Active-Shooter Incidents: Planning Your Response

BY STEVEN C. HAMILTON

Emergency services organizations are still attempting to define their role in active-shooter incident responses. Each agency's function and participation vary based on factors such as size, personnel, equipment, service level, geography, and training. No definitive levels of standards can be applied to the fire service as a whole. Major metropolitan fire departments can bring more resources to bear on a mass-casualty incident than a strictly volunteer department serving a population of 15,000 citizens. The strategy and tactics that the metropolitan department employs may not be a feasible or wise direction for the smaller volunteer department. It is reasonable to assume that higher and denser population areas will have a greater demand for emergency services. Major cities have championed emergency services response to active-shooter and mass-casualty incidents because of the size of the population they serve. However, the strategy and tactical practices these agencies have developed may not be applicable to the fire service nationwide. This article narrows the broad spectrum ideology of active-shooter response into a framework that can be applied to any department whether large or small, paid or volunteer.

理解那些活跃的射手已经和the types of incidents their actions have created can be helpful in preparing a proper response. In the United States, most of the active-shooter incidents have involved a single shooter. The most famous exception is the active-shooter duo Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who, in 1999, shot 37 Columbine (CO) High School faculty members and students, killing 13 and wounding 24. This event led all emergency service agencies to realize that a similar type of incident could occur in their jurisdiction and to initiate a nationwide call to action for responders to preplan and be prepared for similar incidents in our public schools. Although it may be difficult, if not impossible, to find a school in the United States that does not have some type of active-shooter plan, the opposite could be said for other areas of public assembly in these communities, many of which have no active-shooter/mass-casualty plan.