Few would have been aware of the term ‘Active Shooter’ before November 26, 2008. This was the watershed moment when ten marauding gunmen carried out a devastating attack on Mumbai, killing 166, including 17 police officers, writes Chris Burman-Day, pictured, of Carmdale.
The fact that the event lasted the best part of four days provided an opportunity for the law enforcement agencies to play a role in mitigating the casualty numbers, as difficult as the situation was and the surprise nature of the attack.
Since Mumbai, the term ‘Active Shooter’ has readily applied to armed attackers whose intention is simply to kill as many people as possible, with unrestricted access to their potential targets. As well-trained and well-prepared as a police force might be, the unfortunate truth is that the majority of Active Shooter incidents will have concluded before the police have had an opportunity to have any impact. Whether they be terrorists or individuals acting on a personal level, their typical goal is to take as many people with them as possible, before they die at the hands of their own weapon or before someone else stops them in their tracks. Setting out on a path of no return, often with no warning and giving away nothing to suggest what they are about to do, they are indeed a very dangerous threat.
Crowded places and open spaces are the typical designated area for an Active Shooter incident due to the number of available and often defenceless targets. This problem, first coined after Mumbai, is something that few countries are immune to. Who would have expected a country with a relatively low homicide rate like Norway to succumb to the utter devastation caused by one man? What Anders Breivik did in July 2011 was to kill twice as many people in a day as would typically be murdered in the whole of Norway in a year. The point is that prior to such an event, there tend to be no obvious warnings, only changes in behaviour that people tend to look back on and recognise after an event has ended though nothing that would usually suggest such incident would occur.
Unfortunately, when someone has made up their mind to end their life, but to take others with them, having access to firearms is often the catalyst that leads to the Active Shooter outcome. In the UK, we’ve had three very significant such events over the past quarter of a century, the first of which, involving Michael Ryan in Hungerford (1987) was many years before the first use of the term Active Shooter, but which was, in every way, an Active Shooter incident. As was Dunblane in 1996 and Cumbria more recently. Even for those who take only a passing interest in the news, they cannot escape the regularity in which shootings involving numerous casualties occur in the United States. Barely a month will go by without an Active Shooter incident making it into the headlines. Their regularity makes them no easier to deal with because, as I mentioned earlier, the intended outcome has typically been achieved long before the arrival of any law enforcement.
Active Shooter incidents will never go away, until we find some way to uninvent firearms. People will always find a way to access a weapon if they have genuine intent and for those that cannot, well they will simply be the ones that don’t make the big headlines. For the remainder, those who will set out on that path of no return, the best course of action for limiting their measure of success, is for the rest of us to be prepared for such an ‘attack’.
A good place to begin is to dismiss the mind-set that ‘it won’t happen here’. It can happen anywhere and at any time, because the world is full of people that lack sound mind, hold grudges and have the determination and means to achieve such an aim. It is important to have a plan, and one that does not involve being saved by the law or authorities – they’ll get there as quickly as they can, but the facts tell us that you are, for the most part, on your own. By running through all the ‘what if’ scenarios if such an event occurred, it will allow all reasonable responses to be covered in a plan – and one that is regularly tested. Those with responsibilities for others, ie managers, teachers, hospital staff etc should be very aware of what to do should an Active Shooter incident occur, not least because people will be looking to them for guidance and direction. Some planning and testing needn’t cost too much in terms of time and resources, but it could be the one thing that decides the number of casualties. Prevention is difficult, but mitigation should be included in everyone’s thinking.
About the writer
Chris Burman-Day is Commercial Director of Carmdale, a crisis and risk management consultancy specialising in projects around critical national infrastructure and counter-terrorism. Visit www.carmdale.co.uk. Chris and Rob Hoblin gave an Active Shooter presentation at the quarterly ASIS UK meeting in London in September. Also visit www.carmdaletraining.co.uk
