“(Dispatchers) are the first to hear the cries of the victims, yet they
are the very last that anyone thinks to thank and most often
aren’t. They are first to alert the appropriate emergency services,
yet they seldom rate even a mention in the after-action reports.
Dispatchers make critical judgments constantly upon which lives
often hinge, yet their pay is at the bottom of the scale. They are
the first responder at every emergency scene, yet when the dust
settles, no one remembers the voice on the phone or radio….”
“Dispatchers don’t need to send cards or letters, bake brownies or
angel food cake, to convey their feelings. Their colleagues know
what it means to be in The Chair when everything comes
unglued….”
- Paul D. Bagley, 9-1-1 magazine
Training for the First Responder
Michaelanne Acree
Police Communications Supervisor
Glendale Police Department
May 2014

Defining the active shooter

Preparing for the worst: the 9-1-1 call

Protecting the best: the radio dispatch

A look at school shootings

After the incident
An active shooter is an individual actively engaged in killing or
attempting to kill people in a confined space or other populated
area. In most cases, active shooters use firearms and with notable
exceptions there is often no pattern or method to their selection of
victims.
Active shooter situations are unpredictable and evolve quickly.
Typically, the immediate deployment of law enforcement is
required to stop the shooting and mitigate harm to victims.
Active shooters usually will continue to move throughout the
building or area until stopped by law enforcement, suicide, or other
intervention.
- U.S. Department of Homeland Security Bulletin "Active Shooters."

The Columbine Massacre that occurred on April 20, 1999
forever changed Law Enforcement response to school
shootings and Active Shooter situations as a whole

12 students, were killed and 21 more were injured within
16 minutes of opening fire. The assault ended when
Harris and Klebold shot themselves, bring the death toll
to 14.
Were it not for the long time police adage of
"time, talk, and tactics,” some lives
may have been spared.
The Columbine Review Commission was appointed by Colorado
Governor and headed by William Erickson, former chief justice of
the Colorado Supreme Court. The report was critical of how law
enforcement officers handled the April 20, 1999, shooting while it
was in progress. Instead of going into the school and searching for
Harris and Dylan Klebold, they set up a perimeter and waited
"for the assault to end.“
Library Surveillance Video and 911 call_Columbine
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=987_1355949341&comments=1

Anywhere
 Schools
 Hospitals
 Malls
 Businesses
 Hotels
 Crowded outdoor
locations
Corporate America is beginning to prepare employees
with survival techniques and scenarios in the event of an
active shooter.
Law Enforcement is preparing its officers for rapid
deployment.
profiling the shooter
LOUGHNER
HOLMES
U.S. ARMY MAJOR DR. NIDAL HASAN
•
Army Psychiatrist; exhibited strange behavior,
was described as paranoid and aloof during his
service at Walter Reed Medical Center 2003 –
2009
•
Transferred to Ford Hood military base near
Kileen, TX summer of 2009
•
On November 5, 2009 Hasan went on a
shooting rampage killing 13 and wounding 29
at Fort Hood.
• He launched the attack inside the building
where soldiers gathered for final medical
clearance before deployments to Iraq and
Afghanistan.
•
This was categorized as workplace violence,
rather than terrorism
There is no cookie cutter definition or profile of a shooter,
but there may be warning signs.
bullied teenagers
religious zealots
mentally ill
PTSD sufferers
disgruntled employees
that quiet neighbor…..
Any community, any time, any victim.
It is crucial that the public safety community
prepares NOW for immediate and effective
response to neutralize the Active Shooter
and to save lives.
Dispatch is the first law enforcement response.
the 911 calls

Dispatchers must always be ready for the next
call

Basic call taking skills and techniques are a great
starting point – that’s why you learn them first!

Special call-taking considerations for active
shooter incidents

Practice, Practice, Practice
As the caller, how confident are you in this call taker?
Café Racer Shooting, Seattle, WA, May 2012

Tone of voice, overall attitude, word choices

Strive to convey competence not complacency

Active engagement from beginning of call

Active listening

Empathy

Addressing Caller Safety

Assurances
What is the most effective way to control a caller
who is in a panic situation in order to get critical
information for first responders?

Front-load the questions to get most needed info
first – in this case,
Where is this happening; where did suspect go?
Where are you? Are you safe?
What happened?
Who is doing the shooting; suspect description?
When did this happen/is it continuing?
 Ask direct, short questions and do not stack them. Make
sure to get the answer to important questions before
moving to the next.
 Instead of saying “you’re not in the place, correct?” The call taker
could have asked,
“Where are you?” In the bathroom. “Are you safe?” Yes.
“Did anyone see where the shooter went?”
“I need a description for the officers. What does the man look
like?”
 Advise the caller exactly what kind of help is on the way,
and do it before the caller has to ask. “I’ve got a lot of
people coming” is cold comfort to someone who is
watching people bleed to death.
Suspect Ian Stawicki, entered Café Racer in northeast Seattle and shot
several, four of the victims died from their injuries. Another woman was shot
and killed in downtown Seattle about 30 minutes later by Stawicki as he
carjacked her. He later shot himself in West Seattle and died in the hospital
that evening.
Christianburg, Virginia
April 2013

Community College campus inside the mall

Call
Seriously?
Basic questioning skills
 SUSPECT DESCRIPTION
 Landmarks, direction of travel, victim info
 Caller info – Name, phone number
 Utilize a good witness if you have one on the line!
What is the most effective way to control a caller
who is in a panic situation in order to get critical
information for first responders?

Front-load the questions to get most needed info
first – in this case,
Where is this happening; where did suspect go?
Where are you? Are you safe?
What happened?
Who is doing the shooting; suspect description?
When did this happen/is it continuing?

When the caller has given the all of the
information that he/she has, it is time to move
on to the next call.

Assure the caller that help is coming and advise
them that you need to take the next call to help
gather information for the officers. Note the
callers location, name, and phone number.

Counterintuitive to normal call processing,
active shooter incidents evolve quickly and time
is of the essence for gathering intelligence.
47% of active shooter incidents last 15 minutes or less and
27% last 5 minutes or less (that is, before a suspect leaves
the scene, is detained, or is neutralized by police).
What that means for call takers and dispatchers
is that far more good can be done by focusing
attention on gathering and giving out suspect
information. The victims who have already been
harmed are harmed – the objective is to quickly
identify and locate the suspects in order
to prevent additional bloodshed.
New River shooting suspect profile:
• 18 year old student Neil MacInnis
• Completed the 12 week Christiansburg Citizen Police
Academy in 2012
• Student at the New River Community College
• Posted online message board from campus just minutes
before the shooting to provide all the details, because
media “never gets it right” – included weapons he planned
to use.
• At his arraignment, stated that he was “having a bad week”
2 female victims recovered from their injuries
MacInnis was indicted in October 2013 by a grand jury on two
malicious wounding counts and two firearms counts. His
counsel then requested a psychological evaluation. Case is set
for review in late February 2014.

The difference between a call that goes well and a call
that goes awry begins with you! Prepare, practice, role
play for what if situations. Work on your call taking
skills, listen to any calls that you can get your hands on!
(http://www.9-1-1magazine.com has a great library)

Always be ready for whatever may come when the
phone rings

Use your call taking skills and style to focus the caller in
order to get the info that responding officers will need,
take and use their name, develop a rapport with them
DISPATCH!
After any critical incident, everyone will call. Family members
will call, people just driving by will call, command staff will call,
other officers and public safety personnel will call. And chances
are, the incident might still be ongoing.
It’s okay to ask for help – be prepared for the onslaught,
especially in cases where media interest will be additionally
high due to high profile areas or victims.
radio dispatch and officer response
A few years ago one of the responders who handled the
Omaha, Neb., mall shooting in December 2007 told a
reporter that an active shooting needs to be dispatched
like a lawn mower theft that should have been called in
two weeks ago: calm, collected and with as little emotion
as possible.
Aurora Radio Traffic
There is an ethical requirement that the first
responding officers take aggressive steps to intercede.
The fact that victims are being killed in a circumstance
where law enforcement officers are physically present
requires that officers at the scene confront the suspect
and use deadly force to stop the suspect, if necessary.
Failure to perform an aggressive insertion of officers,
as soon as possible, into the location would be a
contradiction of the ethical position that law
enforcement has historically professed to uphold
– To protect and serve.
Rapid Deployment Active Shooter training is
spreading around the country and your officers are
being trained to respond differently to active shooter
calls. The objective is to find and stop the shooter.
They will not stage for more units, they won’t standby
while they wait for SWAT and a negotiations team.
They will make a small team of two or three, even one
if necessary, and seek out the shooter upon arrival at
the scene.
Portland PD Active Shooter Drill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGURZN_S_gQ
While dispatch is holding traffic this kind of active search is going on.
Once units are on scene and in a tactical situation, dispatchers should
give updates as needed but practice the art of silence and listening.
It can take a long time for officers to clear a space.
X

Take a deep breath and go!

Training scenarios and ‘what if’ practice, visualizing the
scene.

Once the threat is neutralized, prepare to put on your best
EMS dispatching hat to get the victims to Fire’s location

Everything else under the sun
– crime scene preservation,
vehicles/witnesses/bystanders, mutual aid requests

Controlled chaos
In July of 2004, the US Department of Education and
the US Secret Service published a study entitled
SAFE SCHOOL INITIATIVE:
IMPLICATIONS FOR THE PREVENTION OF
SCHOOL ATTACKS IN THE UNITED STATES
Researchers studied 37 different school shooting cases
involving 41 attackers that occurred between 1974 to 2000.
These incidents took place in 26 states, with more than one
incident occurring in the states of Arkansas, California,
Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee.

Where mass shootings by adults by and large seem to have
randomly selected victims in very public locations , teenage
and young adult suspects often have specific targets and
reasons behind their rampage.

The final Safe Schools Initiative report showed that
“Perpetrators of incidents of targeted school violence chose a
range of targets for their attacks, including fellow students,
faculty and staff, and the school itself. These incidents were
usually planned in advance and for most part included intent to
harm a specific, pre-selected target, whether or not the
attacker’s execution of the incident, in fact, resulted in harm to
the target.”

Most incidents of targeted school violence were
thought out and planned in advance. The attackers’
behavior suggested that they were planning or
preparing for an attack.

Most attackers were not "invisible," but already
were of concern to people in their lives.

The Secret Service now recommends and trains
school officials in applying a threat assessment
team approach in school settings




Arapahoe County, CO
School located 8 miles from Columbine High School
Huge campus – 70 classrooms and over 2,200 students
Shooting occurred December 13, 2013 appx. 1230 pm

Multi-agency dispatch
http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_24719487/listen-911-audio-fromarapahoe-high-school-shootings
lessons learned, debrief, & self-care

Business institutions and schools are doing a
better job of training their staff to respond to
attacks with trainings such as the
Run/Hide/Fight video (AZACTIC website)

Some brave individuals are often stepping up
to stop the shooter until LE arrives, like in the
case of the Tucson Shooting

Use your chain of command and ask for
Communications to be included in your
department’s Active Shooter or Critical
Incident Trainings!

Use your spare time to keep current on
dispatch training tapes and articles to
sharpen the saw and prepare yourself to best
handle the worst case scenario

Call takers and dispatchers should be involved in agency
debriefs, both informational and peer support, with the
officers and personnel who responded to the scene

Don’t be afraid to ask to be included in these if they forget
to invite dispatch!

Depending on the size and scale of the incident, there may
be smaller or larger debriefing groups - Command staff and
CISM/Peer Support will generally be arranging these.

Informational debriefs and reviews are valuable
opportunities for learning and improvement for future
incidents

(in case you hadn’t heard) Public safety
communications operators and dispatchers are
subject to a great deal of stress under daily
circumstances – tragic events where officers
become injured or innocent people are killed can
cause the emotional bucket to overflow

Please utilize the resources that your agency
provides for stress management, EAP plans, etc to
take care of yourself if you are struggling following
any critical incident
Thank you!
Michaelanne Acree
Glendale Police Department
Communications Supervisor
macree@glendaleaz.com

Active Shooter Rapid Deployment training for patrol officers training
by Glendale PD SWAT Sgt. Wence Arevalo.

Active Shooter Preparedness, Department of Homeland Security.
http://www.dhs.gov/active-shooter-preparedness

Active Shooter | Recommendations and Analysis for Risk Mitigation 2012,
NYPD.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/counterterrorism/active_shooter.s
html

Bagley, Paul. “From the Chair: Preparing for the Unthinkable.” 27
December 2012. http://www.9-1-1magazine.com/Bagley-From-TheChair-Preparing-for-the-Unthinkable

Ertl, Tracey. “Shots Fired: Police dispatch considerations in active
shooter incidents.” January 2012.
http://www.lawofficer.com/magazines/2011/january
 Prior Knowledge of Potential School-Based Violence: Information students
learn may prevent a targeted attack. May 2008.
http://www.secretservice.gov/ntac/bystander_study.pdf
 Report of the State’s Attorney for the Judicial District of Danbury on the
Shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School and 36 Yogananda Street,
Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012.
http://www.ct.gov/csao/lib/csao/Sandy_Hook_Final_Report.pdf
 Run. Hide. Fight. Video provided by the Arizona Fusion Center,
AZACTIC, Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center (ACTIC).
http://www.azactic.gov/
 The Final Report and Findings of the Safe School Initiative: Implications
for the Prevention of School Attacks in the United States. July 2004.
http://www.secretservice.gov/ntac/ssi_final_report.pdf