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Last week’s YouTube shooting has many Bay Area residents asking, “What would I do if I found myself in an active shooter situation?” Government agencies like the Department of Homeland Security say the best response is to run away if you can and “harden” your surroundings if you can’t.
To help prepare people in the event of such a situation, a South Bay company, National Violent Intruder Preparedness Solutions, on Tuesday conducted an active shooter training session in San Jose for businesses and individuals.
“Trust your instincts,” said retired Los Gatos police Sgt. Kerry Harris, the company’s co-founder who led the training. “If your instincts tell you to get away, get away.”
Harris estimated it takes anywhere from nine to 15 minutes for police to respond to an active shooter situation, equip a response team and locate and stop the shooter.
“You are on your own for the first nine to 15 minutes,” he said. “The vast majority of killing happens in the first six to nine minutes.”
That underscores the need for people to be prepared, Harris said, just as they prepare for earthquakes and fires.
The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security agree that running away from a shooter is the first, best option.
He also pointed to a number of shooting incidents where he believes people may have lived if they’d simply run away.
“At Virginia Tech, kids dove under their desks and the shooter walked up and down the rows executing them,” Harris said. “On the second floor of one building, a professor told his students to jump out a window. There were 19 people in the room and everyone lived except the professor and a student who were holding back the door.”
Students in another room barricaded a door with desks and survived, Harris said.
There are many things that can be used to secure doors — belts, ties, computer cables and purse straps, for instance. That’s something office workers can practice on their own, along with setting up barricades.
“If all you can do is stack stuff in front of the door it buys you time,” Harris said.
Shut off lights, draw blinds and be quiet so the shooter thinks no one is there.
He also wants people who are under attack to improvise weapons like fire extinguishers to first spray the shooter, then hit him with it.
“If he comes into the room we’re going to yell, run around and throw stuff at him,” Harris said. “It makes it harder for him to get to you and he won’t be able to shoot accurately.”
Once you’ve subdued a shooter, move his weapon away, look for other weapons and pile on top of him until help arrives, Harris said.
While Harris acknowledged “this is an ugly topic,” he also said his message was one of “hope and empowerment.”
Todd Trekell from Toeniskoetter Real Estate Investment and Management in San Jose said the training changed his thinking about how he’d respond to an active shooter.
“It makes you aware that you have to be mindful of your surroundings and how you’d defend yourself,” Trekell said. “Before, I think my initial reaction would have been to fight, but today I learned, ideally, to get the heck out of there. If you’re boxed in, then you fight.”
Los Gatos businessman Terry Martin said he feels he now has a choice.
“I’m in a lot of situations where this comes into play — big meetings with lots of people, so this is on my mind a lot,” Martin said. “What I learned here is to run away. Before, I would have run toward the shots.”
Morgan Hill resident Wayne Adair said it’s a “wake up call.”
“We get comfy at home and we don’t think about these things,” he said.
While the FBI does not endorse businesses that offer active shooter response training, a spokesman did say that training can be beneficial. The FBI web site has training videos on its web site at fbi.gov.
And apparently Cal Osha thinks it’s worthwhile — they’re in the process now of developing regulations that would require businesses to provide employees with active shooter training.
