Posted on 10/14/2006 10:38:08 AM PDT by KarinG1
BURLESON, Texas – Youngsters in a suburban Fort Worth school district are being taught not to sit there like good boys and girls with their hands folded if a gunman invades the classroom, but to rush him and hit him with everything they got – books, pencils, legs and arms.
‘‘Getting under desks and praying for rescue from professionals is not a recipe for success,'' said Robin Browne, a major in the British Army reserve and an instructor for Response Options, the company providing the training to the Burleson schools.
That kind of fight-back advice is all but unheard of among schools, and some fear it will get children killed.
But school officials in Burleson said they are drawing on the lessons learned from a string of disasters such as Columbine in 1999 and the Amish schoolhouse attack in Pennsylvania last week.
The school system in this working-class suburb of about 26,000 is believed to be the first in the nation to train all its teachers and students to fight back, Browne said.
At Burleson – which has 10 schools and about 8,500 students – the training covers various emergencies, such as tornadoes, fires and situations where first aid is required. Among the lessons: Use a belt as a sling for broken bones, and shoelaces make good tourniquets.
Students are also instructed not to comply with a gunman's orders, and to take him down.
Browne recommends students and teachers ‘‘react immediately to the sight of a gun by picking up anything and everything and throwing it at the head and body of the attacker and making as much noise as possible. Go toward him as fast as we can and bring them down.''
Response Options trains students and teachers to ‘‘lock onto the attacker's limbs and use their body weight,'' Browne said. Everyday classroom objects, such as paperbacks and pencils, can become weapons.
‘‘We show them they can win,'' he said. ‘‘The fact that someone walks into a classroom with a gun does not make them a god. Five or six seventh-grade kids and a 95-pound art teacher can basically challenge, bring down and immobilize a 200-pound man with a gun.''
The fight-back training parallels the change in thinking that has occurred since Sept. 11, when United Flight 93 made it clear that the usual advice during a hijacking – Don't try to be a hero, and no one will get hurt – no longer holds. Flight attendants and passengers are now encouraged to rush the cockpit.
Similarly, women and youngsters are often told by safety experts to kick, scream and claw they way out during a rape attempt or a child-snatching.
In 1998 in Oregon, a 17-year-old high school wrestling star with a bullet in his chest stopped a rampage by tackling a teenager who had opened fire in the cafeteria. The gunman killed two students, as well as his parents, and 22 other were wounded.
Hilda Quiroz of the National School Safety Center, a nonprofit advocacy group in California, said she knows of no other school system in the country that is offering fight-back training, and found the strategy at Burleson troubling.
‘‘If kids are saved, then this is the most wonderful thing in the world. If kids are killed, people are going to wonder who's to blame,'' she said. ‘‘How much common sense will a student have in a time of panic?''
Terry Grisham, spokesman for the Tarrant County Sheriff's Department, said he, too, had concerns, though he had not seen details of the program.
‘‘You're telling kids to do what a tactical officer is trained to do, and they have a lot of guns and ballistic shields,'' he said. ‘‘If my school was teaching that, I'd be upset, frankly.''
Some students said they appreciate the training.
‘‘It's harder to hit a moving target than a target that is standing still,'' said 14-year-old Jessica Justice, who received the training over the summer during freshman orientation at Burleson High.
William Lassiter, manager of the North Carolina-based Center for Prevention of School Violence, said past attacks indicate that fighting back, at least by teachers and staff, has its merits.
‘‘At Columbine, teachers told students to get down and get on the floors, and gunmen went around and shot people on the floors,'' Lassiter said. ‘‘I know this sounds chaotic and I know it doesn't sound like a great solution, but it's better than leaving them there to get shot.''
Lassiter questioned, however, whether students should be included in the fight-back training: ‘‘That's going to scare the you-know-what out of them.''
Hahahaha...can't wait to hear the media and the international community response to this...
Whoa.
I've already told my children if they hear shooting, or even worse, explosions - judge where they are coming from. If they are coming closer, figure the best way out to head in the opposite direction without exposing themselves - even if it's through a second floor window. Don't stay in the lockdown.
The new high school has two floors with the few small operable windows in each room opening up high. So the instructions have to include breaking a window with a chair now.
But if an attacker is in the room with them - rushing him works a lot better in a group. More power to this school district.
Mrs VS
Well, "they" have already reacted: Why, this method of resistance teaches students to react with violence, don't you know? And what if they over react towards the intruder? What we have to understand is that "we" come second. The heck with victims' survival. The welfare of intruders, murderers, fanatics, etc., must be our first concern.
Good.
Goes along with my theory that you don't get in a car at gunpoint. Have it out right there, if you're gonna die anyway.
A little more parallel thinking like that and, the next thing you know, the 2nd Amendment is going to be back in fashion. Libs are quaking in their Birkenstocks.
Perhaps amending "concealed carry" laws to mandate coverage in public schools would help this movement in the direction of sanity. Schools should have "designated" staff members who are trained in counter-intrusion response and armed at all times.
Preference should be given to former military or security force members in selecting staff members for this role.
Hey, it worked in my local High School. A kid tried to pull a gun on a teacher, and was wrestled to the floor by two male students.
Better then being used for target practice.
What do the student do if the "designated" staff member just happens to be a 60 yr old woman? Lie down and die?
No, thank you. If five or ten of those students can find the fortitude to attack the attacker they'll be the winners. Sure one or two of them might get shot and possibly die but that is a lot better than a full classrom of bodies.
"Real peoples lives are at stake!"
All the more reason for those real people to fight back.
This is excellent advice. My wife teaches a class of 32 testosterone-filled high school boys, some of whom are bigger than I am. They could overwhelm a lone attacker just like that. They would probably use their soldering irons and x-acto knives on him, or maybe just hot glue him to the rug.
Thats the whole point. Train them to overcome instead of Panicking.
And after sacking the perp the students should be able to have a trial and hang him out front the school as part of their civics lesson.
And if the "designated" staff member is not in the room --- what then ---
Get real, this is not your "geek" video game! Real peoples lives are at stake!
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You seem to assume I am suggesting a 'minimalist' approach, i.e., that "only the designated staff" would be practicing concealed carry and be trained to respond. Actually, I'm suggesting this as a minimal level of preparation, and would be quite pleased to see a broader, or even universal, training of staff (and, in schools, the students) in appropriate active responses to intruders.
Not everyone in the place needs to be packing (those who are should be trained and vetted to screen out flakes), but if any prospective assailant could reasonably be expected to meet with a resolute defense, there would be fewer temptations to attack in the first place, and fewer "successes" by perps when they appear.
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