File 28: In today’s file, the team addresses a serious topic. Active aggressor or active shooter situations are becoming more common that we’d like to admit. There are steps you can take to prepare yourself and your organization for this type emergency. We welcome the Eric Culver and Dale Massey, founders of STAT, a company focused on providing active aggressor training. They’ll share advice and insights on preparing for this dangerous situation.
Editor’s Note: This file may not be suitable for all audiences, given the subject matter that will be discussed.
Meet Eric and Dale
Eric started with the Jefferson County Police in 2001. His father is a retired police officer. After 7 years, he joined the FBI. Eric later returned to the police department, as a member of the SWAT team. The mission of the SWAT team is to save lives. He remained part of SWAT for 16 years and eventually retired after serving 21 years with the police force.
Dale joined the police department in 2000. Dale eventually joined SWAT as the Assistant Commander. He eventually retired from the SWAT, as the Team Commander in 2021. He credits Eric’s effort in getting the Louisville’s SWAT team established as one of about 50 full-time teams in the US.
Eric came up with a concept to train people, once he and Dale retired. That was the genesis of their company, STAT, based out of Louisville, Kentucky.
What Inspired Eric and Dale to Create a Program for Active Aggressor Training?
Eric seriously enjoyed being part of SWAT, a small-unit team that worked to hone the skill sets of individual members to function as an effective team. When bad things happened, he wanted to be the one who got the call. Eric recalls joining the police department 1 week before 9/11.
SWAT spent most of its time working around active-shooter situations. Over time, the term evolved into active aggressor or armed assailant. They developed a response to the city, modeled off of what they learned from a program called, Rescue Task Force. It’s a collaboration between police, fire and EMS developed to help them more effectively respond to scenes.
There have been notable situations in our country’s past, during which this type of integration and execution were not thoroughly planned and the results were tragic. Think back to Columbine, Standard Gravure, and others.
Dale and Eric were called to the 2018 J-Town Kroger, active-shooter incident. Eric was one of the first officers to enter the building.
Eric comments that while he and Dale have 20+ years of training for these types of situations, the regular individual who may be caught in a situation does not. They decided to build a program to provide these services to individuals and organizations. Their approach is to empower and educate people in a positive way.
Why Do People Tend to Avoid the Topic?
Dale explains that people often don’t want to think about what could happen. “That’ll never happen to me” is an approach people want to believe. However, just in Louisville, we’ve experienced the Standard Gravure, J-Town Kroger and the Old National Bank shootings. These events are actually under-reported.
It takes effort to prepare, plan and train for these potential situations. Most people simple prefer to take the easy approach, which is to ignore the possibility. STAT focuses on empowering people; not scaring them. In the event something does happen, you’ll have options, because you’ve taken steps to prepare yourself and your organization.
It’s Similar to an Emergency Action Plan (EAP)
Many people take time to prepare for a fire or tornado. Preparing for an active aggressor situation is a similar methodology.
STAT Offers Services to Businesses
STAT provides a range of services to businesses and organizations. A comprehensive, threat assessment is the first step. STAT will do an onsite assessment of your business environment, security procedures, camera surveillance, etc. It will be simple, but impactful and most importantly, actionable.
STAT works closely with Homeland Security. They also do a lot of work with non-profit organizations. Many are able to get grant money to offset some or all of the cost.
In addition to site assessments, they offer classroom training, active aggressor training, de-escalation training, medical-based training, live scenarios, custom-content for specific needs, and much more.
Jaime has experienced training sessions provided by STAT. There were are few ah-ha moments. One fact she realized is that your typical office first-aid kit is not prepared for this type of emergency. Jamie has been first-aid certified and has completed OSHA-30 training, in addition to other workplace safety training sessions. None of them prepared her for how to pack a wound or apply a tourniquet. STAT taught her that valuable skill.
Jamie also appreciates the tips and advice STAT offered regarding the supplies and equipment that should be part of the first-aid kits. She strongly recommends people consider taking these courses, based on her personal experience.
Dale points out that the body has 6 important arteries. If one of them were to get severed, a person only has 3 minutes before they bleed out. Knowing how to properly apply a tourniquet and having several of them on hand, can save a life. If the tourniquet is not applied within 1 minute of sustaining the injury, that person will most-likely pass out. This is a time-sensitive event. It’s a skill that’s not hard to learn. But it requires training and preparation.
Building Redundancy in the EAP
What if your organization has designated a specific individual to be responsible for the medical kits and other procedures, but that person is absent or incapacitated on the day of the event? It’s important to build redundancy into your Emergency Action Plan. This relates to both personnel and equipment, such as medical kits. You have to plan for contingencies.
Dale recommends placing the medial kits with or near the AEDs you already have onsite.
Is Run, Hide, Fight Still an Appropriate Protocol?
Eric explains that this depends on the situation. He begins with some simple definitions. If 1-2 people are shot or attacked at a workplace, it’s considered workplace violence. If 3 or fewer are impacted, it’s considered active shooter/active aggressor. If 4 or more are injured, it’s considered to be a mass casualty situation.
The federal government developed the Run, Hide, Fight paradigm in the early 2000s. It was the first methodology for addressing an active aggressor situation. It was a system that employed a linear approach to dealing with the situation. Unfortunately, most people don’t have a mindset that follows this methodology.
The STAT Mindset – Escape, Evade, Engage
STAT offers training that focuses not on your skillset, but rather, on your mindset. The human mind learns in patterns of 3. Additionally, the letter “E” is the most commonly used letter. Based on these factors, STAT developed training around Escape, Evade, Engage. It’s designed to work everywhere, not just at the office.
Escape, Evade, Engage is a decision-making process that gives you options. The goal is to get you thinking, not simply reacting.
Eric uses the example of the Old National Bank shooting. Some people decided to run, but once they got out into the street, they turned around to watch. Unfortunately, they were still getting shot at, because they stopped. Instead, they should have continued to run and extend the distance between themselves and the active threat.
Is STAT Training Applicable for Schools and Educators?
Jason has school-aged children and he thinks about these kinds of topics when he drops off his kids at school, especially at the start of the school year. He asks if STAT provides training for schools, teachers and staff?
STAT does a lot of training with schools. Both Dale and Eric are still sworn police officers, in retirement. For instance, they are trying to make Taylorsville and Spencer County, a test-case for the country. There are actually no regulations pertaining to this training. Schools are required to have resource officers (SROs), but there’s no specific funding.
The STAT team is also developing content for middle school and high school students.
Many schools are hesitant to engage STAT-based services. JCPS, in Louisville, just implemented its own police force. Are they properly equipped and trained for active aggressor situations? A single SRO isn’t the answer for a typical school. A school should have layers of security.
STAT uses the CPTED system. The acronym stands for Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design. It helps schools to incorporate security measures into the esthetic environment the school wants to maintain. It creates reactionary-gap time, allowing you to make critical decisions in a time of crisis.
Dale stresses the importance of building a safety-culture inside your organization. You can have the tools in place, but if the personnel aren’t taking it seriously, your system is primed to fail. People need to buy into the system so they actively check things and look for breakdowns in the system, on a regular basis. This can be as simple as ensuring exterior doors are locked to prevent an unauthorized individual from gaining access.
Eric mentions the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. It was an epic failure, across the board. It highlights the fact that the first responder coming to may not be properly prepared to engage. The average police officer in the US only receives about 4 hours of active shooter response training.
In the case of a business, if you have multiple facilities that have been trained in some type of EAP, but the point person is transferred to a different facility, are the EAPs the same? Would there instead be a level of confusion that could be avoided with a standard plan? STAT is helping to provide that type of system.
Jamie comments that some states are now requiring this type of training for organizations with a certain number of people. California is one such state requiring armed aggressor training. This should be much more than a surface-level, check the box, approach.
Help Is on the Way, Eventually
It’s important to understand police are going to focus on going after the aggressor/shooter when they first arrive. Their focus will not be on taking care of you or rendering medical aid. This is a critical reason you need to develop the right mindset. STAT is a qualified resource and is ready to help you and your organization.
Interestingly, the average time it takes for the police to arrive on site is 15 minutes. A lot can happen in 15 minutes. We all remember doing fire drills and tornado drills in school. Have you ever practiced for an active aggressor situation? Probably not.
Students may be familiar with lock-down drills. Unfortunately, many adults don’t even want to think about doing this type of drill in the workplace. Why not implement this type of drill, at least once a year to help familiarize your team with the proper mindset? STAT has developed a video program, as a cost-effective option. They’ve also developed webinars and have the capability to custom-design a training program for your specific situation.
You Won’t Rise to the Occasion; You’ll Fall to Your Level of Training
There’s a mistaken belief that you, or someone around you, will suddenly know how to respond to an active aggressor situation (or some other crisis). Unfortunately, that’s usually a myth. The reality is most people will fall to their level of training on how to deal with the situation. Most often, it doesn’t go the way you’d hoped.
This is about developing a mindset and practicing what to do, should the situation arise at your workplace, church, school, etc.
Dale points out that communication is critical. When an employee is laid-off or terminated, how does the organization communicate the situation? What would happen if that hasn’t been effectively communicated and the individual shows up the next day intending to do harm? How easy would it be for that person to gain access and cause a tragic result? We may need to rethink how we address certain issues. You don’t need to get into the specifics of why the person is being terminated, but they need to understand the individual should not be let back into the facility.
But We’ve Always Done It this Way
Molley asks “How could HR or other leaders reduce the risk of an active aggressor situation involving a termination?” Eric suggests not bringing the individual into your office for that conversation. You’ve allowed what could become a volatile situation to occur in a compromising location. You may have positioned the conversation to occur in a way that the impacted individual is situated between you and the exit. You might be trapped in the room.
Instead, consider doing an offsite termination. If that’s not practicable, consider doing it in the lobby or parking lot, thus preventing immediate access to the facility. Consider this the first layer.
The second layer of protection is to have a plan for identifying your exit routes, enabling you to Escape, Evade, Engage, if the situation warrants it.
This is definitely a paradigm-shift for HR professionals. At the same time, Dale recommends that the termination is never handled in a one-on-one basis. Bring someone with you. Police refer to this a “contact and cover.” This is about your personal safety and that of others.
Jamie’s Advice to HR Professionals
Over the years, Jamie has added a number of considerations and steps to her procedures. Make sure you have someone outside of the room, whom you can contact if the situation escalates. Do you have a panic button that goes to internal security and to local authorities?
Have you reached out to local authorities to familiarize them with the layout of your facility and to establish a list of people who can be contacted, when necessary?
If a termination is planned, consider having an off-duty police officer in the parking lot, lobby or in the space to provide some additional security.
Be careful about the procedure allowing people to obtain their personal effects. If they have items in their locker, office or car, consider other ways to transfer those items. Use a courier to deliver those items, or consider recovering those items for the individual. It may be a better alternative to allowing the person to go back to their office.
While you can’t anticipate every issue, it’s important that you’ve taken the time to make some level of preparation, rather than trying to do so in the moment.
Are You a Second-Chance Employer?
This isn’t about being judgy or making assumptions about people. Rather, it’s about being proactive in your mindset. It’s a challenge to find the balance.
Dale recommends employers define what types of crimes would they allow and which will be disallowed, in terms of the second-chance candidate’s past. Establish a standard. You’ll get a sense of the person’s commitment to moving forward during the interview, but you need to have boundaries.
Eric relates this back to his career as a police officer. While he always tried to give the person the benefit of the doubt during an engagement, he always had a plan of action. If the situation was going bad, he already knew how he would exit, escape, evade and engage. He recommends the moment you detect a sign that something is wrong, resist the temptation to second-guess yourself. STAT would rather you make a bad decision, than no decision. You can fix a bad decision. If you make no decision, someone else will exert a decision on you.
Parting Thoughts from Eric and Dale
Dale points out there’s a difference between compliance-based and regulatory-based training, verses what STAT offers. If you want impactful training that can save lives, consider programs such as what STAT has developed. Training budgets are extremely limited. The training STAT provides is portable. It’ll go with you, wherever you go.
STAT has actually had survivors validate the scenarios they introduce during training sessions. They’ve developed scenarios that combine perspectives from both a first responder’s prospective and a survivor’s perspective. It’s reality based.
Eric points out that their training can be done in phases or customized to your budget. It’s an investment in your people. You’re providing your people a skillset they can share with their families and friends. The team at STAT does this because they want people to know they can do something and not just be a victim.
Jason points out that safety is a fantastic gift. Jamie mentions that after attending STAT training, she’s gone home and discussed it with her family, because is more than work training; it’s life training for our communities and the communities we’re serving.
Interested in Contacting STAT for Your Organization?
Website: ActiveAggressor.com
Phone: (502) 576-7856
Before We Leave
We wanted to let you know the WTF Podcast is going to have a booth at the upcoming 2025 KYSHRM Conference, August 26-28, at the Central Bank Center in Lexington, KY. Come visit us at Booth 113. Be a guest for one our podcast mini-interviews!
That’s where we’ll leave the conversation for today. Before we close the file, we invite you to reach out to us with questions, suggestions or other comments. We’d love to hear from you.
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We hope you found this file insightful and helpful. Thank you for listening!