In an era when "active shooter" has become standard speak, law enforcement and communities are taking steps to teach survival by hosting active-shooter classes.
Here's what the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department recommends:
- Know your escape routes
- Designate safe rooms
- Talk to your co-workers about a response
- Keep emergency supplies (first-aid kit, food, water) in every room
- Identify ways to lock or barricade your area
- Practice! Practice! Practice!
Here's information to provide 911 in calls:
- Location of the shooter
- Number of shooters
- Physical description of shooters
- Number and type of weapons shooter has
- Number of potential victims at location
Here's what to do when the shooting starts:
Run
- Have an escape route and an action plan in mind
- Leave your belongings behind
- Evacuate, regardless of whether others agree to follow
- Help others escape, if possible
- Do not attempt to move the wounded
- Prevent others from entering an area where the active shooter may be located Keep your hands visible
- Call 911 when you are safe
Hide
- Hide in an area out of the shooter's view
- Silence your cell phone (including vibrate mode) and remain quiet and still
- Lock doors and block entry to your hiding place (use chairs, tables, bookcases, file cabinets, etc.)
- Shut off lights, stay out of sight and remain calm
Fight
- If your life is in imminent danger, you may have to fight the attacker
- Attempt to incapacitate the shooter
- Act with as much physical aggression as possible
- Meet violence with violence
- Improvise weapons such as chairs, fire extinguishers, books, and anything else you can use as an impact weapon
- Do not back down
- Commit to your actions
- Stand united with others
- Your life depends on it
When the shooting stops
- Remain calm and reassure others that help is on the way.
- Render first aid if necessary, utilizing what you have available.
- For bleeding control, use first-aid kits, towels, shirts, bed sheets, etc. For tourniquets, use power cords, phones cords, ropes, etc.
- Stay inside your secured location until law enforcement comes to you
- When law enforcement arrives, keep hands visible, spread fingers, leave all personal items behind, and calmly follow their directions
- Understand that help may take an extended period of time due to clearing the entire location, but law enforcement will come to you.
For more information, click here.
