Active Shooters on College Campuses: Conflicting Advice, Roles of the Individual and First Responder, and the Need to Maintain Perspective

Greenberg, Sheldon F.

doi:10.1097/dmp.0b013e318149f492

Cited by 22 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 7 publications

(12 reference statements)

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“…Being able to handle stressful situations is important for any police officer but particularly for members of police special units, such as special weapons and tactics (SWAT) teams, who are exposed to potentially dangerous and threatening situations to a larger extent than the average police officer. However, also regular patrol officers face high risk of injury or death (Meyerhoff et al, 2004) because they typically arrive first to a situation, before the conditions on the site have been determined Greenberg, 2007;). An elite SWAT unit fills a critical role in minimizing the risks of injuries among police officers, the civilian population and the perpetrators alike while resolving anticipated or protracted high threat situations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards systematic and objective evaluation of police officer performance in stressful situations

Bertilsson¹,

Niehorster

Fredriksson

et al. 2019

Police Practice and Research

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To ensure a continuous high standard of police units, it is critical to recruit people who perform well in stressful situations. Today, this selection process includes performing a large series of tests, which still may not objectively reveal a person's capacity to handle a life-threatening situation when subjected to high levels of stress. To obtain more systematic and objective data, 12 police officers were exposed to six scenarios with varying levels of threat while their heart rate and pupil size were monitored. The scenarios were filmed and six expert evaluators assessed the performance of the police officers according to seven predefined criteria. Four of the scenarios included addressing a moderate threat level task and the scenarios were executed in a rapid sequence. Two further scenarios included a familiar firearm drill performed during high and low threat situations. The results showed that there was a large agreement between the experts in how they judged the performance of the police officers (p < 0.001). Performance increased significantly over tasks in four of the seven evaluation criteria (p ≤ 0.037). There was also a significant effect of pupil size (p = 0.004), but not heart rate, when comparing the different sequential scenarios. Moreover, a high level of threat considerably impaired the motor performance of the police officers during the firearms drill (p = 0.002). Finally, the pupil seemed to systematically dilate more when a threat appeared immediately than with a delay in the scenarios (p = 0.007). We conclude that systematic and quantitative judgments from experts provide valuable and reliable information about the performance of participants in realistic and stressful policing scenarios. Furthermore, objective physiological measures of heart rate and pupil size may help to explain and understand why performance sometimes deteriorates.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards systematic and objective evaluation of police officer performance in stressful situations

Bertilsson¹,

Niehorster

Fredriksson

et al. 2019

Police Practice and Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Furthermore, violent campus attacks often end tragically before law enforcement officials are able to intervene due to the highly chaotic nature if these attacks and the speed by which they are executed (Greenberg, 2007;O'Toole, 2000). Therefore, despite the immense planning that often goes into campus attacks, they usually last only a few minutes and provide little time for police, college officials, or bystanders to coordinate an organized response (Greenberg, 2007).…”

Section: Vulnerability Of College Campuses To Violent Attacksmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…However, campus or local police officers may lead efforts to mitigate campus attacks as they occur (Zdziarski et al, 2007). Prior to the Virginia Tech massacre, these officers were trained to establish a secure perimeter around a shooter (Admussen & Creswell, 1995), yet many ERPs now require police officers to hunt down and engage active shooters on campus (Greenberg, 2007). Additionally, some colleges employ officers who are specially trained to respond to violent attacks and critical incidents.…”

Section: Emergency Response Plansmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contemporary Responses to Violent Attacks on College Campuses

Sulkowski

Lazarus

2011

Journal of School Violence

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“…In spite of the attention and focus on large scale killings in the media, they are not common (Greenberg, 2007). Still, one single event with one shooter could result in mass fatalities; producing more fatalities than all the murders over several years in the region, as illustrated by the event in Utoya, Norway in 2011.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Police officer involved shootings – retrospective study of situational characteristics

Petersson

Bertilsson

Fredriksson

et al. 2017

Police Practice and Research

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The study analyzed the situational characteristics of 112 incidents where police used firearms to handle high threat situations. Most shooting incidents emanated from usually uneventful tasks, e.g., handling burglaries or disturbances. The assailants were commonly armed with firearms (26%), sharp (27%) or blunt objects (10%). The incidents were regularly short-lasting (in 39% were shots fired ≤3 s from threat emerged) and occurred at short distances (in 42% at distances ≤3 m). Predominantly, the first responders had to address the situation and did so with warning shots or, equally common, with fire-for-effect shots (40%) or a combination thereof. Psychological stress was manifested as feelings of panic at some point and as motor skill alterations, e.g., firing without using sights and with one hand only. Analysis of these incidents shows that all field duty police officers should receive training in handling potentially life-threatening, sudden, close-range attacks.

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Active Shooters on College Campuses: Conflicting Advice, Roles of the Individual and First Responder, and the Need to Maintain Perspective

Cited by 22 publications

References 7 publications

Towards systematic and objective evaluation of police officer performance in stressful situations

Towards systematic and objective evaluation of police officer performance in stressful situations

Contemporary Responses to Violent Attacks on College Campuses

Police officer involved shootings – retrospective study of situational characteristics

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