Sandy Hook Elementary

New Active Shooter App Announced on October 20, 2013

Posted on October 19, 2013 12:27 pm by Caroline Ramsey-Hamilton Comment

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New Active Shooter app released to reduce likelihood of an Active Shooter Incident.

Active Shooter incidents have increased both in the number of incidents, as well as the number of people killed and injured in the last five years. As an aspect of workplace violence, the active shooter has become is a serious recognized occupational hazard, ranking among the top four causes of death in workplaces during the past 15 years. More than 3,000 people died from workplace homicide between 2006 and 2010, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Additional BLS data indicate that an average of more than 15,000 injuries were annually during this time.

The latest figures show that high-risk organizations like hospitals, schools, malls, universities, military installations and even hair salons have experienced an active shooter incident and are likely to have a dramatically increased risk for experiencing an active shooter incident in the future.

Risk & Security LLC has released a new web-based app, Active Shooter Risk-Pro©, which offers an easy to use risk assessment program that assesses your organizational risk of an active shooter incident, as well as recommending solutions to prevent an incident from occuring in the future.

In additional to using the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Guidelines on Active Shooter Response, the OSHA standard 3148 (Guidelines for Preventing Workplace Violence for Health Care, the FBI and Secret Service Guidelines on Active Shooter Incidents, and the new OSHA Inspection Directive, Enforcement Procedures for Investigating or Inspecting Incidents of Workplace Violence, from September, 2011, are both included in the new, easy-to-use application.

The program has been tested on some of the largest organizations in the US, and runs on a laptop, PC or tablet, and even on a smartphone!. Active Shooter Risk-Pro© is built to be affordable and simple to use.

The web 2.0 program, includes newly compiled, updated threat databases, new active shooter incident analysis metrics, and automated web-surveys based on the DHS Guidelines..

The new program gives human services and security professionals a quick and easy way to conduct a active shooter, or general workplace violence that will recommend that will pass an audit!

The Risk-Pro© model has been used for easy software applications by the Department of Defense and over hundreds of organizations, hospitals, and local, state and federal government agencies.

About Risk & Security LLC

Risk & Security LLC is a security risk assessment and risk analysis company with over 30 years of combined expertise in security risk assessment. It develops specialized programs and applications which are easy to use, affordable and which help organizations assess their risk, the likelihood of becoing a target, and which recommend cost-effective solutions.

Risk & Security offers full service consulting on critical risk assessments including HIPAA Risk Analysis, Facilities Security Assessments, Hospital Security Assessments, Workplace Violence, Active Shooter Incident Assessment, Environment of Care and more. Risk & Security partners with security companies around the world to provide state-of-the-art security expertise to analyze risk and recommend cost-effective security controls justified by return on investment metrics.

The team of risk and security experts is led Caroline Ramsey-Hamilton, who has created more than 40 software programs, and conducted more than 200 specialized security risk assessments in a variety of environments, including companies in the United States and around the world, including in Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong, Japan, South Africa and Qatar.

Contact Information:

Caroline Ramsey-Hamilton, CHS III

Email: caroline@riskandsecurityllc.com

Phone: 301-346-9055

Twitter: www.twitter.com/riskalert

What’s Your Active Shooter Risk? How to Assess the Threat!

Posted on October 15, 2013 4:54 pm by Caroline Ramsey-Hamilton Comment

Just the idea of an Active Shooter in your organization, whether you’re a military base, like Fort Hood, and the Washington Navy Yard, or a school like Sandy Hook, a beauty shop, a cracker factory in Philadelphia, a retail mall, a movie theatre, a grocery store parking lot, or a hundred other places, is a terrifying thought.

I lived about 3 miles from one of the shooting sites, a gas station, used by the Beltway Snipers back in October, 2002. They killed ten people, totally at random, and critically injured three others. Both of the snipers were sentenced, and John Muhammad was killed by lethal injection in 2009.

If you lived in the DC area, do you remember how scary it was just to pump gas into your car, people were huddled against the side of their cars in the gas stations, and hidden by their shopping carts at the local Home Depots.

The fear of the Active Shooter comes from the seeming randomness of the action, which means there’s no way to prevent it, unless you give up, stay home, and hide under the bed all day.

But there are things you can do. Instead of thinking of an Active Shooter incident as a totally unique situation, it’s really a form a Workplace Violence, Gas Station Violence, Parking Lot Violence and other related forms of random violence. In fact, the Department of Homeland Security has identified quite a few steps you can take to keep yourself safer if you are in the vicinity of an active shooter (http://www.dhs.gov/active-shooter-preparedness).

Most of the shooters are mentally ill. Normal individuals do not enjoy planning and killing strangers, and it is usually a last ditch effort, with the suicide of the shooter as the grand finale. Their actions can sometimes be identified early, and the police can be alerted, or the Human Resources group at work, or even the local Sheriff can intervene before it gets to the actual shooting.

Signs that someone is having trouble negotiating their life, especially if that someone is a gun fanatic, with their living room full of AK-47 assault weapons and hollow point bullets, is not hard to spot, because these individuals often leave lots of warning signs, like:

Irrational Posts on Facebook or inappropriate tweets.
Threats made against friends and family.
A dropoff in personal hygiene, as the person gets more obsessed.
Problems negotiating their personal life.
Demonstrating signs of isolation and groundless paranoia

Organizations can protect themselves from an potential active shooter through a combination of specific controls that include elements like access control, continuous monitoring of cameras, employee awareness and training programs, clear cut evaluation routes, regular active shooter drills, and hardening of facilities, to name a few.

One of the best preventive measures is to conduct an Active Shooter Risk Assessment, which is similar to other security analyses, except that it is focused on a particular set of threats related to an Active Shooter Incident. As part of my annual Threat Trend Reports, I’ll be releasing a new set of threat data about the Active Shooter, to help organizations calculate their risk of
having such an incident. For example, did you know that the number of active shooter incidents has jumped from 1 in 2002
to 21 incidents in 2010?

Locations have changed, too, and we found that

About 25% of active shooter incidents occur in schools,
About 25% in retail locations, and
About 37% in workplaces.

In future blogs, we’ll be looking at each element of the active shooter incident, and providing more information to keep
your organization safe.

What do Benghazi and Newtown have in common? Flawed Security!

Posted on December 27, 2012 12:06 pm by Caroline Ramsey-Hamilton Comment

After the attack on the Benghazi mission and the tragic mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, its apparent that what these two terrible incidents have in common is that security was not adequate.

In Benghazi, after the hearings and the pundits and speculation, the bottom line is that there was insufficient security. In-place security controls were not sufficient to deter an attack, and the emergency controls were also not sufficient to recover and deal with the emergency attack.

In Newtown, at Sandy Hook Elementary, security was inadequate. Security people often say that security is just as good as the weakest link, and despite adding new security controls, it was defeated because of the glass entry. The shooter wasn’t allowed in so he simply broke the glass. That slowed him up by 2 minutes, maybe. Also backup security controls were non-existent. The shooter was observed and still there was no effective response.

There are three elements to security – DETER, DENY and RESPOND:

DETER – means to make the facility look too difficult to attack, and so the attacker thinks it’s too hard and goes away.

DENY – means that it is impossible for the attacker to get into the facility to launch an attack.

RESPOND/PROTECT means that after the attack is launched, the facility can defend itself, or to protect the individuals and/or property inside the facility.
Both Benghazi and Newtown did not deter, didn’t deny access, and didn’t have an adequate security response.

The Newtown shooting showed that this school, like many others across the country, had a false sense of security, because while some security elements were in place, the shooter easily entered the school, making the other elements irrelevant and him to inflict mass casualties.

In both cases, the response was not adequate, it was ‘too little too late’. And ‘too late’ means the attack can’t be stopped or contained.

The WHY is easy, because the security budget was inadequate. These facilities did not have adequate risk assessments that could have demonstrated the critical assets contained within them. What is more critical than classrooms of 6 year old children? What is more critical than a State department facility with a U.S. ambassador inside? Yet both didn’t have the protective security controls they deserved because their wasn’t enough budget for enough security.

Another element these incidents have in common is that they are both government facilities. Yes, one was the Federal government and one was a local school district – but they both had the same problem of being short on budgets. And when organizations are short on budgets, security is one of the first things to get their funding cut, or reduced.

Every facility needs a SECURITY risk assessment up front, how else can you allocate the funding and make sure that there is ENOUGH security in place to protect our most critical assets, our children?

Preventing Active Shooters – Schools Struggling to Find Solutions After Sandy Hook Shootings

Posted on December 18, 2012 12:56 pm by Caroline Ramsey-Hamilton Comment

We can control regular access to our facilities, schools and hospitals. We can have visitors sign into a visitors log. We can take photos and ask for identification and lock the doors, but the Active Shooter doesn’t comply with any of these protocols and we have no control about when and where the Active Shooter may show up.

Here are some additional controls to consider if you need to improve your school or facility security.

1. Put in Cameras that are actively MONITORED.

For security experts, you already know this, but others might not know that cameras that just sit on the wall or ceiling only have 2 purposes: (1) To scare people into NOT doing something. (2) To review after an incident happens and use to arrest someone.

Cameras can also be used to monitor what goes in – ACTIVE monitoring. This can be done in a facility, like a hospital, or company, and there are staff members looking at the camera visuals and watching for certain kinds of behavior. This is also offered as a service. Monitored cameras can alert police, check to see who’s entering the halls and actually respond and prevent Active Shooter incidents.

2. Conduct regular training and drills for ALL STAFF and for all STUDENTS

People give lip service to training, but there’s nothing as effective as practicing for an active shooter. It’s one thing to know where to go, or what to do, but it’s so much better to rehearse with a drill, have someone come in, unannounced and practice
moving to a safe area, practice locking down a school, hospital or facility. This will expose all the weak areas, and make people more confident that they can deal with a bad situation and protect everyone.

3. Have a clear NO WEAPONS – NO VIOLENCE Policy in place.

Policies are important because they say, “It’s a mandate, it’s a requirement” and that means most staff will comply with it.
No Weapons signs should be posted at all entrances. Any violence should be reported and punished immediately. This has a deterrent effect, as well as giving you the legal ground to stand on if an incident does occur. It also makes staff and students feel safer.

4. Know EXACTLY what the response time from the police department, in case an incident occurs.

You can time your drills, you can have a conference with local law enforcement to trim down their response times. You can pro-actively provide law enforcement and first responders with the building floor plans, or a digital map of the building. These preparations shave crucial minutes off the actual response time in case an incident does occur.

Think about how many people a shooter can kill in ten minutes, more than 2 children a minute. Every second counts so step up and add these four controls into your security control plans.

Assessing School Security Takes on New Dimensions after Sandy Hook Tragedy

Posted on December 17, 2012 2:40 pm by Caroline Ramsey-Hamilton Comment

After 30 years of security risk assessment experience and working with hundreds of schools, hospitals, facilities, I have to say that schools have not taken school security seriously.

Obviously there are the social pressures including mental health screening, proposed assault weapons bans, gun owner screening, etc., but these are the thing that won’t change overnight. EVEN IF THEY ARE LEGISLATED, it takes time to implement, and
implementation may not be perfect.

TODAY IS THE DAY TO DO A SCHOOL VIOLENCE ASSESSMENT – not tomorrow, not after new gun laws, not after the holidays — TODAY.

There are indicators you can look for to see if your school is at risk of an active shooter incident. And ways to be prepared if the unthinkable happens and an active shooter comes to your school.

Strong, simple access control is the most effective solution, and yes, this may mean that
a plain glass front door or window is not enough. Glass is easily broken, and yes, it means that all staff must be a little more accountable, and it probably means a red phone or connection to the local police.

There is a simple school risk assessment program that will give guidance on what you need to do TODAY, what controls you need to implement, what threats are most likely to occur. These can be accessed on the www.riskandsecurityllc.com website.

Some things are preventable, some aren’t. But lockdown drills, alarm systems, and active monitoring of cameras are just a few of the 60 controls every school should have in place to protect our precious children.

School Security Threat Assessment Program helps Schools Identity Weaknesses in Security after Sandy Hook Shootings

Posted on December 17, 2012 2:26 pm by Caroline Ramsey-Hamilton Comment

School Security Threat Assessment Program helps Schools
Identity Weaknesses in Security after Sandy Hook Shootings.

Boca Raton, Florida, Dec. 17, 2012

Schools around the U.S. have found it difficult to put strong security controls in place because of lack of funding and resistance by parents and staff, who, unfortunately, saw physical security controls as too restrictive.

After the recent tragedy in Newtown, CT, it is critically important that every school do a security threat/risk assessment to see where their own vulnerabilites may be.

To address the situtuation and make it easier to do a simple, effective school security asssessment, Risk and Security LLC
has announced a new School Security app, which can run on a tablet, smart phone or laptop.

The Risk-Pro for School Security© app is available for only $ 495.00 for non-profit healthcare organizations ($595.00 for others), and comes with an on-line user guide and free training.

The program is looks at the entire school, addressing areas like access control, entry controls, and incident response. The program was developed by Caroline Hamilton with the National Institute of Justice and Eastern Kentucky University to create an easy way for schools to use FEMA 428, How to have Safe Schools.

The web 2.0 program, Risk-Pro for School Security©, is affordable and simple to use. It includes fully-updated threat databases, and automated web-surveys based on security requirements from FEMA 428.

“With 3-year old twins in my family, I was high motivated to make sure they are safe at their pre-school, and have fielded calls from dozens of security professionals who are worried about their children’s school security posture. The Risk-Pro© model has been used for easy software applications with the Department of Defense and over fifty hospitals, health plans and government agencies.
About Risk & Security LLC

Risk & Security LLC is a security risk assessment and risk analysis company with over 30 years of combined expertise in security risk. It specializes in consulting on risk assessment projects and global application development of risk solutions. Risk & Security partners with security companies around the world to provide state-of-the-art security expertise to analyze risk and recommend cost-effective countermeasures.

The team of risk and security experts is led Caroline Ramsey-Hamilton, who has created more than 18 security assessment software programs, and conducted more than 200 specialized security risk assessments in a variety of environments, including companies in the United States and around the world.

For more information: caroline@riskandsecurityllc.com or

caroline@riskandsecurityllc.com