e I will call to order the March 11th work session um huh go ahead whoever is doing the presentation all right well thanks everybody and thanks for being here this evening uh looking forward to this training on active threat with a little bit of d escalation involved in it how to deal with somebody that's an escalated or irrational mindset I'm with blue Etho specialized training uh what what part I um am in is the active threat preparedness and like I said the deescalation so um again really appreciate you guys having me out and that you guys are interested in in learning some of the new uh ways of thinking on handling an active shooter how to survive something like that it's really important it's becoming more frequent we'll touch on that a little bit a little bit about me um I figured I'd stand over here because of not turning my back to anybody but um my name is Robert poer I'm a police officer um can't technically legally tell you what agency I'm with but I'm right across the river to the north um but I've been a police officer for just over eight years now uh within my roles of the agency I work at uh I'm an active shooter instructor for our agency so I train our officers on how we're going to respond to an active shooter active threat on the law enforcement end of things I'm a Firearms instructor so I train our officers on how to manipulate our firearm systems uh rifles handguns less lethal options shoot shoot accurately I'm a field training officer so when we hire somebody new they get put with me for about a month or so I'll train them on a variety of different topics get them ready for solo Patrol and then I'm also on the uh countywide joined uh SWAT team as a SWAT operator um so that's a little bit about me I'm coming from with all of this um by no means am I a doctor or a psychologist or anything but I do talk a little bit about our minds and and how we react as humans to to threats that are presented in front of us um so kind of just understanding what an active shooter is and throughout this little training today I might say active threat active shooter just know that they mean the same thing just not always is it somebody with a gun trying to kill people a lot of times it can be with with Edge weapons knives The Crossroads Mall in St Cloud guy was going through the mall stabbing people with a knife right people take vehicles through parades it would still be considered that active threat active shooter so but they are becoming more and more frequent the the numbers on active shooter mass shootings have been have been going up 2024 was a little less than 2023 but still high right and one thing to note is that there's typically no pattern to the selection of victims now the suspect might have that one person in mind that they really have that Vendetta against that they really want to go after and kill but in doing so and getting to them they want to go and kill as many people as possible accent signage in in Minneapolis 2012 Andrew enginger was an employee at axent signage he was getting terminated right before he went into the manager's office to get terminated he went out to a parking lot to his truck grabbed his gun on his way back in to shoot his supervisor in HR he ended up shooting the UPS driver there first that was just there delivering a package nothing to do with him getting terminated nothing to do with him losing his job just wrong place wrong time he just wanted to kill as many people as he can and then he ended up killing seven others and in the in the business itself so so we'll get into what we teach at Blue ethos as a multi-option response has anybody thought about whether workplace personal life what you would do if you were in an active shooter situation active threat situation have you guys kind of thought about what your options would be some some yes some some maybe not necessarily and we're I'll try to keep it as broad as I can because we have city employees right a lot of you are city employees some of you are just city council where you have other jobs um but so a lot of this is maybe geared towards workplace or just in here with a threat assessment at the end but understand that this is relatable to every aspect of your life right out in shopping at the grocery store out to eat out to dinner um you're at a movie theater all of the things that we're going to talk about today is relevant to those situations as well so like I said we teach a multi-option response a little video to go over kind of what we're teaching it might be loud for you sitting right next to the TV and you guys too but um and then I'll dive into what it is [Music] it's a video from the school shooting in multiple people were injured at a work people deaded his open [Music] about atast Poss 2 so like I said the the multi-option response that we teach was three different options it kind of quickly went over it but now we're going to dive into it the first thing that we teach is to get out and to do this as as quick quickly and as effectively as you possibly can is to really understand what your exit options are not just the exit options that you guys use daily your your main entrance and exit but what your secondary exit your third your fourth option to get out of wherever you are right a window might be one of your only options to get out if if we if that door didn't exist and there was a shooter over here to get out of where we were here we might have to go out this window right here what do we have available to us to break that window chairs we have the flag poles um maybe even some laptops but but knowing that we do have options to break wind we do have uh improvised weapons that we can use to break Windows is something that we need to think about before we're actually in that situation and I'll talk about mental rehearsals a lot too but very similar to like a fire the best way not to get burnt in a fire is to get out best way not to get shot in an active shooter situation is to get out and you're practicing this both mentally and physically because like like I said I touch on a little bit but mental rehearsals creating those mental scripts in your brain about how you're going to respond to a threat in front of you because it's really important our brain our bodies and brains go through three different processes when a thread is presented in front of us fight flight or freeze if we thought about it before and we come up with some sort of plan that how we're going to react to an active shooter we're less likely to freeze and that's what we can't do we can't freeze freezing gives that shooter more time to to end up shooting us so we're practicing this mentally and maybe even physically maybe every once in a while if you're not so used to taking that second third fourth option to get out every once in a while take a walk around and make sure you're walking it so that you're getting those those mental strips in your brain of how you're going to get out if you need to get out of a secondary EG why do we train get out Columbine school shooting if remember that one is the major case study on why we want people to get out so Coline we don't fault them for it that's the only training they had but back then the training for an active threat active shooter was to shelter in place very similar to a tornado drill was to get under your desks and we'll wait for this to pass well what's wrong with that they're just sitting ducks right if they're if they're just waiting underneath their desks the bad guys come in Harrison Cleo come in and they they're easily easy targets the picture showing here is the library of Coline school where most of the killings took place Harris and ceville were able to walk into the library all the students and and staff members were hiding just underneath a variety of desks and Harrison clo just methodically went through and executed students and staff members deciding who gets to live who gets to die in the there's a phone call of one of the teachers making to 911 saying there's Shooters inside of our school we need help in the background of that phone call you can hear a little girl saying hey let's go we got to get out teacher says no get back here get under your desk and so then they stayed and ultimately got shot if they had just listened to that little girl the little circle shown there is an exit from the library into a small hallway and then that small hallway leads to another door to completely out of the building and I we think that's where maybe she was referring to is let's get out of here let's run over here and get out of the building again we don't fault them for it we didn't have any any training or anything to really base what to do off of um but but that's what they did back then and that's why we're we're learning from that now it was also a major case study for law enforcement law enforcement back then again we don't P them for it for this training but back then it was a surround contain and then wait for a SWAT team to get there well how long does it take for a SWAT team to get to something like this depending on where you are it can take upwards to an hour so what they did was they made a perimeter around the school waited for the SWAT team to get there to enter the building what we train now in law enforcement is as soon as we get somebody on scene as soon as possible we need to get in to that building and locate the shooter and eliminate the threat whether we're by ourselves with a Twan team a three-man team we train single officer entries that's just how we train now because active shooter incidents end in one of three ways they get shot by the police they commit suicide or they just give up and those three ways only happen when we can put that pressure back on the suspect a lot of times I I refer to active shooter active Shooters as cowards because they go after the the places where they have um a large amount of victims that are easy targets like schools um grocery stores they know that there's not going to be much resistance at schools and and grocery stores so that's why I refer to them as cowards they have that that end game game in life whether they're going to just commit suicide or they're going to make the cop shoot them but they go after those places where they're not going to meet much resistance the second thing that we train for the multi-option response is to actively barricade if we can't get out now we need to make it as difficult as possible for that shooter to get where we are so that's that's actively putting things in front of the entrance actively moving things around the room and making it as difficult as possible for that shooter to to get to us when we watch uh video security footage of of Shooters walking through buildings walking through Schools they're checking doors they're not if the door's locked they're not taking the time to try to unlock it or push it open or force it open again they're looking for easy targets easy victims so they're not taking their time to try to force a door open that's closed or locked so the more we can put in front of our door to make it more difficult for that shooter to get in the less time going to he's going to take to try to get to where we are because he already knows that 911 has been called and then help is likely on its way so we need to know what kind of doors we're working with so if we look around the room this door here it's a door that opens out of our room right a little bit difficult to barricade a door that opens out of our room but how could we maybe barricade this door this one here put a table in front of it start stacking stuff just start stacking stuff yeah absolutely cuz then he opens it now he's met with a wall of tables and chairs yep so it's got the emergency bar here um sometimes they have little pin locks I don't I don't see one there but sometimes the emergency bars like that have a little pin lock that you can pop um otherwise we could maybe I don't know if this in the video that was shown it had a little short actor TI in a belt around the door assist so I don't know if the door assist on this one comes through make I won't shut it all the way CU I know it'll lock yeah so it goes on the other side so if we were on the other side of that but for this door to open that door assist has to expand so if that door assist was on the inside of where we are if we tied something around that that would lock that door shut that door's not going to open without that being able to expand if we could get a rope around that emergency bar tie it to a table like you said put a table up tie it or our belts or shoelaces anything we can do to secure that door and make it as difficult as possible we need to understand the difference between covered concealment other than the officers in here what's cover what's consuming anybody know so cover is something that's likely going to stop a bullet some of your brick walls your thick oak trees uh that wall back there is is would be if you were to run on the other side of that I would consider that uh cover concealment is something that's just going to hide you it might not necessarily stop the bullet but it's going to hide you so if you if you all like duck down underneath behind those the chambers there that would be concealment a bullet is going to go right through that wood so I wouldn't rely and I'll talk again a little bit more about it in our the threat assessment that I do at the end but I wouldn't um count on that not protecting you from any sort of rounds right or if you just tip this table over on its side and I knelt down behind it that's just concealment that's not going to stop any bullets so understanding when you're when you're doing your mental rehearsals going okay what's cover what's concealment what's going to stop a bullet if I if I can get behind it and then figure out where I'm running after that I need it to be covered I don't want it just to be concealment why do we why do we actively barricade why what's the case study on this is the Virginia Tech school shooting one of the worst um educational College shootings in history if anybody remembers this one so the picture shown shows a couple different Columns of rooms passive rooms that when the shooter came into where they were didn't do anything at the door didn't do any kind of barricading just kind of hid in the corner of their classroom and then on the right is the proactive rooms where they were actively barricading their door to their classroom so what happened the shooter ended up committing a shooting on one side of Campus went to his his um dorm changed his clothes mailed out his manifestos grabbed his gear he had some vests and a bunch of a bunch of guns went over to a different part of Campus went to the second story story of uh an educational Hall where the classrooms were chained the door shut so law enforcement couldn't get in put notes on the doors saying if you open these doors explosives are going to go off went up into a empty classroom on the second floor put his stuff on checked his guns and a couple of the survivors even in interviews afterwards said yeah we saw him walking up and down the hallway of our Second Story classrooms and it was almost middle to the end of the year so it's not like any students would have been lost or unsure where their classrooms were everybody knew where their classrooms were but he looked lost because he kept pacing up and down the hallways what he was doing is looking into the classrooms to see what what classrooms had the most people and then you'd go back into that empty room but and I touch on intuition a little bit too but intuition would have been like okay that is really weird why is this person coming back and forth back and forth on our kind of little segregated educational Hall where our classrooms are like this is really weird maybe we should check this out or somebody maybe should check this out but uh anyway the shooter ended up going into 206 um 14 people total were in there there he killed 10 wounded two the people that survived in the passive rooms ended up saying that they were laying underneath other people that were shot and killed and played dead because the shooter would end up actually came into the rooms multiple times three four times and just continued to shoot people that were laying down on the ground the P the proactive rooms 204 a really cool story here 204 the professor was actually a survivor of um the Holocaust back in the Glocks and he and ended up barricading the door with himself he put himself in the door held the door shut by himself told all of his students hey knock out those windows they on the second story as you can see but knock out the windows jump out get out of here so he and another another student ended up holding the door shut with him suspect ended up shooting through the doors killing the professor one other student and then the three that were wounded were wounded because they jumped out of the window and broke some legs 205 12 people they did a really really good job barricading zero people killed zero people wounded 207 ended up he ended up shooting through the walls um and the door and killing five and wounding six but as you can see proactive rooms had a much higher survival rate than just the passive rooms so we need to make it as difficult possible for that shooter to get into us to make our survival rate go up and give us a chance to make it home at the end of this so one of the last options the last option um kind of the hardest one to put ourselves in the mindset of this is to act with aggression we can't get out we we weren't able to success successfully barricade our do as as well as we wanted to bad guys coming in with a gun we got to fight for our lives we need to to make it count we need to act with aggression one of the things you can't do is hesitate any hesitation equals time for that bad guy time for that bad guy equals TR PSE so we cannot hesitate we need to be mentally prepared to fight for our lives one of the things that we need to be me mentally prepared for is you might get shot right you got to say to yourself okay he's coming in I might get shot or a coworker might get shot somebody might get shot in here but we have to continue to fight we got to take them out and survive this so we need to know what our improvised weapons are looking around in this room do we have anything improvised weapons other than the handguns that Chief has and um sir you have right what do we have for improvised weapons it was GNA G the gavl oh yeah yeah you hit somebody in that with that you're likely going to probably kill them right anything else chairs pens pencils name name plates mics really anything can be considered an improvise about that now your your bottle there of juice sample right you can use those things as an improvised weapon to throw at the suspect to hit him in the head with it to gain some time for us to come up with a different or another plan so what has anybody heard of the udal loop other than the police officers again udal Loop yeah absolutely so the UDA Loop is actually the process that our our brains have to go through anytime we do an action anytime we wanted to do something even pick up my water bottle here I had to go through the UDA Loop it doesn't take very long but it it is a process that we all have to do we first have to observe Orient decide act I use the example of shooting a gun because it's relevant to what we're talking about if I wanted to shoot a gun I would first have to observe my target Orient it where it is relation to me decide to pull the trigger and then actually pull the trigger again it doesn't take very long that cycle can happen very very fast but if we can disrupt the shooter's UDA Loop every time he comes back up onto Target disrupt that UDA Loop get them back off Target make them Flinch what's the human natural response when something gets thrown at you or you get hit to duck to Flinch to go to turn away right so if we can disrupt his udal Loop every time he comes back up on the Target and we're throwing stuff at him we're hitting in the head with them that's going to give us a little bit of advantage to jump on them to tackle them to hit them again with something else when when they have a gun and we don't so this was developed by the by the military um and and it it works really really well and I actually have kind of a Hands-On example this is called a red man gun what we used this in law enforcement for is is just training purposes it's a it's a block for plastic doesn't go click doesn't go boom we use it for weapon retention stuff use Force stuff um but it's just it's just a tool that we use but I'm going to do a little demonstration so what's your name aen Aiden so Aiden's got his improvised weapon what in your work area what do you think what would you have for a good improvise weapon you think keyboard May keyboard yeah keyboard sabler so so Aiden's Aiden's going to be our leader in the in the room I'm going to go outside this door here because it's the kind of the most Center but I'm going to be the bad guy Aiden's going to be the the hero here saying hey bad guy's coming in we couldn't get out we couldn't actively barricade he's coming in I'm going to throw my keyboard at him disrupt that o you guys come up with another plan to to take this guy okay so again what's the natural human response when something gets thrown at us or we get hit with something it's the duck to turn away so when I come in through the threshold here just throw that at me okay not hard though ready so I'm probably so you so let's say that is something with a little bit of weight behind it right and he threw it really really hard he threw the chair he threw a Yeti mug he threw something that has a lot of weight behind it hits the bad guy in the head as soon as he walks in that door right that's going to do some damage that's going to give us an opportunity as a group to say okay Aiden you're going to throw this at him we're going to go jump on him we're going to tackle him we're going to punch him in the head we're going to do something but we're going to survive we're going to take this guy out right so you can do it again good shot yeah does anybody really want to throw a pong ball at me you guys are a little far away but if you want to come up here and throw one you your I'm good so now so now we have more people with more improvised weapons right so if if more of us have more objects more improvised weapons and we maybe even stack the throws like one throws and then another one throws and then another one throws that's disrupting that UD Loop every time something gets thrown gives us more time to do what we need to do to survive all right same thing when I come through this door just throw all those balls in you're moving don't have a that's a not expecting that thought he was going for pizza so is there a a chance or a risk that bad guys still able to pull the trigger a couple of times oh absolutely right but are they going to be necessarily accurate in where they where he wants them to be probably not very a lot less accurate and statistically shown active shooter ents happen with handguns are you more accurate with a handgun or a rifle rifle so handguns in alone are not very accurate especially at a distance but when something's getting thrown at you you're going to be a lot less accurate you're getting tackled you're going to be a lot less accurate so the the more we can disrupt that UDA Loop and give us time as people with that don't have a firearm with somebody that does have a firearm it it enhances our chances of survival as well so time that this happened in real life is Flight 93 everybody remember what flight 93 was one of the planes hijacked on the 911 terrorist attacks say headed to the Pentagon and uh the passengers and the flight attendants knew that the only chance they had at surviving was to retake that plane do you think when the hijackers went to hijack school they uh had a class on what happens when the passengers try to retake the plane no right probably not they just had the class on how to take this plane and get it to where you want it to go but they knew that the only chance they had at surviving was to retake the plane so uh Sandra Bradshaw was one of the flight attendants she used her improvised weapon was boiling hot water so that's what she used for boiling hot water Cod Beamer one of the one of the passengers that was really the leader that kind of started this plan of hey this is what we got to do we got to retake This Plane somebody made a phone call to who loves one saying hey our plane's been hijacked in the background of that phone call you can hear Todd actually saying hey you guys ready all right let's roll let's do this let's try to retake this plane and that's what they did they they put the water on the hijackers tackled them fought with them tried to retake the plane they weren't successful on totally regaining control of that plane but the plane did go down early in a field so they saved an unknown number of lives on the ground but weren't able to save their owns uh but absolute heroes in my book uh what they did and what they what they decided to do to try to try to survive something like that we talk about practice makes perfect and something like this it's not going to make perfect because we can't practice every scenario that possibly could come up when I feel train a new officer I get them for what I said about a month is it realistic for me to train them on every threat or scenario that they're going to come across in their career as a cop no right there there's there's unknown number of scenarios that they could possibly have it's unrealistic to just train for all of that it's unrealistic for all of you to have an answer for each and every scenario that you possibly could come across but what we say is practice makes proficient and we talk about mental scripts I touched it on a little bit at the beginning mental scripts are what our mind automatically reverts to when we're confronted with a threat it automatically goes back to I've solved this problem before in the past here's how I did it I this work and that happens really really fast instead of freezing instead of going oh crap somebody's got a gun what do I do what do I do what do I do okay I'm going to do this it it'll be oh they got a gun I'm out oh they got a gun I'm going to go with this improvised weapon I'm going to barricade so we talk about practice make proficient we're creatures of habit if we practice it if we think about it even once a month once every two months but you're going through it in your head saying okay this is this is what I'm going to do even been as a as a police officer for uh over eight years when I'm driving around calls are slow I'm even still thinking okay I'm driving by Casey's gas station what am I going to do if I see somebody running out with a gun and they got stuff in their hand like they just robbed the store what am I saying on the radio where am I parking am I exiting my car and chasing after them on foot am I just going to hit them with my car what am I doing what that's doing is creating those mental scripts because if that happens but not at Casey's but at uh Bank or somewhere else I've already thought about what I would do if it happened at Casey's I'm going to I'm going to go with a quick response even though it's happening somewhere else so that's what we want everybody else to think is okay you're thinking about it maybe at work but now you're out to eat with family members and somebody comes in just had bad Sushi comes in to to shoot the place up because they didn't like it and now you're kind of caught in the middle of it what are you going to do what options do you guys have my wife really gets mad at me but what I do sometimes when we're out and about shopping I'll say hey uh where's the where's the second option to get out she's like we're doing this again it's like well yeah I just I just want to touch on it instead of the main entrance that we came in have you seen any other exit signs are there any other exit signs that we can get out of the building completely if we had to if there was a fire if there was an active shooter cuz what's that doing is that's creating those mental scripts in her brain for when she's out shopping with our two boys and I'm not with her but she's already thought about that a couple of times so she'll be able to react a lot faster so a lot of the things that we're covering today is for yeah workplace stuff but also personal life share with your families get everybody on that same page of hey we need to be thinking about this uh just in case we do come across that where we're not freezing we're not stopping going oh crap what do I do what do I do what do I do you already have that answer so what we tell our our new cops a lot um is that your body body is not going to go where your mind hasn't if you haven't thought about how you're going to react to a threat you're going to freeze you're going to freeze so one of the major profiles that you as a city uh is going to be looking at for an active shooter is that ideology profile city employees uh City Council Members this is somebody and and I'll go over two profiles that happened in Minnesota recently um every Community has somebody of this variation in their Community um you might even be able to picture picture somebody that kind of kind of uh correlates with with what it is but 73% white uh these are statistics from the FBI 100% male 73% in their 40s they're suicidal and they have violent criminal histories so the two profiles that we're going to go over is the New Hope uh city council shooting in 2015 so 10 years ago but still recent uh we're going to watch the video about what happened here you don't see anybody get shot and then I'll touch on who he was in the history behind him and then I'll do one more but when you watch this video after what we just talked about and our multi-option response to an active threat and I'm not making fun at the city council members by any means they probably didn't have any training it wasn't really 2015 we weren't seeing a lot of active Shooters it wasn't really uh in our in the back of our heads like it is today but watch what they do as City Council Members when there's an active shooter right outside the chambers all right that was a gunshot went right through the door get down you're going get down stay down so the guy on the left is armed he's got a handgun so it goes like this for another minute or so no audio nothing really shown other other than this shown but what do you guys think right away just watching a little bit of this the only one that should really be watching is the guy with a handgun yeah the only one that should be poking their heads is the guy with a handgun everybody else is a target yeah you put your head up I mean the guy's right outside the chambers and your head that's the only thing that exposed what do you think he's going to aim at your head right but also a lot of what I see is a lot of freezing the the what guy oh my gosh somebody was just shot so you're just going to sit there and and you know not seeing what he's seeing but but let's get out let's get out of where we're at let's let's remove ourselves from what we would call the danger area and get ourselves somewhere safe so which is really nice if similar situation if that happened the first shot fired would likely be right outside these doors if it if if it was happening here right you guys have a nice exit door right there that you guys can be shuffling to probably jumping over each other um trying to get the quickest through that threshold I see yeah I'm going to knock you guys down um Chief said that that door is always open during City Council meetings which is great um so and then anybody else that's in in the audience here is likely going to be going to that that exit as well so once you get through that threshold I'll talk about it after during the threat assessment but so the suspect here was uh Raymond Kens he had a very long history with City officials the police department they ended up even having to do protection orders against him and um you know it was it was a very long history of back and forth Rayman did not like any of the city officials hated the police he actually had a range at his house where he had mannequins of police officers and he' practice shooting them um but he had a long history of mental health issues and he was that ideology profile to a teeth and um he ended up coming in and he he got shot right away by the police once he came in there were police already on site and and they took him out immediately but um lot long history with him he was that like I said that ideology profile to a te so um every in the city I work for uh we have like three or four of these guys that are just the same exact I mean it they they cross every box and we're just waiting for the day that um they do it at our one of our grocery stores or a city council meeting or or at some point so the next one uh we'll watch the news clip on it um and then we'll kind of dive into what his profile wasy this morning in that deadly shooting at a Minnesota Health clinic police saying a suspect who was in custody is quote no stranger to law enforcement Stephanie Ramos has the latest this morning a search for answers after a deadly shooting at this medical facility in Buffalo Minnesota a gunman now identified as 67-year-old's Gregory olrick allegedly walking into AA health clinic and opening fire just before 11:00 a.m. then reportedly calling police himself I just checked in and I was walking to be S to take a seat and I heard this man say get down on the ground and I turned and I saw the back of this man and he had a gun and there were screaming and there were shooting at least five people injured one of them dying overnight police also locating suspicious packages in the lobby and at a nearby Super Eight Motel where the suspect was recently staying albre who is believed to have acted alone is known to local authorities there certainly is a history of uh him being unhappy with the health care that he received the suspect's Brother Richard olich telling ABC news that Gregory had bath surgery a few years ago and allegedly became addicted to opioids rri has an arrest record and in 2018 was banned from the Alina Clinic the injured who are still hospitalized are expected to recover police say this all could have been so much worse especially since this is a busy commercial area and there are schools nearby oric is scheduled to appear in court on Thursday Robin all right Stephanie thank you so yeah Gregory his Vendetta was against the Ali clinic right so it not wasn't necessarily against the city um but it's still the same profile it's still the same ideology profile that that you guys would would probably have the most the the threat against or the threat would be the ideology profile but Greg yeah he had again that long history with with the police department and long history with that Alina Clinic uh the doctor ended up getting a harassment restraining order against him cuz he ended up finding his personal phone number calling him threatening him saying he's going to kill him and uh when he went to that clinic that day the doctor wasn't even there wasn't working he found out that the doctor wasn't there called himself in and gave himself up to the police but he also had some explosives and um I could really talk about Gregory and how the system failed him and the victims of this uh tragic incident uh but we don't have all the time for that cuz that take a long time on that one but um ultimately he was able to legally purchase a handgun which he shouldn't have been and um that's the gun he ended up using was one he purchased legally so but again he matches that profile to a te exactly all of those things so uh when we when we go over our mental rehearsals and we talk about with our family about how we're going to respond to an active threat active shooter situation one of the things that we need to take into consideration is how we react as humans under fear there's two different types of fear There's real fear and then there's unwarranted fear unwarranted fear is something like if I said there's no way I'm going to jump in the mid of your River there's alligators in there I'm going to get eaten by an alligator if I go on the river right that doesn't make sense there's no alligators in the river that's unwarranted Fe fear real fear is something that's happening right in front of you that's causing you to be fearful your adrenaline spiking your heartbeat is spiking your cortisol in your bloodstream is is thickening and you're having a harder time your heart's beating you're having a harder time breathing that's what real fear can do to you it can take a lot of your senses away it takes away your gross motor skill or your fine motor skills and you maybe only have gross motor skills an example I have for this is a couple years ago a partner and I got dispatched to a guy that had been using for a few weeks wanted to burn the house down with his family inside we get there guy goes up into his bedroom barricades himself into his bedroom we kick the door open he's standing at the end of the bed with a with a hatchet saying I want you to kill me you going to have to kill me we're screaming at him drop the hatchet we're arguing back and forth he wants to kill kill us he wants us to kill him we're arguing back and forth finally he puts the hatchet down but he grabs a knife and we're like dude that's not any better you got to drop that knife drop the knife again we we're going back and forth back and forth finally my partner and I both ended up grabbing our tasers tased them he fell down we went handcuffed him and got him off to the hospital where desperately needed to go after the fact we went back into the room gather our evidence the the hatchet the knife our taser cartridges and stuff and walking in there my adrenaline was down and I wasn't in that real fear response I could start to smell lighter fluid and if you've ever smelt lighter fluid it's it's really potent I mean even just a little bit of it you can smell it very easily but he had ended up dousing his whole room in lighter fluid but under my real fear response when I forced that door open and I saw him there with that hatchet my real fear completely took away my sense of smell I couldn't smell anything because I was only focused on if he comes at me I'm going to have to shoot him I'm going to have to shoot him I'm going to have to shoot him I don't want to shoot him am I going to have to shoot him and what I was saying to him my real fear completely just focused on what was going to what could possibly kill me of what I was going to have to do after my adrenaline had gone down and my stress was down now I could start to smell again and I was super mad at myself I'm like how could I not smell lighter fluid when he doubts the whole room in it and then I learned about what real fear can do to us and how it changes what we receive as receptors uh what's based on what's important in front of us so when we're doing mental rehearsals and how we're going to resp respond to somebody with a gun in front of us it's going to take some of your fine motor skills so let's say that door is closed and we need to get out as fast as we can that door is locked from our room to get into the other side other than a fob right you would need your fob how easy is it to get your fob out of your pocket and and swipe it on that keypad is it difficult are your fine motor skills going to be somewhat depleted where you're not going to you're going to be fumbling it right scary movies where the victim's running from the suspect or bad guy and they get to their car and they're fumbling their car keys to get into the car that's real life that happens in real life you're that scared you're under that real fear your fing motor skills are gone and you can't get that key in that Keyhole very easy that is real life so we need to take those kind of considerations when we're doing our mental rehearsals like okay how easy is this how easy is it to grab that keyboard and take it out and hit somebody that'd be pretty easy but if we're grabbing like little pens and pencils is it harder using our fine motor skills to grab those pens and pencils to use them as improvised weapons yeah maybe so those are all things that we need to take into consideration I touched a little bit on listening to our intuition and and why it's important that we have intuition I like to ask everybody who has better intuition men or women yeah a mixed crowd like this we typically get no answer but it when we do Healthcare and stuff uh and it's predominantly women they all oh women women have better intuition and then when we have a mixed room we don't get much but women absolutely have better intuition than men um they're just smarter overall uh men we we typically use reason and logic to talk ourselves no we are I mean when I'm walking down the street by myself I have to analyze every situation in a way guys don't have to so women have been doing threat assessments our entire lives y yep yep they absolutely um uh have much better intuition and they do a better job of listening to their intuition men like I said we we tend to use reason and logic to talk ourselves out of uh what our intuition is telling us if our intuition says o I don't like the way that this guy is sitting in the parking lot when you're walking into Cub Foods or you got a bad feeling but then our brains go to wow I can I can handle it I can I can deal with it or you know oh nothing's that ever happened to me it's not going to happen it's important for us to listen to that intuition and and know why we have it intuition is something is instinctual we're born with it we have intuition from the day we're born with those gut feelings that's what that is it's it's just something that we all have and it's really important when we're talking about active Shooters and and you're going and walking around in public and you have a bad feeling about somebody you may not necessarily need to act on that intuition like start running away but now it's time to pay more attention to why you have that intuition and what's making your red flags go off that's really important so so body language pre- attack indicators that we talk about a lot too is is these are the things that we're watching for when we're having that city council meeting and there's somebody in the crowd that you're like man I know he's there for you know he's very upset about whatever is on the agenda today and he's going to he's going to get upset um these are some things that that we watch for as cops and that kind of tell us like something something might be happening so Hand raising for whatever reason people get the more upset people get the higher their hands get and it it happens a lot like when I'm dealing with people on domestics and they're they start talking with their hands that's when they're really upset right or their hands are above their head or they're on their head they're getting really upset so for whatever reason when people get more upset their hands go up padding padding is something that I'm actually guilty of um this is this happens when I carry U my my handgun off duty I carry inside my waistband so it's concealed but when I get out of my vehicle or I start walking um I I'll always kind of just touch it and we call it padding but I'll I'll touch it periodically like okay it's still there I can physically feel it pressed up against my hip but for whatever reason subconsciously I Pat where that gun is and adjust it or I'll just touch it and be like okay it's still there watching watching Squad camera body body foot body cam footage of Officer involved shootings a lot of times the suspect is doing that they're touching where that weapon is s um just very very slightly or or just gradually like okay it's still there so if you got somebody coming in here and they're adjusting where their waistband might be or or maybe where they're carrying a gun that can be a good indication that maybe they do have something concealed but as we're getting into argument stuff puffing out their chest we call it peacocking always making themselves look bigger than they actually are I have to do this a lot I don't know if you can tell but I'm a little guy so when I'm deal most of the time I'm dealing with people they're larger than me so when I know that we're going to end up getting into a fight I actually start to Puff my chest out and make myself look a little bit bigger um in hopes that that'll somewhat deescalate the situation typically doesn't cuz they're like you're tiny don't worry about it um but a lot of times people will do that whether they're bigger or or small they'll just pop out their chest and make themselves look bigger that thousand yard stare they're just looking right through you you're trying to deescalate somebody or talk to somebody and they're just they're they're not reacting to anything you're saying they're just piercing their eyes right through your eyes um that's a good indication that maybe there's an attack coming making a fist um obviously kind of an obvious one where somebody's making a fist but a lot of times people will make a fist down by their side or behind their back and attempt to maybe cold AA or sauncha so watching people's hands what we talk about with our new officers is the most deadly thing that people can hurt you with is their hands you need to watch people's hands what are they doing with their hands are they making fists are they going in their pockets are they going in their waistbands we need to make sure that we're watching those hands those non-verbal Communications speak a lot louder than verbal Communications you can tell a lot by how somebody's Feeling Just based on their body language and you know that's just something that we can't hide if I if if I told you that oh and I use this example a lot too because I find myself doing I watch my my partner's body cam footage when we just got into a fight and I know that we're going to get into a fight I'll start like stretching I like I'll be like oh God I know we're going to get into a fight I don't want to pull a hammy so I just like I know and you can start looking at yourself uh Stretch A lot of times bad bad guys do it too when when they about to get into a fight they get into that fighting stance and they go I'm not going to fight I'm not going to fight I'm not going to fight well what does your body language say you're going to fight so looking at what their nonverbal communication what does their body language say what they're going to do or I'm not leaving no I'm not going to leave I'm not leaving I'm not leaving as they're looking for a way out or looking for a way to run so touching on some deescalation stuff um quick video and then I'll get into how to take somebody from an irrational State of Mind to a rational State of Mind mind it's just there's all this pressure you know and sometimes it feels like it's right up on me and I can just feel it like literally feel it in my head and it's Relentless and I don't know if it's going to stop I mean that's the thing that scares me the most is that I don't know if it's ever going to stop yeah well you do have a nail in your head it is not about the nail are you sure because I mean I'll bet if we got that out of there stop trying to fix it no I'm not trying to fix it I'm just pointing out that maybe the nail is causing you always do this you always try to fix things when what I really need is for you to just listen see I don't think that is what you need I think what you need is to get the nail see you're not even listening now okay fine I will listen fine it's just sometimes it's like there's this achy I don't know what it is and I'm not sleeping very well at all and all my sweaters are snagged I mean all of them that sounds really hard it is thank you ow come on if you would just don't try to see things my so just kind of a funny little video uh that shows to deescalate somebody not always are they looking for somebody to just fix their problem right away they're just looking for somebody to vent to they just need to talk about their problem and have somebody listen to it but when we get into D escalating somebody what we what the first thing we need to make sure that we're doing is making sure our self is De escalated first because it's going to be really difficult if you're escalated to deescalate somebody else so self deescalation is really important and what we what we talk about a lot uh is that this box breathing drill where you're to when you're escalated your heart rate's up you're breathing rapidly and one of the best ways to drop your heart rate and to get back to breathing normally is to do this box breathing drill so you find yourself getting escalated getting upset about something try to think back to this and go okay box breathing I'm going to breathe in for 4 seconds I'm going to hold my breath for 4 seconds then I'm going to breathe out for 4 seconds and I'm going to hold my breath for 4 seconds and I'm going to do this box drill until I can feel myself somewhat calm down somewhat de-escalated when I first heard this I first kind of was taught this box breathing drill I was like oh come on it it's a box breathing drill right and then I heard that the Navy Seals use it before they go on Ops and I was like okay maybe it's probably worth looking into and and maybe worth doing went and then last April uh where was working day shift got dispatched to um uh suicidal female who said she was going to take the kids with her um and kill herself so going to that call I could feel myself getting escalated I could feel myself starting getting tunnel vision knowing that um this lady was going to or likely going to shoot her kids and then shoot herself that's ended up what happened was it in a Park in our city a lady shot her 4-year-old and 9-year-old and then shot herself in going to that I could feel myself like I said getting ton of vision getting escalated and I knew went back to this training going okay to calm myself down so that when I get there I know what to do and I can think rationally I'm going to do this box breathing drill so in route going 10 and some miles an hour I started doing this box breathing drill in my squad and it actually helped me a lot so got there was able to do what I needed to do to to help out but um so it it it works a lot if you guys are do find yourselves in something like that where you're like I don't know how I can think rationally right now do this box breathing drill and it it does work it works it works wonders so um but this is the stairway modu module what we use in law enforcement now it was devel Vel by the FBI hostage Rescue Team U but now we all use it law enforcement used to be the askt make back in the day I'm going to ask you to do something if you don't do it I'm going to tell you to do it if you still don't do it I'm going to make you do it well how good how well do you think that ended up working terrible right it just created more use of force incidents more cops were getting hurt more people were getting hurt um so then we kind of adop we adopted this what they what the FBI used for hostage res you uh the first two steps are the if this was on some sort of like timeline bar graph the first two steps active list listening and empathy would be the longest steps it would take the most amount of time and then that Rapport influence and behavioral change are really really fast so we we like to cover the active listening and empathy more but active listening is is not just listening and going uh-huh uh-huh yeah uh-huh right you're actually engaging in that conversation you're you're repeating some of the things that they're saying and you're going to show the empathy empathy is different than sympathy sympathy is you you actually feel bad for them or or you're your heartbroken for them but empathy you might not care what they're upset about you might not really understand what they're upset about but you're still going to show that empathy going wow that must be really tired that must be that I can't imagine what that would be like so the six steps or the the six things that we can do to show active listening paraphrasing emotional labeling minimal encouragers effective pauses ime messages open-ended questions really help you don't have to do all six of those but having one or two of those in the back of your pocket to show and to to have good active listening skills would be would be huge paraphrasing is just repeating some of the things that they're saying not verbatim but word but or word for word but just a little bit like oh so you're upset because of this you're upset you're mad because of this emotional labeling is saying hey I I see that you're really upset right now and even if you get it wrong if you say hey I see you're really upset and they go no I'm not upset I'm so frustrated it's like oh okay well okay I see that you're frustrated you're still getting that those points for for trying to see how they're feeling minimal encouragers we want people to continue talking it's still it's minimal encourages is really the same as open-ended questions when people are upset they're irrational we we I I like to say that they're a a balloon filled with hot air the best way to deflate that balloon is to let the hot air out so the best way to deflate somebody that's escalated is to get them to continue to talk keep talking minimal cures yeah oh okay go on what else right still the same it's kind of the same thing as opening questions like don't ask yes or no questions ask questions where they have to answer with sentences and then I mess messages is if you have something relatable to what they're talking about like hey I've gone through this and this is what's helped me if it's not relatable if you're dealing with a veteran and you say hey I work security at the mall for 3 years I know what you're going through man right that's not going to help but if you have if you have done something that this person Hey listen I I I went through a divorce last year I know I know it's difficult this is what helped me this is these are the things that I did uh those can really help too but the picture shown is listening to respond or listening to understand what one are what one are we trying to be we really want to be that sponge we don't want to be the brick where what they're saying is just bouncing off of us we want to try to absorb what they're saying and understand where they're coming from things to avoid saying is that calm down in the history of the two words calm down is that ever worked never no right calm down and you're sleeping on the couch what I say instead of calmed down is hey I can't understand you when you're just yelling at me it's really hard for me to get what the point that you're trying to make when you're just screaming at me in my face and then that typically helps people um start to quiet down a little bit uh avoid saying that I understand especially when you don't understand because you will get called out on it a young cop uh when I first started cooping and i' go to domestics of people that have been married for 20 30 years and I walk in there say hey I understand what you guys are going through I think I can help and they're like dude you're just out of high school you don't understand what we're going through and they were right I had no idea um so I lost all credibility after that so instead of I I understand I can't imagine I can't imagine what you're going through right now I can't imagine how hard this is I can't imagine so people want options everybody wants options adult adults want options just like toddlers want options my four-year-old if I told my four-year-old hey put your shoes on we're going to the store no I don't want to put my shoes on and then I well we get into this argument and then he starts crying right but if I told him hey buddy you want your blue shoes or your red shoes we got to go to the store what shoes do you want to wear and he's happy go lucky he gets to pick his shoes and now we're good to go just like adults hey do you want to sit over here or do you want to come over here to my office and talk do you want to go over here can we go over here what can we do where can we go to have this conversation in private everybody wants options so uh always approach with that empathy that's uh one of and then one of the golden rules is treat everybody how you'd want to be treated um discretionary time distance gives us time time gives us options because we can't deescalate everybody there's going to be people where we're not able to deescalate so have that plan in the back of your head going hey if if things go bad what am I doing make sure you have that distance a lot of times on domestics when I know things are getting bad and things are getting heated I'll create a distance between me and that other person maybe even using Furniture between me and them going if they're going to try to attack me they're going to have to come across this furniture and I I'll have time to go to other options if I need to so so having that in the back of your head going okay I need I need some distance between us I need something between us so that if they do try to attack me I got options so just before the training today I came in a little bit early took some pictures and uh talked to Chief and Amy about kind of some of your options we talked about if there were to be an active shooter here the likelihood of the first shot being fired is outside the door or right inside the door um one of the things that I noticed and I really really like about your guys' setup is there's a doorbell that goes off anytime somebody walks through that door which is awesome for you because I'm sure you're here every city council meeting ex or somebody is we shut it off during council meeting oh do you yeah but that's a good indication like why is somebody coming in right now the city council meeting has already started it's going to divert your attention to the door and make you more aware of who's coming in so I really I really really like that um cover concealment what's in front of you concealment concealment concealment y would wouldn't um wouldn't count on that for stopping any rounds so some exit options that you guys have um and anybody else that might be around is there or main doors if there's something something else going on over there over my chair but that that is where you guys are going to want to go that's where you guys are going to want to go come up with some sort of plan um you know that's and I don't know if you really can come up with a plan on how how you're all getting out through there but but maybe practice it uh once every four five six months saying all right everybody get up and we're getting out get up getting out that'll create those mental rehearsals and create those mental scripts in your brain so it'll be automatic if there is a disorderly person in your crowd where Chief says Hey council members I need you to exit we're going to deal with this person where you guys are just automatic and you just have a nice flow to it would be awesome if you needed to get completely out of the building do you guys know where to go for that yep so it's just straight through and then there's another exit sign to the left right through the break room outside goes to the west side of the building and then you guys would be able to to get out in um as far as way as you need so I'm assuming all the city um people know all the exits around here make sure you are going over in your brain don't PR the other options for exits because it I'm guessing there's more than just these two right I'm sure there's another one on the North side and maybe even one on the east side maybe but you guys are are walking those and knowing what your exit options are and making sure there's nothing in the way that would slow you down areas to avoid this is just a just a quick little picture of underneath this don't just hunker down behind that and hope that they don't get you um bad place to be we don't want to just be sitting ducks improvised weapon just like you said the gavel uh name plates the uh very sharp top to the Minnesota flag there that that would be quite the improvised weapon if you needed to use that but we also have just about anything that we can use for an amberv weapon we can use it just knowing and thinking about it in the back of your head uh is a great first step of being quick with it instead of hesitating going what do I have what do I have we just know automatically I'm going this or I'm going to I'm going to take that I'm going to do that so um we we every every place is different when it comes to while are we going to have a safe meeting location after the fact are we going to all meet somewhere do we want to set something like that if you guys do try to make it a place where there's a bathroom food and water available when our bodies go through something like that and that real fear response everybody's a little bit different but after like I go hands on with somebody or I get into a pursuit or gun pointing incident I get super thirsty like my adrenaline takes the hydration out of my body and I get super super thirsty I always have water with me so after something like that I get thirsty some people might get hungry get lightheaded might have to use the bathroom so if you do have a safe meeting location try to have those things available I know it's not always ideal but something like that so any questions any any concerns for me or chief or are the schools teaching kids to get out cuz that wasn't my pression good question in fact my kids came home and I said no you find the window and you get out yeah you don't hang around oh there a lot of the schools around the Metro are kind of going towards this we have in my city we have all of the schools are kind of going towards the get out and then we get more towards the cities and they say uh-uh we don't want to we don't want to do that um I would like to see the schools if we if we could get into the schools and kind of pitch why this is a better option and a lot the bigger concern for schools is well how do we account for all the kids and and our response is you can't you're not going to I mean get the kids out and we'll find them later wasn't there a shooting though where the shooter used that like they pulled the fire alarm to get everyone out the exit and then sat out and shot the as they were coming out yep there was one shooting in the history okay so what we do is we train office statistics okay but I think that be one of the on um but statistically shown Shooters are a single person job 98 point something perent of the time if it is a two-person shooting they're always together like Harris and Cleo they never left each other's side in Coline they walked into each room together they walked down the Halls together so um that it is it is it a possibility absolutely absolutely but what we want to do is train for success ESS in office statistics and and statistically shown that's not going to happen because again they know that their time is limited they know that you know so how often is an individual in the crowd carry at city council no at any particular thing I mean you never know where it's going to happen yeah exactly I mean most of these if somebody in that building would be carrying yeah it would end pretty quick yeah that's a good that's a great question I am a huge advocate of if you're legally allowed to carry you should carry but I'm also a huge advocate of if you're going to carry you need to come to peace with having to shoot somebody because a lot of people when I when I talk to people that carry I'll I'll even ask them just straight up hey have you ever thought about shooting somebody and they're like no I am I going think about that it's like well you're carrying a gun done and you might find yourself in a situation where you're going to have to use it on a human and you've never thought about it have you talk to your significant other of carrying this burden of hey I'm going to carry a gun I might shoot somebody I'm going to get investigated you know am I going to be in the wrong I don't think so but is it is's there a chance maybe right you're bigger Target then too yeah you could be a Target yep um we get the question a lot of hey I always have a gun in my truck should I run out to my truck get the gun and come back and try to find the bad guy my answer to that is I would rather you didn't one you're already out you're already out of the building out of the red zone two when law enforcement's coming we're under extreme stress we're under extreme tunnel vision we are looking for bad guy with a gun bad guy with a gun and the first thing we see is you running back into the building with a gun who are we likely going to shoot right and that actually happened in um Colorado I think uh Trooper got ambushed got shot and killed Good Samaritan saw shocked bad guy went over to where the trooper and bad guy were still had his gun in his hand backup officer arrived shot Good Samaritan so it it it happens so so that's that would be my answer to that too but yeah you're definitely a Target so if there's like two rooms and the active Shooters out there and one room they're breaking the windows and making noise in the other room there's people they're not making any noise is it like a 50/50 it doesn't matter yeah it depends what what room is easier to get into what room is easier to get into is he they they'd probably check the rooms like the um um Nashville shooter that went through that school like she walked into like she uh they walked into rooms multiple times looking in checking checking in rooms checking doors cuz you w watch them walk through the Halls so whether they're people making noise in that room and the door was barricaded they're still probably not going to waste their time getting in because then she just they went and birched up on the balcony and started shooting at the cops that were riding on scene if there's no other questions uh again I really appreciate you guys being here and and willing to um take some different yeah sorry not a question just a comment this is the fourth time I've had to go through one of these I'm a teacher so I get it lots um and then my part-time job made me do it uh this was the best so wow Far and Away the best one that I've had so thank you very yeah um that's really nice you to say say but I I do hope that you guys all took something one or two things away from this mental rehearsals bring this back to your families make sure everybody's kind of on the same page thinking the same so that way we're all have our a chance of survival goes up uh if we ever are caught in one of these things cuz they are getting more and more frequent people people are getting more and more mentally ill and um you know you just never know where it's going to happen so um a question I guess I've always told like my kids and I've always like been in an area that is not you know kind of sketchy or whatever to kind of stand and walk tall and like you know don't mess with meat kind of a thing that helpful or yeah appearance appearance is absolutely not helpful if if there's um somebody that's wants to Target people they're going to Target people that are going to be an easy victim so if they're kind of Lolly gagging and maybe maybe not necessarily holding themselves up then maybe yeah it would be rather than somebody that uh in law enforcement we talk a lot about our appearance as K our boot shine do we look disheveled um because we they've actually interviewed guys that have assaulted officers and they said yeah I've picked this cop because his boots were super dirty uh looked like his belt was kind of like sideways and then this cop over here his boots were shiny he looked he looked in order and I was like I'm going to go after that guyy so up here in K absolutely have a have a stake in who gets victimized well that's all I have for you guys looks like we have new people Hi how are you all right well thank you thank you much I need rest all right we can turn this one e