Can a CHL enter school as first responder?

[tornado]

I sat through a seminar about schools & active shooters, pretty good information given. One of the topics sorts touched on this. The LEO said if a civilian were to obtain or carry in an incident like this, you better not have a weapon in your hand when the cavalry arrives. When they show up, they are not there to help the victims who are already shot, they walk right past them, they are there to shoot the BG, period. If you have a gun, and they see you, you will be shot, period. There will be no "put down your weapon", "stop", ect....person with gun is shot.

Can any current or former LEOs here give us their personal insight on this? Would you yourself shoot first and ask questions later, or would there be a verbal command? Does your department have policy or procedure for this with an active shooter?

[Maxwell]

Then I go in and pray for God's deliverance.

[/quote][/quote]

[texanjoker]

I sat through a seminar about schools & active shooters, pretty good information given. One of the topics sorts touched on this. The LEO said if a civilian were to obtain or carry in an incident like this, you better not have a weapon in your hand when the cavalry arrives. When they show up, they are not there to help the victims who are already shot, they walk right past them, they are there to shoot the BG, period. If you have a gun, and they see you, you will be shot, period. There will be no "put down your weapon", "stop", ect....person with gun is shot.

Can any current or former LEOs here give us their personal insight on this? Would you yourself shoot first and ask questions later, or would there be a verbal command? Does your department have policy or procedure for this with an active shooter?

I am not sure what policy/procedure you are asking for but have an idea. While it is advisable to make a verbal command when possible, there is no law/policy requiring that as each scenario is different. What may work in scenario A doesn't work in B. Sometimes you do not want to give up the element of surprise and in other incidents just telling a suspect to put the gun down works. An officer should try and know what they are shooting at, but again they are human like everybody else. For me, I want to know what I am shooting at, period. For others, this may be the first time they ever faced an armed subject. One won't know how they will react until it happens the 1st time. Friendly fire happens in both police work and the military, and usually in police work it involves a plain clothed or off duty officer that they couldn't ID that was holding a gun. That would be similar to a CHL holder. I would hate to respond to a call of an active shooter and find a CHL holder or off duty officer holding a gun, acting out of control and not complying to put the gun down. There are many documented instances of the "suicidal" person, holding a gun to their head, mouth, ect. and in a flash they turn the gun on the police and fire.

I have personally worked 2 school shootings and at the 1st, there was an armed off duty officer on campus registering his kid. He made sure he did not have his gun out when the first units arrived because he didn't want to get shot. Once identified he was part of the take down team. He used great tactics before their arrival to make sure HE was not a threat when they got on scene. When they confronted that shooter, who was reloading, they did not just shoot. They clearly could have since there were wounded and dead all over. In the 2nd, the first officer came out and shot up the suspect asap to stop him. I can say on the 2nd, when 2 of us moved onto the campus to do a rescue, we had been told there was a 2nd shooter. We had a brief discussion that ANYBODY with a gun that was a threat was going to be shot. Note the key word threat. We were NOT going to allow any more kids to be shot, and I wanted to make sure we were on the same page as we were from different agencies.

Vague answer yes - but that is real life. When I used to teach officer survival, I used various stories of incidents when officers had been killed and in some of those incidents, their identifying themselves while off duty gave the crook time to react and shoot them. That would go for anybody that is considering engaging a felony dangerous armed suspect.

http://www.policeone.com/active-shooter/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


DISCLAIMER - sorry for being so lengthy - no legal advise given. Just my 2 cents.

[tornado]

Thank you! Lengthy was good!

A cop friend of mine told me his wife's first job is to get safe (with their kids, if they're there) and second job is to call 911 and tell them her husband is an off duty officer wearing a blue polo and jeans (or whatever) so arriving officers may ID him. I've given my wife the same instructions now.

I've bookmarked that site to check out later.

[treeman]

Wish there was something a concealed carry holder could have on his/her person out of sight that could be slipped on (maybe a bright colored arm band for instance) if he or she was to enter a situation like this. Might at least alert a LEO at cause him or her to not shoot 1st and ask later.

[68blackbird]

Wish there was something a concealed carry holder could have on his/her person out of sight that could be slipped on (maybe a bright colored arm band for instance) if he or she was to enter a situation like this. Might at least alert a LEO at cause him or her to not shoot 1st and ask later.

I'm sure the bad guys wouldget their hands on them....

[The Annoyed Man]

Wish there was something a concealed carry holder could have on his/her person out of sight that could be slipped on (maybe a bright colored arm band for instance) if he or she was to enter a situation like this. Might at least alert a LEO at cause him or her to not shoot 1st and ask later.

I'm sure the bad guys wouldget their hands on them....

Well, there are these popular options. The third one was actually given by one member of this forum to another member:

[rm9792]

With the tiara I feel so...pretty.....

[C-dub]

Interestingly, this is another situation where I think most of will respond differently because it's a school.

If the same thing happened at a mall or movie theater, the majority consensus on here seems to be, "Use your phone. Be a witness. Defend yourself and those you're responsible for." Maybe even, "Get ready to do some first aid and be ready if BG reemerges."

We may think differently about schools not just because they are kids, but because "our" kid is probably in there or other kids that we know.

[srothstein]

I sat through a seminar about schools & active shooters, pretty good information given. One of the topics sorts touched on this. The LEO said if a civilian were to obtain or carry in an incident like this, you better not have a weapon in your hand when the cavalry arrives. When they show up, they are not there to help the victims who are already shot, they walk right past them, they are there to shoot the BG, period. If you have a gun, and they see you, you will be shot, period. There will be no "put down your weapon", "stop", ect....person with gun is shot.

Can any current or former LEOs here give us their personal insight on this? Would you yourself shoot first and ask questions later, or would there be a verbal command? Does your department have policy or procedure for this with an active shooter?

Most of what you are asking about is the current teaching of the ALLERT center. They teach the rapid entry, ignore the wounded to stop the threat response. They also teach shooting quickly to stop the threat. I don't know if they teach to shoot without saying anything, but I do agree with Texanjoker that this is highly situational. I would probably not give a warning to someone who is shooting already, but would give a warning to most who are holding the gun up but not actively shooting.

I also agree that the friendly fire problem is a real problem. I strongly caution anyone who is not in a blue police uniform (or whatever is easily recognizable by the local police where the incident occurs) to holster as soon as possible after shooting the BG.

[packa45]

I have a few LEO friends and asked one his departments active shooter policy... And he stated the answer briefly... Go in shoot and/or apprehend gunman/gunmen/woman (clear the building of all threats) and get out. He stated if you are armed and in the building and not part of first response entry team(wearing a distinct uniform)you are a threat.

[treeman]

In a rural area where LE rsponse can be anywhere from 2 to 10 minutes depending on where officers happen to be in the county, I guess any CC that responds to a situation will need to keep this in mind. I would assume that most of the CC people reading this would make an attempt to engage the BG and try to help until LE arrives rather than stand around wringing their hands waiting for LE help. Hopefully responding LE would understand this. I would agree that putting your weapon away if not actively in use would be a smart move.

[Watchful]

There has been quite a bit of discussion lately about allowing teachers / admins etc to CC in their schools. I believe this has alot of merrit, but as with the discussion in this thread about a CC parent getting involved, that would introduce a whole new dynamic to the situation. How would LE react if there might be legally armed civilians such as teachers in the building? I'm thinking if this eventually takes hold (arming teachers), there would have to be some notification to local LE about who these persons are so LE can be on notice that there will be armed civilian GG in the school.

[jmra]

There has been quite a bit of discussion lately about allowing teachers / admins etc to CC in their schools. I believe this has alot of merrit, but as with the discussion in this thread about a CC parent getting involved, that would introduce a whole new dynamic to the situation. How would LE react if there might be legally armed civilians such as teachers in the building? I'm thinking if this eventually takes hold (arming teachers), there would have to be some notification to local LE about who these persons are so LE can be on notice that there will be armed civilian GG in the school.

That's easy. The armed teacher is the teacher behind the locked classroom door ready to blow off your head if you come through the door without the correct password. The only thing LEO need to know is the password.

[un0fficial]

I'd have to agree with a few here. Even if I were to lose my CHL / Go to jail, I could not live with myself if I knew I was carrying and did nothing while someone was opening fire inside a school.