WORKPLACE ACTIVE SHOOTER PROTECTION AND INTERVENTION
The Reno-Sparks Tribal Police Department wants to help you create a safe community for yourself, your family, and friends by keeping you informed of the latest threats and crime trends as well as provide tools that can help keep you safe. The Police Department offers the following information to provide guidance on how to prepare for and respond to an active assailant crisis situation.
PROFILE OF AN ACTIVE ASSAILANT:
An Active assailant is an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated area. In most cases, Active assailants use firearms. Active assailants usually target crowded public gatherings. There is no specific method to their selection of the type of victims. Active assailant situations are unpredictable and evolve quickly. Hopefully, the immediate deployment of law enforcement will stop the shooting and mitigate harm to victims. Because active assailant situations are often over in minutes, sometimes before law enforcement arrives on the scene.
OPTIONS ON HOW TO RESPOND TO AN ACTIVE ASSAILANT SITUATION:
Determine the most reasonable way to protect your own life. The main options of response is RUN, HIDE, or FIGHT. Please remember that the way you choose to respond or not respond in a leadership role may cause other people to follow your actions.
RUN
If there is a known escape path, attempt to evacuate the area under immediate threat as quickly as possible.
Evacuate regardless of whether other people agree to follow.
Leave your belongings behind. Take your phone only if it’s safe to do so.
Once in a safe area, prevent other people from entering an area where the Active Assailant may be.
Keep your hands up when you see responding Officers. They may not know or have a description of who the shooter is at that time.
Follow the instructions of any responding police officer.
Do not attempt to move wounded people.
Call 911 when you are safe. Avoid calling others; only call 911.
RETREAT (HIDE)
If evacuation is not possible, find a place to hide where the Active Assailant is less likely to find you.
Your hiding place should:
Be out of the Active assailant’s view.
Provide solid protection from bullets if shots are fired at your direction such as an office with a closed and locked door.
Not trap you or restrict your options for movement if you cannot find a room that can provide you with an escape route.
Once you have hidden:
Lock the door.
Turn off the lights.
Stay completely quiet.
Blockade the door with heavy furniture or at least restrict quick entrance.
If you don’t have a cell phone with you, look for a phone to call 911when safely possible.
If the Assailant is nearby:
Silence any source of noise and stay completely quiet.
Keep the lights off.
Hide behind large solid items (i.e., cabinets, desks).
Arm yourself with an improvised weapon that is available to you in case resisting or fighting back becomes the only option.
If running and hiding are not possible, Remain calm. Arm yourself, hide, and take the active assailant by surprise and fight. This may be the only option you have left.
When safe to do so, dial 911 if possible to alert police to the Active Assailant’s location. If you have to remain quiet and cannot speak, leave the line open and allow the dispatcher to listen. Dispatch are trained to trace the location of your phone to help determine the location of the shooter.
FIGHT
As a last resort, when the assailant is near, and only when your life is in imminent danger, you must commit to taking aggressive action against the Active Assailant. It is important to be committed to your actions. The Active Assailant is committed to doing you harm, therefore you must be equally committed to your actions by acting as extremely aggressive as possible against the assailant, or multiple assailants for your survival and others also.
If you are in a room with no escape, put as much barriers in front of the entrance to trip or confuse the assailant.
Be ready to throw items and/or improvise weapons; work as a team if possible at the right moment. Use items such as chairs, computers, brooms, lamps, coffee pots, desks, a large hole punch, heavy garbage cans, coat racks, or loop your belt through a heavy item to swing. Any heavy solid items that you and your team can throw.
SPEED, SURPRISE and EXTREME VIOLENCE are your best chance to combat an Active Assailant. (SPEED refers to the quickness of the action, SURPRISE is the element of precise timing and effective planning, and EXTREME VIOLENCE refers to the noise, confusion, counter assault and tactics employed by you and/or your team).
Turn out the lights.
YOU ARE NOT ALONE. Your decision to fight back may influence others with you to resist and fight back also. This increases your chances of success and survival.
HOW TO ACT WHEN LAW ENFORCEMENT ARRIVES
Law enforcement priority will be life before safety. Law enforcement’s primary purpose is to stop the Active Assailant as soon as possible to mitigate further loss of life and injury. Officers will proceed directly to the area where the sounds of gunshots and violence are actively heard. Officers will bypass injured or deceased persons to stop the active assailant first.
Officers will arrive in small teams, or alone.
Officers may wear regular patrol uniforms or may be dressed in attire you have never seen before.
Officers may wear business suits with visible badges on their person.
Officers may be armed with rifles, shotguns, handguns, or other advance weapons.
Officers may shout commands, and may push individuals to the ground for their safety.
Off-duty Officers responding from nearby may wear civilian clothing with an off-duty badge visible on their person.
How to act when law enforcement arrive?
Show your hands. remain calm, and follow officers’ instructions.
Put down any items in your hands (i.e., bags, jackets), and immediately raise your hands and spread your fingers.
Do not attempt to move wounded people.
Call 911 when you are safe. Avoid calling others; only call 911.
The first officers to arrive on the scene will not stop to help injured persons:
Expect rescue teams comprised of additional officers and emergency medical personnel to follow the initial officers.
These rescue teams will treat and remove any injured persons.
Once you have reached a safe location or assembly point, you will likely be held in that area by law enforcement until the situation is under control and all witnesses have been identified. If you contact family or friends, advise them you are safe, and not to come to the scene at this time.
PREVENTION AND PREPAREDNESS FOR BUSINESSES, CHURCHES, SCHOOLS, AND OTHER SERVICE FACILITIES
What causes mass killings?
· Extremists ideologies and bigotry has been encouraged into an individual’s mindset.
· Mental illness who has not received proper intervention or care.
· Traditional violence that is carried into the facility.
How can we prevent mass killings in our facility?
· Build a safety or security working group that will focus on violence prevention in your facility.
· Conduct a security assessment in the facility which will provide a safe environment in the facility.
· Establish an intervention plan for troubled and suspicious individuals that pose a potential threat.
· Establish and maintain a security team or committee that would monitor strategic key locations such as entrances and exits for screening people arriving at the facility.
· Foster a respectful workplace. Greet people accordingly while remaining vigilant.
· Work together to create and maintain a healthy, safe and productive work environment. Promote healthy discussions with co-workers. Avoid heated discussions about sensitive issues such as workplace politics, religion, or personal beliefs.
· Train your staff to recognize troubled or suspicious individuals that may pose future and potential threats to the community. Report these individuals to your administration for early intervention.
· Report potential threats to Police.
· Create a guideline or policy on intervention and exclusionary rules and procedures.
· Have policies posted or informed about carrying weapons inside the facility.
· Stay prepared by training your staff on how to respond to an active shooter response situation.
· Create an Emergency Action plan and conduct periodic training exercises. Create drills with your staff on lockdown and evacuation. Hold meetings and training to inform your staff on exit points, emergency contacts, safe rooms, local hospitals, and evacuations locations.
· Work with Martial arts schools or combat sports schools that can create a program that focuses on weapons disarming, takedowns, and restraint techniques for your security committee and your staff.
It is the unrelentless mission of the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony Police Department to continually explore solutions to solve, prevent, deter, and respond to crimes and or problems that creates or enhances the commission of crimes with the partnership of the community for the safety and welfare of our community.
IN CASES OF EMERGENCY, PLEASE DIAL 911.
We must stress the importance of calling 911. A 911 dispatcher will send an officer to the address of the emergency; they will also ask questions to assist the officer prior to arrival. The dispatcher may also contact other services that are needed such as medical assistance, fire assistance, or additional police personnel.
Non-emergency dispatch number:
323-2677
Please call this number if you have a non-emergency need to speak to an officer or non-emergency officer assistance.
RSIC TRIBAL POLICE BUSINESS OFFICE
785-8776
This number is to be used to conduct administrative business with the police department, such as leaving messages for police staff, information requests, general questions, or other police business related matters. The police administrative office is open Monday through Friday from 8:00am to 5:00pm.
HUNGRY VALLEY SUB-STATION.
785-1365
This number is to be used to conduct administrative business with the police department, such as leaving messages for police staff, information requests, general questions, or other police business related matters. Officers use the sub-station for briefings, writing reports and telephone calls.
PARA EMERGENCIA, LLAMA 911 PARA LA OFICINA, LLAMA (775)785-8776