Active shooter drills prepare campus for the worst-case scenario

Kimberly Bojorquez | Senior Staff Writer

After the tragic Umpqua Community College shooting in Oregon, Ashley Larsen, director of Student Conduct and Conflict Resolution, and Robin Ebmeyer, director of Emergency Risk Management, arranged campus safety training Oct. 8 to discuss preventing and handling an active shooter situation at Utah Valley University.
A week before the shooting occurred, Larsen and Ebmeyer discussed organizing monthly campus safety trainings on campus. The incident made them rush to start the trainings.
According to Ebmeyer, if an active shooter is already in the buildings there are three steps to follow: run, hide or fight.
Those three steps were recommended and popularized when the city of Houston released a video on how to survive such an event.
Ohio State University Department of Public Safety produced a similar six-minute video titled, “Surviving An Active Shooter,” to give students tips on what to do if an active shooter came to their college campus.
According to the OSU video, running away should be the first priority. If there is an active shooter in the area quickly and safely evacuate the area and call for help when it’s safe.
If there isn’t time to run away hiding is the best option. Doors should be locked and barricaded with desks or chairs if possible. It is recommended that people be spread out in a room and not grouped up together. The classroom lights should be turned off and all cellphones should be on silent.
A last resort reaction against a shooter is to fight. If it is necessary to go face-to-face with the active shooter then it’s important to be protected with a weapon, such as a fire extinguisher or chair.
The safety video recommends being aware of the building’s surroundings and exits.
“Don’t be an easy target, do whatever it takes not to be an easy target,” Ebmeyer said.
Ebmeyer pointed out the school’s multiple alert systems to communicate with students if there is an emergency situation such as, opt-in mass text notifications, overhead PA systems, and UVU app push notifications.
When UVU conducted an active shooter drill in the Browning Administration Building, the UVU campus police apprehended the mock shooter in four minutes. According to Ebmeyer the average in real life shootings where the shooter gets apprehended has been between 5 to 12 minutes.
According to Larsen, it’s a common myth that active shooters are calm and collected before they commit the violent act. In fact, the individuals tend to show a pattern of strange and concerning behaviors leading up to the events.
After the 2007 Virginia Polytechnic Institute shootings, police found that the shooter had several reports about him with campus police, professors, dorm advisors and the student health services. The reports showed two years of concerning behaviors such as stalking and what he wrote in his English papers.
Larsen divided the behaviors into three stages. She calls the individuals “cognitive aggressors” who feel they’ve been wronged and will methodically plan out such an event.
The individuals tend to withdraw from others in the first stage, and their absences from work or school suddenly increase. The individual starts to see other people as obstacles rather than human beings.
In the second stage, the individuals will be extremely argumentative toward other people even if they know they are wrong. They have trouble finding common ground with others.
In the last stage, the individuals view people with suspicion or fear that they will figure out their plans. Rather than communicating with words they will use violent actions such as slamming doors or intimidating people by standing over them.
According to a study by the FBI, an average of 11.4 mass shootings occur in the U.S. every year. 70 percent of incidents occur in either a commercial or educational environment.
Larsen recommends that people intervene if they see concerning behavior from an individual. If someone sees a person distressed or angry at parking services or at the financial aid offices, they should try to calm the individual. Conflict resolution skills, such as actively listening to the individual, will help to deescalate the situation.
If a situation gets too hectic and the person won’t calm down, the problem should be reported to the behavioral assessment team or the UVU campus police.
“Prevention is an important part, if we can prevent a violent event then we definitely want to focus our efforts there,” Larsen said.