Teachers, students told to fight back
 

I've always taught my two boys (12 and 9) to get out as quickly as possible if this situation occurs. This may make me rethink and adjust what I've told them. What do you all think of this tactic?

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/09/02...acing-violent/

Teachers, students in one Alabama city told to fight back if facing violent intruder

Published September 02, 2012

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Police have a new method for dealing with armed attackers who get inside school buildings in Tuscaloosa: They're teaching educators and students to fight back.

School systems typically tell workers and students to lock every possible door and hide if an intruder enters a classroom building. But Tuscaloosa schools have started a program with city police in which employees and students are being trained to fight back if necessary.

The Tuscaloosa News reported Sunday the training centers on running, throwing things at intruders and restraining them.

Raquel Payne-Giles, principal at Paul W. Bryant High School, said the school's faculty and staff started their training this summer. She said she was surprised that the training taught them to attack an intruder.

"They did a skit where a person walked in with a toy gun and what actually happens if everyone throws things at him," she said. "The person began to protect themselves, and it threw him off for a few minutes. That's time to run."

Police Lt. A.B. Green, who is overseeing the training, said hiding from intruders is sometimes not enough.

"We can train teachers and students to a certain degree. At a certain level, though, we have to train the students to use their last resource, which is to defend themselves," he said. "We want to remind them that they can also fight for themselves using whatever they can use. It's more like, if all else has been exhausted, you fight for your life."

The city school system's current lockdown procedure has city school employees locking doors and hiding from intruders who come into a school. Now, employees are being told to flee from the intruder, and if necessary, fight. Students will soon receive the same training.

"What the training really encourages is more than simply stopping and hiding," said Green. "That's really what we've been teaching nationwide is everybody stopping, locking the doors and hiding where you are. Those concepts work, but they're not an absolute."

The program is called ALICE, which stands for Alert-Lockdown-Inform-Counter-Evacuate training.

So far, only the faculty and staff at Bryant High and University Place Middle School have started the training, but an orientation class on the new procedures has been held for all administrators in the system, Green said.

Payne-Giles said it will take bravery to fight an armed intruder, and she believes it will take a lot of training to turn people's natural instincts to flee or freeze into an instinct to fight.

Running and throwing things at an intruder are the main lessons Payne-Giles said the training taught her, but she also learned what to do if an intruder gets into physical combat with her or anyone else at the school.

"If they get too close, they teach us how to restrain them," she said. "One smaller woman can't restrain a large man, but what about three or four of them? That's why the training is not about doing it by yourself. It's about attacking en masse."

An armed man entered a private school in Tuscaloosa in 1988 and took more than 110 teachers and students hostage before giving up. No one was injured.

The University of Iowa offered this training awhile back and my wife participated in it, she thought it would be good for all the employees to participate in. Instead of becoming helpless victims as is generally the case in mass shootings do something.

I think retired Special Operations Soldiers should be assigned or stationed at every school in the United States. They should also arm them with shovels and teach them in the ways of Sambo. Just saying...I mean it sounds legit, right? :D

But on a serious note, I agree with the training. If someone is about to shoot, you stand a slightly better chance of survival if you fight back rather than lay down and wait for the inevitable.

I think it's a great idea too. To me, it has to instill a mindset of empowerment vs one of helplessness. I hope programs like this make it to our state (if it hasn't already).

Thinking it through, it might be a good idea to ask our local school how we handle situations like this. I've volunteered to help one of our 4th grade classes with math one hour a week for the past 3 years, and I've never been told (nor have I asked) what the protocol is for this type of emergency.

Lock Down
 

We've had a number of threads about school policy and lock down over the years on this board.

I have always told my kids if they were on lock down and heard bad shit coming down the hallway to throw a chair through the window and run like Hell was after them. Told them I'd pay for the window.

Some parents are none too happy when they show up to pick up their kid and find out they can't because the school is on lock down.

When i attended Oxford Middle School in Alabama (7th grade), we had a student bring a gun and a hitlist with 17 names on it. We had a separate intercom siren associated with the scenario. During class change, it went off. Everyone scattered into classrooms. I was in an outside facing room, and we all climbed out the windows (door was also locked and barricaded). That was apart of our drill, and cops were suppose to climb in afterwards to have access to wherever he was. The suspect with the gun was loading his pistol when he was found by the assistant principal (who is also a former marine). Threw a trash can at him trash first then tackled him while he was trying to resettle. Police arrived few minutes later and arrested him... The windows allowed for almost 50% of our students to be outside of the building within minutes. I believe every school should have a plan that works best with its own layout.

QP Pete,

Very true. I remember reading that advice you gave in another thread, and telling my two boys to do exactly what you said to do. Thank you for sharing that back then.

Some of what I'd seen in previous threads talked about CCP and how the adults were to conduct themselves in these scenarios. This was the first thing I had personally seen that spoke of the kids themselves throwing things and taking a more proactive approach to dealing with the situation. If I missed it in previous threads, I apologize.

Bandy

Same here.

Screw hiding under your desk till he comes for you.

TR

TSBIYF
Use it. That was one hell of a thread (one of the best). There is no way it should be reprised here.

Just found it. I have some catching up to do. :D

Thanks

I could not agree more. You either fight or run, you don't sit and wait for a bullet to the back of the head.

Lock downs are for morons that think hide and seek is a better play........

During the Virginia Tech massacre some of the students survived by throwing chairs through windows and then jumping out. I wonder if during a school shooting the students would have a better chance by wildly running across campus in different directions than they would by remaining in their classrooms.

Tell me what "law" governs/mandates/enforces a student "lockdown"?

If I was told me I was "locked down" in a public building I'd laugh and walk out.

Kinda like law enforcement demanding your weapons during a natural disaster.