One of the hottest topics in law enforcement today is that of an active shooter. The active shooter has been involved in U.S. for decades causing fear and death. What recently seemed to bring this type of killer out into the worlds view again and majorly change the way law enforcement viewed handling this type of incident was the horrific shootings and killings done on April 20, 1999 at the Columbine High School in Colorado.
An active shooter is an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and other populated area. In most cases, active shooters use firearms and there is no pattern or method to their selection of victims. Active shooter situations are unpredictable and evolve quickly. https://www.dsac.gov/topics/active-shooter-resources
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No specific training or major policy changes happened. Active shooter incidents are now not only known nationally, but internationally known as well. A standard style of training has been developed for law enforcement in responding to these incidents in order for all responding agencies to have the same knowledge of how to handle this situation. Law enforcement agencies have moved forward in training that now meets the needs to help an active shooter situation. Law enforcement officers now have updated their equipment as far as weapons for be equal to the subject if not greater, entry tools, ballistic vests and shields, and different tactics to neutralize the threat rather than contain and negotiate. Upon arrival to the scene of an active shooter, the action for the first responders is to act immediately and head to the threat and neutralize it. There is no more waiting for SWAT to show up since the average arrival time for a SWAT team to arrive on seen and be put into action is around 50 minutes, whereas the average response time for first responder officers is around 3 minutes. https://leb.fbi.gov/2014/january/active-shooter-events-from-2000-to-2012 An active shooter tries to inflict as much damage as soon as possible before help …show more content…
More or less incidents? The amount of active shooter events has been on the rise since 2000. In the majority of all related incidents, the main choice of weapon has been the handgun. The next choice was some type of rifle. And finally, about 2 percent have used some type of IED. With tougher gun laws potentially coming into play and the amount of information that can be found on the Internet, it seems that, in the future, we may see more incidents involving IEDs.
New policies? Have been adopted from the local level all the way up to the federal level in dealing with active shooters. Policies have various approaches from solo officers going in to engage the threat, to forming contact teams usually comprised of at least four officers, too additional officers arriving to form up secondary teams for extraction, evacuation, or perimeter security
Look at the mental health side of this?? On the mental health side of this issue, Chief Riesling of the University of Wisconsin posited five phases active shooters go through. In the first phase the shooters seem to fantasize or are obsessed with other incidents. In the second phase they plan out what they intend to do. Phase three, they prepare and start acquiring what they will use to carry out their mission. Phase four is practicing how they will carry out the incident. Phase five, the actual mission. The mind set for an active shooter doesn’t appear to just snap and do it. The idea seems as it has been building
...ental illness. The article says, “a case usually begins with a gut feeling that something is off” (“Trigger warnings”). Workshops on mental illness should be carried out in schools and workplaces. These workshops should educate people on signs to look out for. Also educate people on who they should talk to if they notice strange behavior. According to the same article “threat assessment is essentially a three part process: identifying, evaluating, and then intervening” (“Trigger warnings”). With more people being educated about this more mentally ill people can be helped and more shootings can be prevented.
John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo are two murderers that are known as the Beltway Sniper. Muhammad and Malvo killings are known to be random, which categorizes their killings as a killing spree. During the duration of their killing spree, they caused major panic throughout the United States. This notorious shootings that terrorized the United States took place in 2002. The shootings ended up taking the lives of 10 individuals and injuring 3 others (Blades, 2005, para.1). The shooting at the time it took place is considered unique because their weapon of choice to carry out their plan was a sniper rifle. What is unique about this case is that investigators and criminal theorist
Shen, Aviva. "A Timeline of Mass Shootings in the US since Columbine." ThinkProgress RSS. Center for American Progress Action Fund, 14 Dec. 2012. Web. 17 Nov. 2013.
Over the last decade or so, the United States of America has been shaken by an epidemic of terrifying mass shootings, devastating slayings of unexpecting victims, and unnerving annihilations of the innocent. There is no specific target, no explicitly sought-out group, nor definite individual. From a classroom of first-graders, to a crowded movie theatre, to a U.S. Naval yard, the location seems at most, random, other than that it is almost always a public place. The perpetrators responsible for these horrific murders also vary, and often surprise those who thought they knew them. However, while the occurrences of mass shootings are unpredictable and always shocking, most have one thing in common: the use, or rather misuse, of assault weapons-automatic or semiautomatic military style rifles. To ensure the safety, security, and well-being of the people of the United States, the government should ban assault weapons.
Out of this research a variety of possible causes came to light consisting of arguments stating that high school bullying, availability of guns, mental illness, violent movies and video games are the cause of mass shootings. However, these researchers and debaters tend to ignore the role of massive media coverage in the increase of copycat shootings in the United States. The history of school shootings has shown an increase in mass school shootings. The very first known school shooting in the United States occurred on July 26, 1764 in present-day Greencastle, Pennsylvania. As part of the Pontiac's Rebellion, four Lenape Native Americans entered the school house and started shooting, killing the schoolmaster Enoch Brown and about nine students.
It is a sad time in American history when one can easily recount recent school shootings in their own area. This ease stems from a sharp increase in the number of firearms brought into elementary and middle schools across the country, with an intense focus on the issue beginning after the shooting of 20 children from Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut. Most school shooters are male, white, and often upper middle class. They are also more, often than not, under some type of mental stress that is causing them to create this type of violence in our communities. In fact, many school shooters are never suspected of doing any harm to their peers and teachers until it is much too late.
Lankford also states that in paragraph 4: They are felt like they have been given false hope as they were told that success and wealth comes from hard work. Not really seeing the the true success they thought could be succeed when failing making them turn on other people. I think people should understand these people with these kind of certain mental problem than to study which can help reduce mass killers, “The vast majority of people with mental illness are not violent and never will be.” ( Swanson ) Meaning a few people are, but it's hard to identify these types of people as Jonathan Metzl said in the last paragraph: “So there’s no psychiatric test that can prevent a mass shooting mass. They are hard to predict.” We, ourselves have to remind one another that we are all humans and not everyone think the same way or the way you predicted them
When the news reports a shooting, I start to panic and worry for the victims involved. I don’t typically start to wonder about how long the shooter was active and for how many minutes, so when reading the FBI Active Shooter report I was shocked to have found out most shooting happen within minutes. The report states “In 64 incidents where the duration of the incidents could be ascertained, 44 (69.0%) of 64 incidents ended in 5 minutes or less, with 23 ending in 2 minutes or less.” Leaving many civilians in dangerous situations because by the time a law enforcement officers arrives the shooting will stereotypically be over. I find this fact very unsettling because civilians rely on law enforcement officers to keep them safe, but not even law
Over the past years media has been overwhelmed with news about mass shootings happening around America and if mental illness is the primary cause of the violent act. On February 2014, Jonathan M. Metzl and Kenneth T. MacLeish published their article “Mental Illness, Mass Shootings, and the Politics of American Firearms” in the American Journal of Public Health that addresses the issue that mental illness has very little to do mass shootings which is commonly used on the aftermath of the shooting
As firearm technology evolves, weapons become more efficient. These improvements come from the increasing ammo capacity, rate of fire, accuracy, and overall user friendliness. According to everytownresearch.org, roughly 91 Americans are killed each day as a result of gun violence. Currently, the murder rate of the U.S. is 25 times more than the average of other countries. The United States has also endured various mass shootings. Incidents such as the Columbine High School massacre and the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting have inspired the awareness of gun control. Although the government has been debating ways to reduce this violence, no major reforms have been developed. In response to these rates, President Obama delivered the “Address
It seems to be all over the news these days. The next big mass shooting has occurred and the politicians are clambering for stronger regulations. Meanwhile, the American public goes into panic mode and flocks to the nearest gun store to buy anything and everything that soon might be ripped from the market. Time and time again, this same series of events occurs. Questions about how to fix this likely weigh heavily on people 's minds but, there seems to be no solution. Some argue that registration of firearms, bans of certain firearms, and background checks can curb the violence. However, none of these things seem to fix the issue. That is simply because these “solutions” don’t work.
Police and military personnel train for months and run countless mock drills to learn how to diffuse situations. They still do not know just how they would react in a real life active shooter situation. There are too many factors that can go wrong in that kind of situation. There might be other students that decide to react and just shoot the first person they see with a gun. Now you have several trigger happy people running around with guns for law enforcement to distinguish if they are a threat or ally. Any of these can result in more unnecessary injuries or
Homicides due to active shooter incidents are caused by emotional abuse, stalking, threats and more commonly termination of employment. Ways of combating this issue effectively will be by implementing policies and procedures such as buddy systems and prevention programs are likely to be effective.
Sandy Hook, Colorado Movie Theater, Columbine, and Virginia Tech all have one thing in common they known as mass shootings. Mass shootings are defined as the study of having four or more victims and do not include gang killings or slayings that involve the death of multiple family members. In Jen Christensen’s article, “Why the U.S has the most mass shootings” published by CNN, she discusses a recent shooting and ties it into mass shootings. Jen Christensen is a producer/editor with CNN’s Health, Medical and Wellness Unit. She has also earned the highest awards in broadcasting; Peabody and DuPont are some, as a producer. Prior to CNN, she was an award winning investigate producer with WSOC-TV in Charlotte, N.C. She has launched and managed an award-winning
The United States is one of the only countries with the continuing problem of mass murder. 58 people lost their lives and more than 50 were injured when a man opened fire at an outdoor country music festival in Las Vegas on October 1st, 2017 (Hanley 6). This is one of countless massacres that have occurred in the United States. It is no surprise when one turns the TV on in the morning and a “News Flash” story pops up on the latest shooting. Gregory Kate of USA Today states that there has been greater than 200 events of mass murder in the past 10 years. It is no secret that guns are an easily accessible weapon in the United States, and in numerous other countries that is not the case. Most people can obtain a firearm with a simple, online background check on a computer. Within minutes the check is completed. Kate states the only people to be declined would be: "felons, fugitives, drug addicts, the mentally ill, illegal immigrants, some legal immigrants, people