Response Options: Mission

Response Options

Critical Incident Training

Mission Statement:

To provide cost-effective and simple customized education, counseling and training in responding to critical incidents and life-threatening situations to "Front Line Leaders"; people in positions of care & authority within the educational, medical, religious, public service, industrial, hospitality, commercial, and similar sectors, who may be exposed to them.

Some Information on our School Programs

Response Options has unique expertise in developing its school programs, as our founders (who remain active trainers) both have actual experience as law enforcement officers in dealing with real school shootings, as well as involvement with lesser school violence incidents.

Because of that experience, we take a somewhat different approach to our instruction, which might be considered to be at variance with the accepted dogma of the psychological/sociological/profiling tendency which was developed in the wake of Columbine, by people with a mainly academic and administrative background. We provide the missing piece of the school security picture; what do you do when the lockdown fails, and you are staring into the barrel of a gun waiting for the trigger to be pulled?

We hold these truths to be self-evident:

1. Schools will always be an attractive target, because they have a large number of high-value, low-resistance assets (the kids) in a milieu that is of necessity permissive (it must be so, to create a suitable learning environment). Teachers are in loco parentis, but cannot be expected to unilaterally protect their charges; both teacher and student must be educated, trained and prepared. People fear the unknown; what they don't understand, so they must first understand the threat and analyze it.

2.    Unlike a burglar or bank robber, whose mission is to steal money or property, and who would prefer to avoid using a weapon, the school shooter is more akin to a serial killer; he is not on campus to steal lunch money, or raid the stationery cupboard - he is acting irrationally, and he has come to dominate and to hurt others through the use of a deadly weapon.

3.    The ironic constant in the numerous tragic incidents over the last 30 years is their inconsistency; motives, age, religion, intentions, background, numbers, modus operandi, location, target, entry method, resolution and human cost are all highly variable. The three factors that are truly consistent are the location (in or near a school), the association with the school of one or more of those involved, and the potential application of violent force (actual or threatened intent to harm). One factor that is also extremely common is the involvement (or close proximity to the critical point) of an adult staff member in the crisis.

4.    Rather than trying to understand the motives of the attackers, we have studied the methods and likely courses of action they might take, in order to devise how to counter, confound, confuse and defeat them. We teach our attendees to get inside the attacker's decision cycle, and get them off-balance through the application of "organized chaos"; proactive planning and prior preparation instills a commitment to - and personal confidence in - taking rapid and positive action should a critical incident occur.

5.    Technology (CCTV, metal detectors, photo ID's etc.) needs to be employed properly and monitored appropriately to be effective - it rarely is. Too often, the camera merely records the tragic events for subsequent analysis. (In Bailey CO, where the shooter was recorded on school grounds for an hour before he attacked. No-one challenged him, or watched the video until after the killings.)

6.    Human security elements - school resource officers, local police, emergency medical staff, etc. are in reality the "second responders" to any threat; there aren't enough, it takes time for them to get to the scene and respond appropriately, and they cannot be everywhere they need to be.

7.    The mindset of "take cover and wait for rescue" is not a recipe for a successful outcome; it is an invitation for the predator to take action against passive victims, and he will. Anyone who naively believes otherwise is just not clear on the concept, and risking innocent lives through appeasement in the hope it will turn out OK is an unacceptable abrogation of the responsibilities that the stronger have in civilized society to protect the weaker.

The resulting outcome of all this is that a school where those who have taken the appropriate steps to address their own mindset in dealing with a critical incident (and have trained and practiced relevant techniques) will reduce the likelihood of them or their charges becoming casualties in an incident (whether through the application against an intruder of proactive measures by the teacher and class, effective ad-hoc life-preserving first aid, or simply heightened threat awareness and personal confidence).

Our training is not exclusively focused on school gun violence, or even on the human threat; we have modules which address all aspects of dealing with critical incidents, including tornados, chemical contamination, gas leaks, structural failure, etc. We also teach in other environments, helping churches, hospitals, realtors, public servants, hotels, post offices and other groups to prepare for the worst.

Some aspects of our training (while always age-appropriate and never gratuitous) might be thought to be a little unpleasant by those with delicate sensibilities. While it is never our intention to offend, we are committed to providing honest and realistic training. The bad guys will not be concerned with social etiquette, or moderate their language and behavior in order to spare their victims' blushes.

The end result of Response Options training is a confident, alert, prepared school, where teachers and students no longer fear the unknown, and both groups can concentrate on the business of education without constantly looking over their shoulders.