Before the First Shot:
Active Shooter Planning
With every breaking news story about workplace violence,
your team keeps raising the issue: “Shouldn’t we have an
active shooter plan in place?”
A HILLARD HEINTZE EXECUTIVE BRIEFING PAPER
The day after the last
funeral, the Chief of
Operations convened
the company’s first postincident meeting. “Well,
we now know that this was
preventable,” she began
cautiously.
The room was quiet. All 40
representatives of the oil
and gas company’s various
departments – from HR and
Corporate Security to the
Facility Department and
Environmental, Health and
Safety – preferred to be
talking about anything else.
“Last Monday – at 8:17 a.m.
– we got some things right.
And some things wrong.
And in four minutes and 48
seconds, we lost three of
our friends and colleagues.
Right now, nothing is more
important for anyone in this
room than making sure that
this awful event never, ever
happens here again.”
A former employee, an oil burner service technician who
had been terminated the week before after repeatedly
threatening co-workers showed up at the utility provider’s main
headquarters just as the work day began and calmly began
shooting people with a military-style weapon. In just under five
minutes, he shot and killed three people and wounded five
others. He then killed himself.
Five Missed Opportunities
The working group pored over the timeline, analyzed the
evidence, and shared technical data and first-hand accounts
of the shooting. Four hours later, it had identified five critical
opportunities where prevention might have saved one or all of
the lives.
1. Failure to “connect the dots” with respect to the attacker’s
behavior over the past few weeks. He had lost his job, his
wife and his health care insurance within the past two
months.
2. Critical deficits in the company’s suspension and
termination processes. Policies did not address security
notification, for example.
3. An outdated Emergency Management Plan that did not
include floor plans for the new headquarters facility.
4. Lack of training for employees on what to do during an
active shooter incident. One of the wounded had been shot
after her ringing cell phone revealed her hiding place to
the shooter.
5. Without poorly established crisis communications protocols,
some first responders lost precious time responding the
company’s nearby secondary location.
What is an Active Shooter?
An Active Shooter is an individual actively engaged in
killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and
populated area.
yy 37% of attacks ended in less than 5 minutes
yy Average attack lasted 12 minutes
yy 74% of attackers entered through main entrance
Three Drivers of Excellence in
Active Shooter Planning
1. Identity: Recognition that a high number of
active shooter incidents are acts of “targeted
violence.” This is crucial – because we know, as a
nation, how to prevent such tragedies
2. Methodology: Leverage of an established
approach to intervening in the pre-attack process.
Targeted violence is the result of an understandable
and often discernible process of thinking and
behavior.
PREVENT & MITIGATE
RECOVER
3. Alignment: Careful and consistent alignment
of the Active Shooter Plan with your Emergency
Management Plan and the four phases: Prevention
and Mitigation; Preparedness; Response and
Recovery.
PREPARE
RESPOND
CORPORATE PROGRAM MATURITY LEVEL
BEST PRACTICES IN ACTIVE SHOOTER PLANNING
A Sampling of Critical Tasks
1.
Understand how to recognize the "early indicators" of workplace violence
2.
Develop a clear, easy-to-follow Active Shooter Plan based on best practices
3.
Identify Lockdown and Evacuation protocols
4.
Create or update your Emergency Management Plan
5.
Educate and prepare your managers, administrators and staff
6.
Require rigorous pre-employment screening
7.
Conduct background investigations on individuals of concern
8.
Know your legal and compliance requirements
9.
Enable and streamline cross-functional information sharing
10. Run live, on-site tests of your communications capabilities
BASIC
ESTABLISHED
ADVANCED

























11. Establish and train a Threat Assessment Team
12. Form an Active Shooter Committee
13. Plan and implement training exercises with your first responders
14. Prepare Active Shooter Plan templates and processes for satellite locations
15. Develop online e-learning curriculums for all employees
THE HILLARD HEINTZE 360° INSIGHT ® | BEFORE THE FIRST SHOT: ACTIVE SHOOTER PLANNING





Practical Tips for Execution:
Our Recommendations
Tip #1 – Get an Active Shooter Plan in place.
Take action now. It may be hard to allocate scarce
resources to addressing a risk that hasn’t yet impacted
your workplace. But active shooter planning – as a
stand-alone priority or a risk scenario neatly integrated
with a broader approach to emergency preparedness
– typically generates an extended wealth of benefits
across many security risk management goals, metrics
and funding priorities. It can also yield significant
benefits for key objectives targeted by business
continuity programs and insurance premium
reduction initiatives.
Tip #2 – Deputize a hundred people. Or thousands.
The richest and most rewarding benefit of an active shooter plan is front-line employee security awareness. Awareness is a
tremendous “force multiplier” because, in effect, it makes every employee, at some level, a “heads-up-eyes-open” member of your
security team.
Tip #3 – Establish a threat assessment capability.
Behavioral threat assessment saves lives. It’s a discipline that has prevented attacks against U.S. presidents and helped sustain the
continuity of the U.S. government. And it plays a crucial role at the frontlines of active shooter planning and workplace violence
prevention. If your public or private agency HR or security budget has limitations, seek out an experienced team of behavioral threat
assessment experts. If you are a mature organization, build this capability in-house.
To find out more about targeted violence and other
behavior research in your business, contact:
Matthew Doherty, Senior Vice President
Security Risk Management
202.306.6530 or [email protected]
Howard Fisher, Esq., Vice President
Strategic Relationships
312.229.9882 or [email protected]
The HILLARD HEINTZE 360° INSIGHT® publication is an ongoing and regular series of executive briefing papers on
a wide range of critical and emerging issues at the forefront of best-in-class security and investigative practices today.
To view other publications in the series, visit hillardheintze.com/executive-briefings.
Hillard Heintze is one of the leading investigation and
security risk management firms in the United States.
We help organizations and senior leaders protect their
people, performance, interests and reputation.
We do this by delivering investigative, security and law
enforcement consulting services worldwide that provide
insight, deliver assurance and instill confidence.
30 South Wacker Drive, Suite 1400
Chicago, Illinois 60606
Phone: 312.869.8500
www.hillardheintze.com
© 2016 HILLARD HEINTZE LLC 161115