It’s another delicate start to a new school year for South High School in Willoughby Ohio. After only one week in to the new school year, on September 3, 2008, a 15 year-old sophomore brought a gun to school and began to open fire at 9:15am. The first shot was fired at the ceiling, and the second shot resonated through the halls as he shot at the school’s trophy case with his .40-caliber hand gun. It was reported a student and teacher in separate classrooms immediately called 911 to report the incident as it was occurring, and the local Police arrived within minutes from the initial call.

What shook us up about this incident at Critical Response Solutions, our Global Sales Manager’s two sons and best friend all attend South High School, and when notification of this event came into our office some of our staff immediately deployed out to ensure the safety of his kids as well as their friends. When we arrived on scene, it appeared very chaotic and confusing. Parents were extremely worried and were only allowed to approach the taped off section, although we saw some parents wandering around the scene. We also saw the police directing most, but not all kids to the baseball field which was fenced in. Other kids remained locked in their classroom as the Police and SWAT teams conducted a sweep of all classrooms. Outside the school were local Police, Fire and rescue teams scattered everywhere as they monitored the area.

After about an hour and half, it was reported the Principal and Assistant Principal helped Police distinguish the situation by convincing the boy to put down his weapon, which he did and then the Police quickly apprehended and arrested the boy. Overall, this was considered a great outcome and thank God nobody got hurt and nobody was killed.

What’s ironic for us at Critical Response Solutions, our business is to provide solutions and procedures to mitigate risk and plan for these exact situations, along with our program named (SONS) Securing Our Nations Students. With our background and expertise, we recognized several flaws during this “Real-life” situation while we were at the scene as identified below:

• Many teachers did not follow the “lockdown” call for emergency procedures and just continued to teach.
• No roll call for students was conducted when they where removed from the building.
• Many students where still in the building while the SWAT team worked the building.
• After the main perpetrator was removed from the area and while students where still being removed from the grounds several people were able to get very close to the school
• No real perimeter was evident.
• Slow information to parents, no notification by authorities.
• Students were not allowed to use cell phones during incident.
• All removed students where placed into the ball field as a holding area with no organization.
• We spoke to several administrators and they noted more school & First Responder personnel was needed for guidance and direction during this crisis event to properly protect students than was physically  in place.
• Traffic control of arriving and departing parts was not coordinated and anybody was allowed to arrive and leave the crime scene.

Critical Response Solutions and the “FloorView” product helps close these gaps in a situation of this kind. Color coded rally points for student roll-call, floor plans visible to the responders and “IP” enabled camera connections that raise the situational awareness that supports the decision making process during a crisis. In addition it is DHS, Department of Homeland Security approved. Also, there are federal funds available for this system.