Interview with Officer Childs, from the Department of Homeland Security, about what to do if you ever find yourself in an active shooter, or other dangerous attack situation:
Dave: Hi everybody! Dave Sullivan here, part of the marketing team at People Driven Credit Union. We just had a wonderful presentation by officer Childs about safety awareness and…
Officer Childs: Active shooter awareness and also active threat awareness
Dave: and there are three things you need to consider when you are in this type of situation. They are:
Officer Childs: Running, Hiding & Fighting. Knowing when to actually employ them and the benefits of them.
Dave: and it’s really situational awareness on what to do.
Officer Childs: Absolutely!
Dave: Now how do you pull yourself out of the situation and remain calm? What is something that you do to remain calm in a situation like that?
Officer Childs: I make sure that I talk myself through as much as possible. I’m always thinking to myself & talking to myself while I’m going through a situation that potentially could have the loss of life or some type of catastrophic event.
Dave: Is there something you do mentally though, to kind of click yourself into that mode?
Officer Childs: I just tell myself it’s time to go.
Dave: Time to go? I like it! If somebody finds themselves in a situation like that, like the crowd that you were just talking about, You said getting down might not be the best thing to do when you’re in a large crowd, like at a concert. Why don’t you run through that scenario?
Officer Childs: So if you’re in a large crowd, at a concert the worst place you want to be is actually on the ground. People are going to be trampling all over you. You have the potential of being seriously injured, or worse. We don’t want that. You want to make sure you keep yourself up, mobile and you’re moving around. As much as possible, stay with the flow of the group and try your best to not get onto the ground or fall. You fall and you’re going to have the potential to actually get very injured.
Dave: Then you said look for shelter. But there are two types of shelter: there’s Concealment and …
Officer Childs: … Cover so concealment is anything that can potentially shield you from the shooter; where they can’t see you in their line of sight. But it will give you no cover or it won’t give you any protection if there are bullets or anything of that nature flying your way. Cover, on the other hand, is something that will give you cover from ballistics, from actual explosives, from shrapnel and things of that nature. If you have the opportunity, use that. i.e. behind an engine block of a vehicle or 90 degrees away from an explosion or actual rounds being fired, use that, please.
Dave: Would you say that a tree would be appropriate cover? Or would it depend on…
Officer Childs: … It would depend on the size of the tree, but it could be useful.
Dave: We really appreciate you coming out and sharing this information. we’ll have a link down below for more information, active shooter training video, “Run, Fight, Hide, We appreciate you being here.
Officer Childs: Thank you so much!
