S- Stay Aware
A- Action Now
F-  Fight for Your Life
E-  Endure-Evacuate-Escape

Reducing the risk of harm to ourselves and others is what it is all about. Where there is a potential for a crisis, there is a need for a plan of action. The planning process begins in recognizing the crisis can occur. Accepting the reality that you may one day be placed in a perilous situation will allow you to take positive steps to reduce anxiety, be S.A.F.E., and survive the situation. There are several fundamental principles that fall into a number of physical, psychological and physiological categories minimizing your victimization to harm. The physical aspect pertains to the environment you find yourself in and your individual level of fitness. Making the physical environment more secure is referred to as “target hardening.” This can potentially slow a threat from reaching you; this gives you time. During this process, try to deter, detect, detain and (when necessary) defend against the harm. Utilize surveillance systems to observe and track the threat in the building. Create distance from the threat by constructing barriers to keep the attacker and mobile units away. Use this to your advantage by anticipating the attacker’s movement and utilize available materials and environmental controls to prevent the harm from reaching you.

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You are as important a component in reducing the risk of harm as the environment you are in. Both physically and psychologically, the body experiences changes when placed under stress. Physical stress may be induced because you are in a defensive mode, flight mode or perhaps experiencing a state of heightened anxiety absent a reference of what action steps should be taken during an attack.

On the other hand, there are some adrenaline induced physiological changes which are difficult to reproduce. Based on the research of notable experts, such as Lieutenant Colonel David Grossman (U.S. Army, retired), a number of other dynamics can occur as well. With the onset of the increased circulatory and respiration rates you experience, what is referred to as, vaso-constriction. During this time your body draws the small blood vessel supplies down to support the organ functions and enhances the performance of our large muscle groups. As this is occurring there is a tendency to loose fine-motor skills and visual acuity. There are other recognized phenomenon such as sensory gating, sensory enhancement and time distortion. Your sense of smell, touch and recognition of temperature changes may become more pronounced. There may be a perception of “things moving in slow motion.” The results being your brain is actually giving you extraordinary feedback due to enhanced recognition and processing of the environmental stimuli. Perhaps one of the least spoken about experiences under stress has to do with the matter of the loss of control of your excretory functions.

One of the best ways to regain control of sensory perception is to regain control of breathing. Specifically, utilizing a four-part controlled, deep breathing method will maximize the use of oxygen and reduce the heart rate. That contributes to the return of circulatory normalcy and aids in the supply flow to the smaller blood vessels. The breathing cycle is described in the following manner. On a four-count, in through your nose deeply expanding your lungs. Hold for a four-count. Exhale through the lips on a four-count. Hold for a four-count. Repeat the process for at least three repetitions. Continue with the cycle while experiencing these stressors.   

Through your efforts you can maximize your capabilities. Enhancing capabilities also contributes to proficiency in your ability to put a learned skill or behavior into action when facing the crisis. Ideally, these increased proficiencies will bolster individual confidence. These skill sets are extremely important as the dynamic of a crisis evolves or changes. It is then when your confidence and abilities allow stress-controlled thought to work through the variables and effectively develop options that keep the harm from reaching you!

So what does it mean to be S.A.F.E. during a crisis involving school violence?

S – Stay Aware

A response is based on two key points, recognition and reaction. First, recognition of a hazard and then a realization of which options can be taken.  Awareness includes a degree of knowledge pertaining to the indicators leading to violence. It is not sufficient to recognize these indicators; they need to be consciously acknowledged as a reality. The most comprehensive studies of such school indicators have been made by the FBI and the U.S. Secret Service in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Education. There are also a number of private studies which have drawn similar conclusions. The bottom line is that you have an obligation to become more knowledgeable of what has been and is being discovered.

The threatened harm dictates which steps may be necessary for your protection. As previously discussed, time-distance-shielding could be effective strategies. Applying these strategies would be component specific, as defined by the potential harm. Cover and concealment are examples of these components. Cover is defined as a barrier which prohibits or eliminates the possibility of the threat from reaching the intended target. For example, a chain-link fence may prohibit an individual armed with an edged-weapon from reaching a person. A concrete planter may prohibit a handgun round from reaching the person who is behind it. Concealment is defined as something which obscures or blocks the intended target (in whole or in part) from the view of the person intending to deliver the harmful threat. Examples would include darkness, a large plastic trash receptacle, a snow bank, etc. Generally speaking, concealment is not cover but, cover may be concealment.

There are other options which may be selected to maximize survivability. Depending on the degree of threatened harm, you must adjust the degree of response. At one end of the continuum, effective intervention may be as simple as reporting the alerting behavior to the appropriate person or agency, resolving the conflict with the emotionally enraged individual through dialog. However, at the other end it might be necessary to physically engage the threat. Whatever the circumstances, it all begins with recognition and a conscious acknowledgement of what options are available.

A – Action Now

The longer the delay in responding to a recognized threat, the greater the risk of harm. There is no simpler way to describe what needs to be done than to say – “Do it now!” The goal should be zero reaction time, which often is not possible, but a desired goal just the same.

How do you reduce your reaction time to a harmful event? Training, planning and experience will definitely benefit the at-risk audience. Training may come from a number of venues which include both physical and mental preparation enhancements. Training also provides you with a mental map to follow under similar circumstances thus reducing the “brain-lock” effect as you think of the proper response.

Planning applies your training to anticipated events. Become visionary in what may happen and where. Apply strategies that make the situation better, even if it does not totally eliminate the harmful effect or threat. Work through the available options in a progressive manner until you have utilized each course of action. When that is done, think about what else could occur and develop additional options that would be effective. There is no restriction on your creativity. Something has to be done now and quickly.

Direct experience in an actual crisis situation may be difficult to acquire. There are avenues which can be safely taken to give your mind the perception of experience. In training, you can build upon the progression described under the Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program (HSEEP). The program starts with the most basic scenario exposure through a full-scale exercise. At the extreme level, there is the staging of an event which would include deploying physical as well as human resources in real time. Props are utilized and the actual site event may be the place where the exercise would occur.

Visualization is an additional method by which you can give your brain a mental map to follow upon occurrence of a crisis. For example, an individual armed with a firearm enters the front door. The gross action steps may include locking the door, becoming concealed and utilizing cover. Now, replay the event and the action steps while making the response more detailed. Continue to visualize the event and the action steps in greater detail each time you return to it. Ultimately, you will have an experience that is stimulating all of your senses and clearly provides a template for your “experience.”

F – Fight for Your Life

There are decades of reminders, in Americas schools, where an attacker takes innocent life without regard. The analysis of their behavior, the condition of their past life, the conflicts they have mentally matter not when it comes down to a victim forfeiting their life. It is about survival…SURVIVAL.

Circumstances of an event or the actions of another may place your life at risk. An unpleasant thought, but one that has been faced by far too many innocent victims across the nation. The question is, can you as an individual accept this possibility and respond in a manner that will not cause you or others to perish? Arguably, each human has the physiological and physical capability to do so.  Military and law enforcement spend countless hours training to prepare how to eliminate a threat. As an individual the more difficult barrier may be the cognitive recognition and willingness to do so.

The attacker is not concerned about you going home to hug your loved ones or that vacation you have waited so long for or that graduation that is only weeks away. The attacker may not be consciously concerned about anything…including your suffering. You do not deserve to be their victim. You are entitled to a future.

Your living and working environments contain a variety of improvised materials you can utilize to protect yourself. A professional can provide you with the most appropriate way to utilize a number of these materials. If you face the reality of the possibility, address the necessity of learning what would be effective where you are. A text book, held with one hand on the binding and the other hand on the book opening, can provide an improvised impact weapon to deliver blows. It can also be utilized to quickly and strike the front of the neck when your life is at risk should you come face to face with your attacker. A fire extinguisher can be used to spray the attacker in the face with the subzero contents; it will also provide some degree of oxygen deprivation, disorientation and distraction allowing additional time to flee. The extinguisher itself makes an excellent impact weapon as well.  

E – Endure, Evacuate, Escape

If a true lethal threat comes to your educational environment law enforcement will have a number of missions. First, they will address and stop the threat. Once that has been achieved, they will prioritize who shall be removed from the environment, as well as when they should be removed. This controlled process can take hours. The affected stakeholders need to recognize this and be prepared to wait the required period of time. It may be uncomfortable, frustrating and filled with anxiety; bear with it --endure.

Protecting yourself from a threat often involves taking advantage of cover and concealment. In the school environment that is frequently demonstrated by implementing a “lockdown” protocol. Some locations are going to provide better protection than others. When you are safe and have no assurance of the location of the threat, stay where it is safe. Humans, under stress and experiencing anxiety, have a compulsion to move somewhere else. These events can change because they are dynamic. In recognizing these changes, you may anticipate your area is no longer safe and you may be reasonably assured of gaining a more secure area with minimal risk. Under these conditions you may choose to leave an area, by your choice, in a manner and time of your choosing, only then do you depart from your current location —evacuate.

Even the most secure location has the risk of being compromised by a threat. Face that reality and plan a response to it. You may have to fight for your life or depart the area even if you risk physical harm. If no action is taken, the worse case scenario may occur. This is the time when the individual is forced into an action step they do not desire, but have been forced to take. The option you must choose is –escape.

Educational institutions within the United States of America should be safe havens where citizens can go to grow intellectually. Unfortunately, there will always be a risk of violence in places of learning. You may spend an entire career thinking you may have to face violence at any moment or you may never give it a second thought. The responsibility of recognizing and accepting the harm should not rest solely on one person’s shoulders. So why don’t you do yourself and everyone else a favor --Be Prepared, Be S.A.F.E.