ABSTRACT This research study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of an Active Shooter Incident (ASI) training implemented at Southern California University (SCU). The purpose of this study was to assess students’ level of preparedness, anxiety, and knowledge about ASIs. Prior to collecting the data, an officer from the University Police Department (UPD) provided an ASI training for students where they were able to learn about safety procedures. Data was collected from a sample of Bachelor and Master level students within the SCU School of Social Work Department. Participants were given a questionnaire that consisted of questions regarding students’ level of anxiety toward the idea of an ASI occurring at their campus and internship placements. The questions also evaluated students’ knowledge and preparedness resulting from the ASI training. Data collection further determined whether certain aspects of the population such as ethnicity and gender contributed to their levels of anxiety.

A real time acoustic direction-finding module has been developed to estimate the ele- vation and azimuth of an impulsive event while function aboard a small unmanned air- craft vehicle. The generalized cross-correlation with phase transform method was used to estimate time differences of arrival in an 8 channel microphone array. A linear least squares approach was used to calculate an estimate for the direction of arrival. In order to accomplish this task, a vertical takeoff and landing small unmanned aircraft system was assembled to host the direction finding module. The module itself is made up of an eight-channel synchronous analog-to-digital converter connected to eight lightweight micro electro-mechanical microphones with pre-amplifiers. The data is processed on an embedded system with a field programmable gate array chip and a central processing unit. Noise canceling techniques were employed to address the noise propagating from the propellers under operation. The results from this research show that it is possible to perform direction-finding estimation while aboard an operating small unmanned aircraft vehicle with initial tests showing maximum errors of ± 7°.

The aim of this work is to deal as fully as possible with the issue of ensuring the readiness of pupils, students, teachers and other pedagogical or non-pedagogical staff to pose a threat of attack by an active assailant in schools and school facilities. In order to achieve this, personal knowledge of the given issue, elaborated case studies, adopted legislation and methodological analysis of the questionnaires on the topic will be used. Attention is paid to all areas that may affect the behavior of people who find themselves in similar situations where the primary objective is to minimize the number of victims of such an attack. I progress here from the field of prevention, which includes a wide range of measures, from passive, solving questions of unauthorized access to schools, their authorization and identification, through education of pedagogic and non-pedagogical personnel in the field of the ability to solve unexpected and extraordinary situations to the personal readiness of all persons, moving in schools that can positively affect the situation caused by the activity of the active invader. I am personally involved in the issue in my entire career in the armed and security corps of the Czech Republic, as well as in my current position as the Chief Security Manager of a public institution. At present I am personally involved in the activities of the City of Prague, aiming at increasing the awareness of teachers and other school staff about the possibilities of preventive security measures in the field of emergency situations, with a primary focus on behavior in case of a conflict with the participation of an active striker. So I can continuously monitor the teachers' reactions to the lectured substance, use their feedback to further improve the education process in this area, and, last but not least, influence the composition of teaching materials. This work should be beneficial to the scientific community and to the professional public by its complexity and consistency in the knowledge of the topic, collected in one publication, and can contribute to the creation of further legislative procedures created by state administration bodies.

Despite their almost aberrational rarity, rampage school shootings have gained national attention to an extent that would make it seem that such events are a common occurrence. Many schools—along with hospitals, businesses, and other institutions—have adopted policies, implemented training, and conducted drills for responding to such incidents. In some cases, concern over school rampage shootings has led to bad policy implementations, particularly adoption of “zero tolerance” policies that punish the slightest infractions in hopes of thwarting potential attackers, but, rather than achieving their intended goal, result in massive false positive rates with few, if any, successes and a potential for fostering violence rather than abating it. For their part, law enforcement trainers and administrators have been caught in the rampage school shooter turmoil to such an extent that, starting with the aftermath of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, significant paradigm shifts in policing methodology have taken effect. In order to promote more informed policy-making and training decisions by law enforcement managers, this dissertation seeks to determine through empirical study of the crime scene behaviors of rampage school shooters the extent to which law enforcement planning and training can be informed by the study of prior incidents. Policy, training protocols, and institutional response plans have been shaped, in many cases, by a world of perception rather than reason and sound empirical evidence. This research seeks to bring clarity to the decision-making processes and provide sound empirical evidence on which to base those decisions and develop strategies for on-site protocols to help mitigate casualties, establish police response protocols, and develop post-incident investigative models.

Gun violence is a pandemic problem in the United States, resulting in over two thirds of all homicides each year. Consequently, gun related policies have been fiercely debated within the political spectrum, with the 20th century seeing a dramatic increase in gun control legislation. Gun-free zones are designated areas that strictly prohibit all private citizens from carrying a firearm, even those with concealed weapon permits. The statistics indicate that numerous instances of gun related mass shootings have occurred within the confines of these gun-free zones (schools, movie theatres, government installations, etc.). However, little research exists to understand whether citizens actually feel any safer when they are in a gun-free zone. The purpose of this study was to explore citizens’ perceptions about gun control policies, specifically about using gun-free zones, who resided in the five states with the highest rates of gun violence per capitain descending order, these included Virginia, Florida, Texas, Nevada, and Connecticut. Moreover, these five states were the locations of the top five deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history to date. The researcher also discovered how residents felt about pro-gun areas, where responsible citizens could legally carry firearms, as well as determine whether gun-free zones influenced their likelihood of visiting a prescribed location. Finally, the study sought to understand residents’ perceptions regarding using gun-free zones pertaining to their impact on reducing incidents of mass shootings. The researcher filled the gap in the literature regarding knowledge pertaining to citizens’ perceptions about using specific gun control measures, such as gun-free zones, and the influence that the historical evidence had on their perceptions. The answer to RQ1 (do residents associate using gun-free zones with feelings of safety or feelings of concern?) was that participants were twice as likely to associate using gun-free zones with feelings of concern rather than feelings of safety. The answer to the first part of RQ2 (whether participants believed that gun-free zones reduced gun-related violence) was no, based on a 2-to-1 ratio. Responses to the impact of gun control measures on reducing gun violence were closely matched to perceptions of the role of gun-free zones in reducing gun violence. The answer to the second part of RQ2 (do residents believe that gun-free zones lower the occurrences of mass shooting incidents?) was no, again based on a 2-to-1 ratio. The answer to the third and final part of RQ2 (whether participants’ perceptions correlated to the historical/empirical evidence of the location of mass shootings as primarily inside of or outside of gun-free zones) was yes for participants from Florida, Texas, Nevada, and Connecticut and no for participants from Virginia.

Gun violence on college campuses has gained the attention of campus leaders, leading to an active shooter policy and procedure development and implementation. There was little awareness within the campus leadership of a college in the Southeast United States on the college's active shooter policy and procedures. Guided by Coomb's crisis management plan model, the purpose of this case study was to explore how information was provided to students, faculty, and staff regarding how to respond to an active shooter on campus. Purposeful sampling was used to identify 16 participants (6 students, 5 faculty, and 5 administrator/staff) who were interviewed in person. Data analysis included content analysis for the documents and open and axial coding for the interview data, followed by identification of emergent themes. The outcomes included significant variations and inconsistencies among students, faculty, and staff regarding awareness and understanding of how to respond to an active shooter crisis. Overall, students demonstrated the least awareness and understanding. Based on the findings, a project was developed consisting of recommendations to augment the current active shooter procedures and to develop a comprehensive active shooter policy. The results of the study could promote increased awareness, understanding, and preparation for students and employees of technical and community colleges regarding an active shooter policy and procedures, thus increasing safety and confidence on campus.

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<p dir="ltr">With increasing frequency, American schools have been plagued with mass casualty events perpetrated by offenders using various types of firearms. In recent years, several studies have used AnyLogic®, an agent-based computer modeling software, to model some of these mass shooting events. More specifically, researchers have modeled mass shooting events and how changes in police response and victim response affect casualty rates in these scenarios. Another model has used the same agent-based software to model mass-casualty events of various venues. The model goes further by integrating what will be known throughout this paper as “the bleed-out model”. The bleed-out model uses known data from these mass casualty events to model types of injuries and their related probability of resulting in a fatality. The model also uses known data about traumatic wound interventions from mass casualty scenarios, as well as law enforcement and military applications, to model life-saving measures to counteract traumatic injuries and decrease the probability of a victim becoming a fatality. This research used AnyLogic® software to integrate agent-based school shooting models with an agent-based bleed-out model. Once combined, individual first aid kits (IFAKs) geared toward traumatic wound/hemorrhaging care were introduced into the environment and their placement was arranged in several different ways. AnyLogic® software and quantitative analysis were used to make recommendations about best practices for implementing IFAKS in schools. This research specifically examines whether the placement distance for IFAKS in schools during an active shooter incident could have a statistically significant impact on the survivability of active shooter victims. Different scenarios are assessed in the AnyLogic® model varying the placement of a fixed number of IFAKS throughout the school during an incident.</p>

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Following the 1999 Columbine High School shooting, it was hypothesized that offenders used knowledge gained from news media reports about previous events to plan mass shootings. Although researchers have studied active shooter events, little research has been conducted on the factors that influence an active shooter's decision and ability to carry out such events. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between the rate of news media reporting about an active shooter event and the casualty rate of the ensuing event in the United States. The bracketed time of this assessment was between April 20, 1999, and June 15, 2016. The age and regional location of the subsequent shooters were examined as moderating variables. Social learning and social cognitive theories constituted the theoretical framework. Data were gathered from existing mass shooting and active shooter studies, Google News, and the ProQuest Central database. A Spearman's correlation analysis revealed no significant relationship between the rate of news media reporting about an active shooter event and the casualty rate of the ensuing event. The age and regional location of subsequent shooters were not moderating variables. However, a Spearman's correlation analyses did reveal a significant relationship between the casualty rate of an active shooter event and the amount of news media coverage the event received prior to the ensuing event. The study finding clarified the need for active shooter reporting guidelines, similar to existing suicide reporting guidelines. The implementation of such guidelines could reduce the regularity and severity of active shooter events, thereby improving public safety in the United States by reducing the regularity and severity of active shooter events.