Stephen C. Satterly, II – Author

Strategies that have been proven to work in other active shooter incidents were also applied to the 2012 Newtown, CT, mass school shooting.

By Michael Dorn, Chris Dorn, Stephen Satterly, Dr. Sonayia Shepherd, and Phuong Nguyen, Campus Safety Magazine: November 1, 2018

Five of our analysts reviewed the Sandy Hook School Shooting summary report that was released by Newtown, CT, officials on Nov. 25, 2013. Our conclusions are supported by discussions with several people directly involved in the incident. The conclusions that follow are particularly important because they counter theories that were extensively discussed in the wake of the shooting but have since been disproved or brought into question.

1. Actions by school personnel saved lives.
   Although the loss of life was extensive, some actions by school staff clearly reduced the number of fatalities at the school. Of considerable importance, the staff in the school office took measures to protect themselves, allowing them to survive and call 911. Although there appears to have been a delay in completing this, the action prompted a faster police response. As the report concludes that the shooter killed himself shortly after police arrived, ending the killing, had office staff either frozen at their workstations or unsuccessfully attempted to attack the heavily armed killer, police response would have been slower.
   
2. Locking interior doors worked.
   As in most K-12 school shootings in the United States, not a single student or staff member was killed behind a locked interior door. Although many people have stated that staff and students should have evacuated, the report indicates that where lockdown was accomplished fast enough, no victims were killed.
   
   Despite the fact that the locked front entry door was breached, the report indicates that no interior doors were forced open. Keeping in mind that most of the staff and students in the school survived, this affords additional evidence that lockdown is still one of our most effective tools to prevent death in mass casualty school shootings.
   
   Interestingly, the first successful school lockdown occurred less than 10 miles from Sandy Hook Elementary School in Danbury, CT, in 1900. In that case, a teacher prevented a man with a gun from entering the school by securing the front door to the one-room schoolhouse.
   
3. Lockdowns must be implemented quickly.
   While the incident demonstrates the value of the lockdown concept, it also shows another deadly instance of its failure to be applied. While the lockdown procedures taken in the building protected most of the other occupants, most of the deaths in the school occurred in/at two classrooms where the doors did not get locked in time. With 20 of the victims being killed in/at two unlocked rooms, this incident demonstrates the need for all school personnel to be properly trained, specifically empowered, and practiced in making independent decisions to implement a lockdown, evacuation, or sheltering for severe weather without being instructed by anyone to do so.
   
   The report does not provide any findings regarding why the lockdown application failed. There could be a variety of reasons for this. For example, one of the teachers who was murdered was a substitute. In some past incidents, substitute teachers have not been issued keys and could not secure their classroom doors. We find this to be true in many of the schools we conduct school security assessments for. In other cases, staff have not been properly prepared to locate their key, reach the door, and secure it quickly enough.
   
   In our school security assessment project crisis simulations, we have found that many school employees have unrealistic beliefs about how much time they will have to lock a door. For example, when we spot check teachers by asking them to show us exactly what they would do if they heard gunfire in the hallway, we see seriously delayed lockdown responses. For example, under the slight stress of a school safety expert asking them to respond to this scenario, we often see it take the employee between 30 and 40 seconds to find their key and lock the door. In some instances, it takes the employee more than a minute to do so.
   
4. All school staff must be trained and empowered to act.
   The report indicates that office staff never ordered a lockdown. While the report indicates that office staff accidentally activated the intercom, the report states they did not intentionally lock down the school. While there could be a viable reason for this that is not included in the summary report, these findings demonstrate the need for all school staff to be trained, empowered, and practiced in implementing a school lockdown when appropriate, without being directed to do so by a supervisor.
   
   The report also indicates that numerous phones in the school can be used to access the intercom system. This finding should serve as a reminder that staff should be trained and empowered to use these types of capabilities to order a lockdown when appropriate. This should also encourage schools to expand the number of areas from which they can make school-wide announcements.
   
5. Staff and students must be taught how to respond under stress and on the fly.
   The report indicates that 10 students survived the attacks in the two unlocked classrooms by fleeing the rooms. This finding demonstrates the importance of training staff and students not to remain passive when they encounter an active aggressor in an enclosed area. Research on how the human brain functions underscores the importance of teaching people to be prepared to change their responses when a situation dictates.
   
   We feel that it is very important to point out that extensive research by fire service professionals demonstrates that when people in groups run inside a building, mass casualties are more likely to occur. While it may be best for people to run when in small groups or alone, larger groups can jam doorways, causing mass casualty loss of life.
   
6. The Sandy Hook principal probably didn’t have a chance to fight back.
   While early media statements indicated that the school principal attempted to disarm the shooter, buying precious time and saving the lives of students and staff, no such information is included in this report. The report states that the principal and two other staff members went into the hall to investigate and were quickly shot.
   
   Although the full report could provide more detail, the lack of such information at least raises questions as to whether the principal attempted to attack the shooter. The report also doesn’t indicate if this alleged action had any bearing on the outcome of the attack.
   
7. Rumors after Sandy Hook prompted many schools to implement unproven strategies.
   Many concepts and strategies adopted by a significant number of schools have been demonstrated by the summary report to be based on early, unofficial, and inaccurate accounts of the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting. This report indicates that millions of dollars and countless staff hours have been spent implementing active-shooter response strategies based on incidents that, according to the report, never occurred.
   
   This should be a powerful warning about making improvements based on school security incidents. Students, parents, and elected officials often urge action to be taken quickly after a catastrophic event like the Sandy Hook shooting, and sometimes the strategies that are adopted have not been proven to be effective. While most schools had opportunities for improvement immediately after the Newtown, CT, shooting, many opportunities to implement response concepts that have been proven to work were missed, while unproven concepts were implemented instead.

The Sandy Hook report indicates that police response times were much faster than many people had alleged prior to the release of this report. At the same time, the killer had a considerable amount of time to carry out his attack and appears only to have been impeded by locked doors, potential victims hiding, potential victims fleeing the two unlocked classrooms where most of the violence occurred, and other staff and students in distant parts of the school fleeing the building.

As we have seen in numerous past school shootings, what saves lives in one situation can result in death in another slightly different situation. This provides further evidence that there is no simple, clear-cut “Stop, Drop, and Roll”- type approach to active shooter situations.

This report supports the research of several notable experts on high-stakes decision-making, such as Dr. Gary Klein, Gavin de Becker, Amanda Ripley, and Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, as well as our research at Safe Havens. Experts in these fields repeatedly emphasize the importance of research-based concepts such as mental simulation and the need for a broad base of experience to prepare for emergencies.

Perhaps most importantly, as with many previous mass casualty school shootings, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting report summary demonstrates why it is so dangerous to dramatically modify procedures based on early accounts of such large-scale events. Many schools have spent considerable time, energy, and money implementing security and emergency preparedness changes based on conclusions that have now been proven false or, in one instance above, questionable.

Most of the lessons we have learned from the Sandy Hook summary report have been learned multiple times in past K-12 school attacks. Addressing gaps identified as far back as 1958 should be a priority, rather than rushing to implement what we think might work before adopting concepts that have proven effective for decades.

Michael Dorn, Chris Dorn, Stephen Satterly, Dr. Sonayia Shepherd, and Phuong Nguyen are with Safe Havens International, a global non-profit campus safety center. This article was originally published in 2013.