Reviewing Past Events Leading Up To What’s Next, Part 2

In my last article I did a review of the active shooter events we’ve examined from the 1700s through 1998.  In this article we’re going to examine the events from 1999 – starting with the “Pearl Harbor of Active Shooter events” (Columbine) through the Beslan School Siege in 2004 and another event in 2005.  Hopefully you’ll agree with me that those two events (Columbine and Beslan) either had the greatest impact on our first responder protocols as related to active shooters, or had the POTENTIAL to have a great impact. Certainly there was a great deal to be learned from each (but there’s something to be learned in every active shooter event and response).

Columbine High School 1999: In what has been dubbed the Pearl Harbor of active shooter events, the attack on Columbine High School was the incident that is most singly responsible for a drastic change in how law enforcement responds to high risk events and the development of standardized active shooter response protocols. While there has been much debate about WHY Columbine had such a big impact, many experts believe that it is simply due to the fact that for the first time since the creation of the television, adult relatives (parents, grandparents, etc) were able to watch live coverage of the event and due to the timeliness of the new crew arrivals (not to mention news helicopters), it was undeniable that responding law enforcement officers were taking cover behind vehicles outside the school while shots from inside the school continued to be heard. The resulting public outcry made it abundantly clear to law enforcement leaders nationwide that response protocols for such events had to be changed. Hence, for the first time since the late sixties and the development of SWAT teams, law enforcement had to develop a new response plan for what was soon to be known as active shooter events. Additionally, due to the extreme analysis of the totality of the event – from the early planning stages to every moment that could be accounted for during the attack to the after action analysis of the response and recovery, the Columbine High School attack is perhaps the best documented active shooter event in American history.

In April of 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold entered Columbine High School armed with weapons and improvised explosives including two 20-pound propane bombs which, if successfully detonated, may have killed all of the almost 500 students in the cafeteria at the time of the attack. As a result of failed improvised explosive devices, the deaths and injuries were limited to 13 dead (not including Harris and Klebold) and 21 injured. Their initial attack started outside the school during their approach and spread inside the school from the cafeteria to the library and back.

Prior to the Columbine attack, standard law enforcement protocol to a high risk event was that patrol officers would respond, set up a perimeter and feed intelligence back through the emergency communications center for use by the responding SWAT officers/teams. That protocol had been well developed after SWAT teams were created in the late sixties, partially as a result of the Texas Tower incident. However, after the Columbine event, in response to the parental demand for a better protocol, the active shooter standard response plan was developed. Coast to coast, agencies began training the “four man diamond” response. Unfortunately, such a plan was not realistic for rural areas with lower manpower. Some began adopting “buddy team” response plans and still others adopted what has now become the standard: Get there, get armed/armored, make entry, move to the threat and neutralize it as expeditiously as possible. Single officer response has become so widely accepted that the concerns of such are the first thing covered in many active shooter training venues with tactics that can be used by multiple officers covered AFTER the single officer response protocol.

Santana School Shooting 2001: In March of 2001, 15 year old Charles Williams entered Santana High School in Santee, California, and using the .22 caliber revolver he had stolen from his father’s gun safe he killed one student, shot the school’s security supervisor (not fatally) and then surrendered to police. Williams reportedly was bullied and felt suicidal but couldn’t bring himself to actually commit suicide. Perhaps the biggest lesson to learn from this particular event is that being shot is survivable. Williams shot the school’s security supervisor FIVE times, including once in the back as the man left the bathroom wherein Williams had taken refuge. Williams had given his motivation both as having been bullied and as having done the shooting on a dare from some of his friends.

Appalachian School of Law Shooting 2002: On January 16^th, 2002, former student Peter Odighizuwa took a .380ACP caliber handgun to the Appalachian Law School campus where he used it to kill two faculty members and one student as well as injuring three other students. When he exited the building where he’d committed the shootings he was confronted by two armed students who subdued him and held him for the police. The two biggest lessons that can be learned from this event are that the .380ACP, while often derided as an “insufficient caliber for defense,” has proven deadly time and time again and that legally armed “good guys” are the fastest and most effective response to armed bad guys. In this case, two armed students confronted Odighizuwa and held him for the police. While there is often an outcry for more gun control laws after any active shooter event, there are several such events, historically well documented, where it’s been proven that legally armed citizens are the fastest, most efficient response to an active shooter.

Washington Beltway “Sniper” Attacks 2002: Although the often called “Sniper” attacks that occurred around the Washington DC Capital region in 2002 were well documented, few people seemed to know that they were just the end of a crime spree committed by the perpetrators. The beltway sniper attacks themselves created a level of panic due to the unpredictable nature of their occurrence both in location and in timing. The impact this had on lives around the region was observable and made obvious how easily one or two people can affect the lives of millions. While these attacks can’t really be considered active shooter events – or even a single active shooter event spread out over time – the fact that they claimed so many victims (14 in total in the area) justifies studying them in general.

Beslan Middle School Siege 2004: For America, the attack on Beslan Middle School #1 in 2004 was a distant but still heinous event. Not an active shooter event, this terrorist siege occurred on the first day of school in Beslan, Russia and, as a result, was often emotionally connected with active shooter events here in the U.S.. At least one active shooter instructor has made the observation that if the focus of training was shifted from response to school-aged actors to terrorist actors, the training would be more effective against the former. The outlook expressed was, “If you’re training for response to a terrorist attack, the level of skill and aggression is assumed to be higher, and so the response tactics and outlook has to be raised to match. If you’re training to neutralize one or two school aged ‘kids’ who stole daddy’s gun, then it’s far too easy to assume a reduced threat level.” The Beslan terrorist siege, with its high number of casualties has been analyzed and made part of many active shooter response training curriculums simply due to the availability of information regarding weapons, explosives and tactics used by the terrorists. The assumption is that a motivated active shooter here in the U.S. could easily copy some of those tactics to increase efficiency in killing.

Red Lake Indian Reservation Attack 2005: On March 21, 2005, Jeffery Weise killed his grandfather while he was sleeping and then he killed his grandfather’s girlfriend. Armed with weapons he took after those two murders, Weise went to the reservation high school where he engaged students while he walked through the school. One student attacked and fought Weise, stabbing him in the stomach with a pencil. Unfortunately, the wound was not sufficient to stop Weise’s attack. When the police responded, Weise engaged them in a shootout, was injured and retreated to a bathroom where he committed suicide. In total, Weise had killed ten people and wounded five others. The Red Lake Reservation incident is one of the few where an active shooter actually engaged in a shooting against the responding police, but that doesn’t mean law enforcement should assume shooters won’t.

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That brings us up to 2006. In my next article I’ll review and analyze the shooting attack that occurred in a postal facility in Goleta, California in January 2006. It is interesting that this is the first “active shooter” event to be discussed or even found connected to the term “active shooter,” given that well before Columbine occurred, such mass killings were sometimes referred to as “going postal.” We’ll also take a look at the possible origins of that term and some of the potentially connected mass attacks at postal facilities or committed by postal employees.