The St. Louis High School Shooting: Orlando Harris, 18, and the Oakland County Prosecutor, Karen McDonald, 21, an active shooter
The teenager armed with a long gun and a number of high-capacity magazines opened fire at the school, killing two people and wounding several others.
The school’s locked doors and quick police response prevented further killings, authorities said.
Police Commissioner Sack said this could have been a lot worse. “The individual had almost a dozen 30-round … high-capacity magazines on him. That’s a whole lot of victims there.”
Alexandria was looking forward to her Sweet 16, her father told CNN affiliate KSDK. Kuczka was looking forward to retiring in a few years, her daughter told CNN.
Sack said the man died at a hospital after a gun battle with officers. He was identified as Orlando Harris, who graduated from the school last year.
As the shooting unfolded in St. Louis, a Michigan prosecutor who just heard the guilty plea of a teen who killed four students last fall said she was no longer shocked to hear of another school shooting. The fact that there is another school shooting is terrible for Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald.
Engagement with the shooter, trying to demobilize him, and trying to prevent him from reloading his gun are some things we have seen in active shooter cases.
Louis School Shooting Wednesday: A Memories Memorino of Jean Kuczka, Alexandria Bell, and Dejah Robinson
Alexandria had an outgoing personality, loved to dance and was a member of her high school’s junior varsity dance team, her father Andre Bell told KSDK.
Her friend Dejah Robinson said the two were planning to celebrate Halloween together this weekend. Robinson said that she was always funny and kept the smile on her face.
Alexis Allen-Brown was among the alumni who fondly remembered Jean Kuczka’s impact on her students. She was kindhearted. She was sweet. Allen-Brown said she always made people laugh even if they weren’t trying to.
In her biography on the school’s website, Kuczka said she had been at the school since 2008. “I believe that every child is a unique human being and deserves a chance to learn,” she wrote.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/25/us/st-louis-school-shooting-tuesday/index.html
How police handled the shooting at the Keck-Staples-Kirillov-Kramers High School (KSDK)
Some of the teens were injured with gunshots. One had a fractured ankle. They were all in stable conditions, the police commissioner said.
“When he entered, it was out … there was no mystery about what was going to happen,” the commissioner said. He had it out and entered in a violent way.
Adrianne Bolden, a freshman at the school, told KSDK that students thought it was a drill until they heard the sirens and saw their teachers were scared.
Adrianne told KSDK that the class stayed put until students saw their assistant principal come up to one of the classroom’s locked windows. “We opened it, the teacher said to come on, and we all had to jump out the window,” Bolden recalled.
David Williams has told CNN that everyone went into drill mode, turning off lights, locking doors andhuddling in corners so they wouldn’t be seen.
Sack said that it took eight minutes between officers arrival and making contact with the shooter and that officers had to go through a big school with few entrances and people who were getting out.
After receiving phone calls from people hiding in different places, officers searched for students and staff and escorted them out of the building.
A SWAT team that was together for a training exercise was also able to quickly load up and get to the school to perform a secondary sweep of the building, Sack said.
Run, hide, fight: effective guidance for civilians in a gun shooting at a bar and its role in the loss of life in the 21st century
Customers caught in a shooting at a bar are instructed in a training video to run, hide and fight to improve their chances of survival. It reminds civilians to always be aware of alternate exits, keep hands empty and visible when exiting a building, and lock and barricade a door if hiding is the best option.
The more we discuss it, the more we know what works in engagement and how we can help and protect ourselves.
“Things have changed,” Kayyem told CNN. More mass shootings, the weaponry is faster, and a lot of damage can be done in a few minutes. And as we’ve seen in some cases, we can’t totally depend on law enforcement.”
Brandon Tsay was the one who disarmed the suspect as he entered the second dance studio. Army veteran Richard Fierro was one of two clubgoers who took down a suspected gunman in November at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado. And James Shaw Jr. ended a deadly 2018 shooting at a Waffle House in Tennessee by ambushing the shooting suspect before more lives were lost.
The “run, hide, fight” guidance has been used for years, said Kayyem, an Obama-era assistant secretary for Homeland Security and now faculty chair of the homeland security program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government
Kayyem commented that the time is now to rethink how we prioritize what we tell people who might find themselves in a mass shooting.
Sheriff’s deputy Mike Fetherolf said the biggest change was away from the “hide” tactic. Rather than hiding or waiting for the shooter to find them, the newer guidance advises you to create barriers, keep your distance, and deny the shooter access to you.
The big part is different when we talk about this hide. When a hero steps up, all the targets are spared from being potential victims.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/31/us/run-hide-fight-active-shooting-guidance/index.html
Fighting back against mass shootings: how civilians are trained and how to make sure they’re safe in a classroom setting up an active shooting
Even though fighting back hasn’t always worked, crafting guidance for active shootings is not a one-size-fits-all solution. A Colorado high school student was killed within a week of a college student dying in a gun attack.
Training civilians is crucial to keeping communities safe as mass tragedies have affected every facet of US life, security experts said.