the public.
Billy Perry:
That's what I was gonna say.
Bill Godfrey:
And we can't do it alone. And so if we don't want to have a completely clustered up response, we better be prepared. And you know, you mentioned earlier, you get the issues of the day and you're setting out to drain the swamp and suddenly you're fighting 20 alligators. It's very easy to forget that. And so I'm empathetic and I get it, but I do think we've made inroads and we've made progress. I think we still have a long way to go on leadership. Where I do think we've hit the tipping point though, and I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on this, is in training. I think the bulk of our mid-level and lower level folks that are involved in training understand the value of including other agencies in your training and invite others to participate. I think we've made great progress there. It's just sometimes leadership blocks it. But I'd be interested in hearing what your thoughts are.
Billy Perry:
I'll agree with the caveat, the younger ones do.
Bill Godfrey:
The younger ones see it that way?
Billy Perry:
The younger ones see it that way, the older ones do not.
Bill Godfrey:
Older guards still the same.
Billy Perry:
Right, the majority, and I'm not painting 'em with a broad, I am painting 'em with a broad brush, but I'm not, you know, there are some.
Bill Godfrey:
Well, there's a reason stereotypes exist.
Billy Perry:
Right, exactly. And there are statistical outliers, but the vast majority of the older ones are still that way. The younger ones are much more accepting to new ideas.
Pete Kelting:
And so setting aside the, either the personal or agency agendas, you know, based on what the goal of the day or what the week or the month is, is key to doing that.
You know, Billy, I listened to you explain about, you know, what you felt when you were a fire chief of training with other agencies, other folks. When you evaluate an agency, law and fire together, and you see that they're exchanging, you know, card pass keys to get in the buildings or you know, hey, my house is your house come and train. When you see that start to develop, you know that that jurisdiction is moving in the right direction and they're gonna be hopefully more successful than the others that are still fighting, fighting the temptation to be territorial.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, and it's something to constantly guard against because leadership does change over time. Personnel rotate, you have turnover and that culture that maybe you spent 20 or 30 years building can turn around and can change. I always, not to go off on a tangent here, but I always find it laughable when people talk about the culture of an organization. An organization doesn't live and breathe. The culture that exists exists because of the people that are there. You change out those people and that culture can change.
Billy Perry:
A hundred percent.
Bill Godfrey:
It's not unique.
Billy Perry:
Regardless of size.
Bill Godfrey:
Yes, small and large. All right, moving on before I go off on a diatribe, unified command is the magic bullet. If we would just establish a fast unified command right off the bat, everything would go perfectly.
Pete Kelting:
Unified command was the buzzword for many, many, many years. It was the, if we put that in place, everything's gonna be just absolutely perfect down the line. And I think not just an active shooter, but in a lot of other things in law and fire discipline, building from the bottom up, getting information, the resources developing command from where the boots meet the ground is what keeps your finger on the pulse and your foot on the gas to be able to be successful.
Billy Perry:
Unified command is a taser, and that's what I've called it.
Pete Kelting:
Is that the two-pronged taser or the 10 pronged taser?
Billy Perry:
You know what, potato, patata, unified command is an electronic control weapon, better?
Bill Godfrey:
Yes, thank you.
Billy Perry:
You're welcome. All right. Unified command is an electronic control weapon.
Bill Godfrey:
Taser, please don't send me a cease and desist. It's just a joke.
Billy Perry:
It was a joke, kinda. Our younger officers have become so technologically dependent that they've forgotten their basic skills or never had 'em to begin with. And I think our supervisory staff has gotten the same way with unified command. You know, it does bog things down if you start it too fast, you admit it slows it down, correct?
Bill Godfrey:
Oh yes, absolutely. We found that the hard way.
Billy Perry:
It'll completely bog it down but it's the whole ICS and unified command and everything has become, it's been so ingrained in our young supervisors now, even our middle and upper supervisors, that that's the only way they know. Where the younger ones have become technologically dependent when it comes to gaining control of the suspect, the supervisors have become too dependent on that just to try to make a decision.
Pete Kelting:
I think the dichotomy of unified command paralyzed us and what we're preaching now is the establishment of command of the first responding officer on scene. And taking charge and setting priorities and pushing information up to tactical, which we'll end up talking about here shortly. Where in the past you almost kind of waited like, well I'm waiting for unified command to set up and they're gonna tell me what to do or where I'm gonna go type of thing. And I think we've really come a long way to realize -
Billy Perry:
That's the bogging down.
Billy Perry:
how important that command upfront is.
Bill Godfrey:
And I'm gonna piggyback on that, Pete, 'cause I want to be really clear for the audience that's listening. We're not suggesting that unified command doesn't have a place. We do believe unified command has a place, we just don't believe that that place is in the first 10 to 15 minutes of this thing unfolding. Because here's what we found. You're in a hurry to get your law enforcement supervisor and your fire EMS supervisor married up, as you said, Pete, to start making decisions and sending orders down range. Yet fire and EMS cannot do anything until law enforcement gets their arms around what is going on.
Now notice I didn't say they've neutralized the threat, or they've got the threat in custody, or they've secured the scene or any of that kind of stuff. But law enforcement is not going to be sending fire and EMS down range until they have a mental awareness, a mental picture, situational awareness over what is going on and where it's going on. And until they get their arms around it, fire and EMS is standing there, to some degree, hands in pockets waiting for law enforcement to do that bit.
And so what we found is that trying to force that unified command early became a distraction to that initial law enforcement supervisor that was trying to get that done. And so if you let them execute, get that done, and we remember that at the end of the day, an active shooter event is a murder in progress, that is a law enforcement incident. To allow them to do that, get them under their feet, us to plug in as the support element, and then whatever the response timeframe is for the big chiefs and the white wave of white shirts and long sleeves and ties to show up, then they can go to unified command and that's when it makes sense and they're looking at the bigger picture. But operationally, down range, we haven't hamstrung it.
Pete Kelting:
Correct, and I'll just add in, I think it's, you know, timely decision making in the past unified command, at least in my mind, was let's get all the folks in the room to be able to pull upon information to make decisions that I may not know from a fireside. But as we talked earlier, when you train together, when you're constantly keeping it as a priority and you and I work together and train together, then if you just happen to not be there, right when I need to make that decision, I'm gonna make a decision. I know that you trust in me or I trust in you. That's gonna be about 90, 95% on the spot and on the mark for what we need to accomplish moving forward.
Bill Godfrey:
Relationships matter.
Billy Perry:
They do.
Bill Godfrey:
They do.
So perfect segue into our next one, which is the misconception that there's not just a unified command, but that law enforcement somehow shouldn't be in command. It should be this joint command or something else. It is a murder in progress. And the misconception then was people don't realize that law enforcement is not only gonna be in command of this thing initially, but they're going to hold onto that command a lot longer than people realize. Where are we out on that one? We made progress, we're at the tipping point? We still got ways to go?
Billy Perry:
We made a lot of progress. I think we've made a lot of progress. I think we may even be at or just past tipping point.
Pete Kelting:
And again, it comes back to training and trust. There's not a territorial, you know, grab during an event, like, oh, or I need to be so much a part of this so that my agency doesn't feel like I didn't contribute. Right? It's a law enforcement event, an active shooter event, it's gonna remain a law enforcement event. It may have moments of small transitions from maybe agency to agency or just a little bit of discipline over to another discipline, especially in like family assistance and stuff like that. But that's all goes back to what the unified command's about. But it's a law enforcement driven.
Billy Perry:
The last several years all over the country. Every fire agency is like, we don't want this, you can have it.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, I think when you look at the totality of the response and what all's involved, I think most fire and EMS agencies open their eyes and go, whoa. I did not know that all of this had to happen. And I sure didn't realize it all had to happen all at the same time. I think that's one of the big awareness items.
So the last thing on the list of misconceptions from our original podcast six years ago was thinking that the role of the command post, the job of the command post was to run everything down range. That the mindset of responders is that the command post is directing all of the downrange activities as opposed to tactical, triage, and transport the way we do it now. Where are we at? You think that people understand those two roles? You think we've still got ways to go? We at the tipping point? What do you think?
Billy Perry:
Man, we're gonna come off of this very indecisive, but it depends on the commander that's in there. I think a lot of the ones, a lot of the newer, more progressive ones are absolutely gonna have a bigger picture and not try to do what you were just saying. They're not gonna try to micromanage and not try to make every decision, not try to drive every train down there. I think some of the lesser trained we'll say or the less confident, less knowledgeable are gonna try to do that.
Pete Kelting:
Yeah, and you know, Bill, I instruct that position quite often in our deliveries. And as Billy was saying, some of the bigger agencies, the more progressive agencies, they gravitate to it pretty quickly. They realize that hey, the decision has to be made quickly and we have to have single hat mission from law, triage and transport working collaboratively together to get that timely decision done. Where we run into just like you said, some of the old schools, some the old guard or even sometimes just jurisdictional, I don't wanna use the word politics, but just, you know, agendas that I'm still gonna be in charge. Everything has to be run from me.
And it goes back to trust. Do I trust that tactical officer that's in place to make a hundred percent of the immediate decisions needed to get that job done, to neutralize a threat, to transition into RTFs, to transport folks off the scene? Because as we point out in our deliveries, the commander, the incident commander has so much else on their plate. And if they think they can run it all, they immediately get bogged down.
Bill Godfrey:
I agree with both of you. I am not sure if we're actually at the tipping point yet or not. I think the awareness of this as an issue is increasing. But I still feel like in most of the classes and training sessions we do, there's still an awful lot of people in the room that think the role of command is to do what is happening at tactical, triage, and transport to run that down range. And they're shocked. This aha moment of holy crap, I've gotta do all of this other stuff at the command post that wasn't even on my radar because I've been totally focused on the neutralizing the threat, rescuing the injured, clearing the facility. But I forgot about all of the other things that have to get done all at the same time. Otherwise you choke off your primary mission. And it turns into an issue.
So I think we've made progress and I think we're making progress and increasing awareness on it. I don't know if we're at the tipping point. It's very hard to judge from my perspective.
Billy Perry:
It is. It is. I lay a lot of it still at the feet of the boots on the ground 'cause I am one, I'm a boot on the ground. And I think if we were more proficient in our, truthfully, in our craft, and I think if we went in there and we neutralized them immediately. We can look at some that really did a great job. Covenant, Nashville. If they went in and did that, set up a casualty collection point, set up an ambulance exchange point, did everything for the golden hour, it ends up being really amazing. And it's so much easier for the commander to manage.
Bill Godfrey:
It is, and I think that's another big takeaway from people that participate in these, you know, these live scenarios going through this firsthand, feeling the sense of being overwhelmed and the anxiety that comes with, you know, I'm in this role and I don't wanna mess up, I don't wanna mess up. And then realizing that, well, wait a minute, everybody has a role. This thing is kind of sectioned out and I don't need to be overwhelmed because I've got people to manage that. I just have to take care of this and pay attention to those things. So I think we are making progress. I think we're making progress.
So that was it on the old list. Let's talk about some new misconceptions that have come into the lexicon, so to speak. Billy, you want to kick us off with one?
Billy Perry:
I think ignorance as to what we do. I think that's the misconceptions is the people and I mean the general public and the managers of the areas where this kind of stuff happens. Pick one, a school, a hospital, a church. They have no idea what this entails and what we actually do. And I think that is one of the biggest ones.
Bill Godfrey:
And I would add on how long it takes.
Billy Perry:
I concur, right? Because you're gonna own it for, 'cause like you said, it's an active murder. It's an active, it was an active murder. It's now a murder scene, a murder in progress scene. And we're gonna be there depending on the size of the venue for at least a day, at least. I mean, it's gonna be how long before you get it cleared, you know? And I mean it took us hours and hours and hours in Jacksonville to clear the landing. So I mean, it's gonna be a long time. And I think that's one of the big ones. And where I work now in a school, having to educate the administrators is 'cause when they realized what it was gonna be, that was the reunification was on them. I mean just there are still, because they thought it would be over in an hour, hour and a half.
Bill Godfrey:
That'd be nice, it's just not reality.
Billy Perry:
It's not reality.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, Pete, how about you? What's on your list?
Pete Kelting:
I think training. I think just because an agency decides to bring in training for active shooter response, check the box, hey, we've done this, we've done that.
Billy Perry:
And what kind of training is it?
Pete Kelting:
Absolutely, I think it's a big misconception that we're done at that point as an agency.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, one and done.
Pete Kelting:
One and done. And how do we sustain that? How do we draw it to the front line? How do we get it to the boots on the ground and even the individual parts of that training, you know, an agency will send somebody to a class and how many times they come back and it's like, I've got all this information. How do we get it, you know, involved and disseminated into our training protocol. So training.
Billy Perry:
And it's perishable. It is crazy perishable. It's no different than fighting, shooting, driving. It's a perishable skill. And when we don't revisit it, it diminishes.
Bill Godfrey:
I think I could not agree with you guys more on this one. This general pervasive notion that active shooter training is a one and done thing. You can do it one time in your career and you're covered is not just foolishness, but it belies the obvious. You know, we ran some numbers a couple years ago on turnover rate of typical organizations when you figure out, you made the assumption of a 25 year career, retirements, attrition, promotion, people that just leave or career changes and things like that. And a typical organization is gonna turn over six to 7% of their workforce every year.
Billy Perry:
Every year.
Bill Godfrey:
Every year, every year. So how does this training ever get to be one and done and not have to be revisited? First of all, because you've got new people coming on every year, new supervisors every year.
Billy Perry:
So every agency that is hearing this since this original podcast has turned over 42%.
Bill Godfrey:
There you go, half their workforce. Half their workforce has turned over in the last six years of the people that are on the streets, in the field that are gonna be having to do this work. And the other thing that I'll add on is I don't believe we're ever going, and this is just my personal belief, I don't believe we are going to solve our active shooter response problem in this country until we stop looking at it as specialty training and we realize that this is everyday training, just as basic as weapons handling for law enforcement and how to start IVs and put on bandages for EMS.
Pete Kelting:
Should be in the academies, should be academically in the academies. Trained in the academies, absolutely, a hundred percent.
Bill Godfrey:
And then part of the annual refresher training. So the one and done, I think is a huge, huge issue. And we hit in that one also turnover. So that turnover was on my list. So we just hit, we hit a two twofer there.
I'm gonna get your thoughts on this one. Law enforcement should transport the injured, not wait for fire and EMS.
Billy Perry:
Never.
Pete Kelting:
Never say never.
Billy Perry:
I give you that.
Pete Kelting:
I knew you were going that way.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah.
Billy Perry:
Man, it has to be Romulans have landed, I mean. I mean, yeah.
Pete Kelting:
I mean I think we demonstrate quite often in our deliveries is that, you know, the decision to start transporting law enforcement or patients in law enforcement cars is based on unorganization. Unaware of what is set out to respond to the event when you know, you have, you know, you have rescue there and so forth, but are you taking 'em to the right hospital? Are they gonna be turned away? Can you really provide the lifesaving care in the backseat of a patrol car that certified paramedic can in an ambulance? I mean, there's all sorts of variables to it, but I know where you're coming with it.
Billy Perry:
I mean, and when he says this, you know, my mind automatically starts going, I'm like, okay, so you know, we have a tac medic on our team, you get hit or whatever and he's with you applying stuff while they drive you a short distance to a large, maybe. Yeah, maybe.
Bill Godfrey:
And I was gonna say, so, you know, I mean I love your enthusiasm for saying never, but I agree with Pete. I don't think we can say, we can say never. I think that there are circumstances under which it makes sense for law enforcement to transport. But let me illustrate a couple of those. Number one, your response has completely gone horribly off the rails. It doesn't matter at that point why. What matters is you need to get injured to the hospital. So if you got lemons, make lemonade, get 'em in there and getting them to the hospital is better than leaving 'em on the side of the street or on the curb. So something has gone horribly wrong in your response and you need to take heroic measures to fix it.
That's a reason, another reason would be security issues. In some instances, and I've struggled a little bit to find this in an active shooter, but let me use a riot type of event. A riot event is very dangerous, very dicey. Yet you can have injured that need to get transported. It may make sense, you know, you've got the paddy wagon vans, things like that. Throw a couple of injured in the van and haul 'em down to the local hospital rather than trying to engage with fire and EMS because you don't have control over a large geographic area. There's a lot of volatility and hostility on that front. So I think that those circumstances can make sense, when the security posture dictates that.
And then I think it is community dependent. So for example, there was a study, there was actually two studies that they did in Philadelphia that were talking about a slight improvement in outcomes or in the survival rate by transporting the injured by police instead of fire and EMS. And it's not that the studies were flawed, and I don't mean to imply that, but you have to look up the circumstances of that community. Number one, that particular law enforcement agency has a plethora of vans that they use for transporting those that have been arrested. They're readily available, they're commonly at the scenes. Security is a big issue for them on a significant number of their responses to shooting events. And their EMS system is understaffed. They don't have enough ambulances to handle the routine calls, and so literally.
Billy Perry:
Let alone throw something in.
Bill Godfrey:
Let alone throw something else in. And so literally you're standing at the scene, you've got somebody that's shot, to your point, Billy, Philadelphia's a large urban area, they got hospitals close by, you got a van, you can put the guy on the floor of the van laying down and somebody can ride with 'em to try to provide minimal care and drive them to the hospital as opposed to waiting because a fire or EMS is seven minutes out, eight minutes out because they're backed up on calls.
So I think you have to factor those things in from a community perspective that the particular locale or the area may have some challenges, but as a broad stroke to try to apply that across the country is a horrible mistake that is going to ultimately cost lives, and fail to do what needs to be done.
For example, if you have a problem, lemme put it this way. We have ambulances in this country for a reason, for a reason. We have EMTs and paramedics for a reason. If your system cannot support the medical care and transport of injured from an active shooter event, then fix the system. Fix the problem and fix it now, don't wait for the event to go sideways and try to do these heroic measures.
Billy Perry:
It doesn't say advanced life support just 'cause they had letters to use up. I mean, it's there for, 'cause it provides advanced life support.
Pete Kelting:
And I think actually supporting Billy's first mindset of never, if we tell our folks stick with that, right? Then we don't get tempted to take the easiest route out when we might get frustrated. But to know that there's a, hopefully there's a system in place through your response that can get that care to the patient or even a law enforcement officer. We tend to, we didn't even talk about that. We tend to, when it becomes our own, we tend to think, let's throw 'em in the back of the patrol car, even quicker.
Billy Perry:
I'll get him there.
Pete Kelting:
You know, and it's, you know, where are we trained medically? Are we really, you know, triaging that officer correctly? Are we packing wounds, are we doing what we need to do when we can get that individual to someone that can provide care?
Bill Godfrey:
I think all of that is important. I mean, maybe the way to say it is never should be the goal. Your goal should be to not need to do that. That's not to say that there may not be times when it's appropriate, but it shouldn't be-
Billy Perry:
Your go-to move.
Bill Godfrey:
It shouldn't be your go-to move as part of the system. And the two big incidents where this occurred and often get touted would be Aurora and PULSE nightclub. In both instances, the response went horribly wrong and they made lemonades and transported people, law enforcement transported people. I would also point out that in both instances, they had hospitals less than two miles from the scene. And both instances occurred after midnight where there was very little traffic on the road.
So, you know, when you look at it, if you wanna have a conversation, I'm happy to have a conversation about it. But let's have an honest conversation. Let's not cherry pick our reality. And I go back to what I said originally. We have ambulances in this country for a reason. If it can't support this mission, then let's fix that.
Billy Perry:
We can come up with a better bad plan than that.
Bill Godfrey:
There you go, there you go. All right, last call. Last call, any other new misconceptions you wanna throw down on the table?
Billy Perry:
I can't think of any.
Pete Kelting:
No, I can't think of anything right now either. We covered a good gambit there.
Bill Godfrey:
Pete, Billy, thank you guys for coming in to do this.
Billy Perry:
Thank you for having me.
Bill Godfrey:
I really appreciate it. This was a fun one to revisit July 2nd, 2018, six years ago that we did that very first podcast. As always, thank you to our producer Karla Torres for pulling this stuff together and making it look great. If you haven't liked and subscribe to podcast, please do so and until next time, stay safe.