Fort Myers, FL
It is a realistic nightmare that’s happening all too often in this country. Since the beginning of 2015, there have been 16 shootings on college campuses involving attacks that resulted in injuries or deaths. One company is rethinking student safety and survival if a gunman walks onto campus. It’s called ALICE and stand for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter and Evacuate. Lieutenant Joe Hendry travels the country teaching ALICE’s tactical response techniques in the event of a mass shooting. Another situation has students barricading and evacuating through the emergency exit doors in a scramble. Two classrooms with two dozen students are cleared out in less than a minute. The death toll in every scenario using ALICE is no more than four. It’s an entirely different way of thinking for Chris Ebnet. “You’re not totally defenseless in this situation, Ebnet said. “There are tactics.” It teaches staff and students to confront their attacker as a group, instead of sitting back. “How helpless would they feel?” Keeber asked. “How scared would they be?” It gives them an extra shot at survival if the unthinkable happens. Hendry said the threat is simple. “If every room is occupied and the bad guy knows every room is occupied, then they know where everyone is. You’re not hiding,” Hendry explained. But the answer is simple too. The more chaos students create, the more distracted the shooter will be. Read more
