By DENNIS R. KREBS
It seems that mass-casualty shootings-"active-shooter" situations in law enforcement terms-have been occurring with alarming frequency. Yet, such sad incidents are nothing new. One of the earliest recorded was in 1949 when a lone gunman killed 13 people in Camden, New Jersey. In what became known as the Texas Tower Incident, Charles Whitman climbed the bell tower at the University of Texas at Austin in 1966 and killed 16 people. Since that time, towns and cities like Jonesboro, Arkansas; Littleton, Colorado; Fort Hood, Texas; Newtown, Connecticut; and Washington, D.C. are but a few of the places where the ugliness of mankind has become apparent.
After the Columbine High School shooting in April 1999, the law enforcement community identified the need to adapt its operations to meet the evolving threat of the active shooter. As Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) statistics show, the average incident lasts less than 12 minutes; 37 percent last less than five minutes. Thus, law enforcement now recognizes the need to deploy quickly at these situations. Whereas most jurisdictions previously waited for Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams to handle these incidents, current practice deploys the first-arriving patrol officers in three- or four-person teams (photo 1). Some agencies are even having lone officers enter the business or school to engage the suspects. The strategy in each scenario is to "stop the killing." Personnel quickly sweep areas and move toward any gunfire, attempting to confine and ultimately suppress the shooter.
If you are a current subscriber,login hereto access this content.
If you would like to become a subscriber, please visit ushere.
