Overview: V-Tech type incidents
I can answer most of the questions people have about the actions of the law enforcement involved in the shootings of Monday April 16, 2007.
Before I do let me throw my credentials on the table. I have a B.A. in psychology and a B.S. in psychology. In addition, I worked in the security industry for 10 years, seven and half in a for profit hospital.
First, thing I am going to tell you, you do not want to hear. All organizations and/or companies try to keep cost of security departments down to manage their budget.
This results in under staffed departments and departments staffed with people not fit for service.
Think of it this way. No one dreams of being a security guard when they grow up. Here in stupid El Paso, Texas screw U TEP has mostly commissioned security officers and some UTEP police officers. The UTEP cops are trained by the state and are state officers. Most security officers get their training at the community colleges. I would not trust any one with this kind of community college training to respond to “a senior citizen needs help with a flat tire incident”.
Therefore, my first suggestion to the events as they unfolded at V-Tech is lack of staff and untrained personnel.
My next point will have to do with group think. Law enforcement and security have a unique vision of the world. Were you and I would say “there exist a possibility of a dangerous armed person roaming the campus harming more students. Lets close down the campus”.
The need to out smart each other I say would result in quick conclusions and even quicker remedies.
The reality is that you could of informed every security or police personnel that works at V-Tech by two way radio and had these personnel block all roads coming in to and out of campus. In addition, you have your office security staff call all school departments and advise them to tell any one they see that the university is closed.
When I was at that hospital and we had incidents such husbands or wives showing up to clean the clock of their mates we covered exits and posted security next to the employee with in 5 minutes. Granted the hospital campus was such that we could do this.
I think that if the law enforcement and security staff believed the threat was still viable they would of acted quickly and shut down the campus.
The problem is you have people who are always competing on who is the smartest confronted with a shooting and probably thinking there cannot be a shooting twice in one day.
At the hospital, we once had an incident were an elderly man came to one of our clinics with a gun to end his wife’s suffering. All day long, I heard these ex military and government security managers and security guards shooting theories back and forth to each other.
I was at police head quarters when a man who had adducted and killed a young girl from a Wal-Mart was brought in to the station. The police officers I was around were criticizing the generalness of the FBI profile they had received.
I have read FBI profiles and I do not think they are general. However, in my opinion security and law enforcement are always quick to jump to conclusion and quicker to set a remedy.
An even bigger problem is lack of inter-departmental cooperation. I have seen were security hate cops, cops, hate sheriff, sheriffs hate state cops, and state cops hate FBI. In my opinion, there is a serious animosity between different levels of law enforcement, which results in lack of competent organization.
I saw in the news that there were several levels of law enforcement at the scene. Together, they could of secured that campus. However, if you do not talk to people you have no respect for you are not going to conclude that campus needs to be secured. Moreover, if you do not see the need to the secure the campus you are not going to secure the campus.
Here is some insight on how things work. There is a person who answers phones. They receive the call of violent incident involving a gun. This message is relayed to the staff member that staff believes is close to the incident site. This staff member and others who have heard the transmission on their two-way radios respond.
At this time, you are hoping for best expecting the worse. Therefore you enter the area cautiously and thinking clearly. Yeah your heart is racing but you are thinking what should I be looking for and what should my response be. These thoughts literally take a fraction of a second.
Then you arrive at the scene. You make an assessment and relay information back to your dispatch. By this time, other security staff should of arrived to secure the out perimeter of the building. If you have a trained department, everyone knows what to do.
Not all staff members run to the scene. Some respond to the incident site. Some secure the outer perimeter and prepare to enter if needed. Some remain on campus [atrol to do search and response. The staff that initially arrived at the incident site is telling their dispatch what they have encountered and what information they have. Every staff member has a radio and can hear what is been said between the response officers and the dispatch.
The officers that remained patrol the campus listen to the exchange of information and keep their eyes and ears open to anything suspicious.
When security believes they have a handle on things, they advise administration and await orders. This was a regular business day. All campus administrators should have been at work. I would say that by 745am every one should of had a clear understanding that a dangerous person with a gun could be on campus and they needed to secure campus and ask all person’s to leave school.
Again, all staff members of a security department have the means of communication. There are only a limited number of roads leading in to any university. You post officers there to block people trying to enter and to search people trying to leave. In addition, you call very department and tell them to tell everyone to leave campus.
Done correctly you should be stopping any one from coming in, looking for suspects at the road blocks as they leave, and searching the campus. This may lead to the possibility of running in to the suspect.
Of course, at this time, also your back-up is arriving. Every university knows they will need assistance from local law enforcement in case of a serious incident. I would say that five minutes after the initial call for assistance local and state law enforcement were arriving at V-Tech.
Had they all worked together to assess the initial crime scene and secure the university campus many lives could have been saved. In addition, I can say this because I have worked in the industry and what I have described should be standard operating procedures when you have a serious incident.
However, most security guards are flirting with women and have their tow-way radios off. There is limited training and staff. Law enforcement departments do not play well together.
Then there is the big dragon. When administration takes over it is their operation. Hence, you have bean counters trying to make security and law enforcement decisions.
Therefore, in my opinion before the gunman entered the classroom area there should have been enough law enforcement and security staff members involved in a saturated man hunt to save lives.
If a dummy ex-secuirty guard in a dinky ugly town like stupid El Paso, Texas knows all this, how come big V-Tech police and administrators do not know.
The last thing you want to do is beat up on people who have just experienced some thing as horrific as this incident. However, there needs to be accountability. People need to fund security departments correctly in order to have the best staff available so they can secure a site when confronted with serious incidents.