Students Learn To Fight Back

[Kor37 9]

Students Trained to Fight School Shooters

 

By MIKE VON FREMD, ABCNews.com

 

(Oct. 18) - The Independent School District of Burleson, Texas, just south of Ft. Worth is the first in the country to adopt a policy of training students to immediately fight back and use their advantage in numbers to take tactical control if a gunman enters their classroom.

 

A group of Texas security experts with a company called "Response Options" has made instructional video tapes showing a gunman bursting into a classroom and being swarmed by students. The instructors tell students to throw their books, book bags, desk and chairs using everything and anything to disrupt and take down a gunman. Robin Browne, a major with the British Army, helped design the training course and says it is necessary for students and teachers to throw themselves into the line of fire.

 

"This is not a burglar. This is not a bank robber," Browne said. "This is someone who has come onto school property with the express intention of using a deadly weapon to hurt and dominate people who cannot necessarily defend themselves." A person who enters a school, Browne said, "is in the same category as serial killers."

 

"We are dealing with a predator here and a predator, when he is offered prey and the prey gives in will take advantage of that prey," he said. "What we are teaching here is for the children to not allow the predator to take control. … They actually become the superior the dominant party in the room, and it is actually the gunman who becomes the prey."

 

A Lesson From Columbine and Other School Shootings

 

Browne says waiting for police to take control is a deadly mistake and says that 15 people who died and 24 were injured at Columbine as police struggled to take control. By the time police responded the hostage at the Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Penn., students and school officials had lost control and ultimately, five girls died and the gunman, Charles Roberts, killed himself.

 

"If you have got 15 sixth, seventh and eighth graders, they can be an incredibly effective weapon," Browne said.

 

Burleson has 14 schools and 8500 students and the independent school district hopes to have every student trained to respond to a gunman by the end of 2007.

 

The program costs about $15 per child and so far parents, teachers and students have expressed their support for this take charge policy. "I think the policy is really smart, it is just like 9/11 when they were on the plane," said high school senior Terry Lucas.

 

Endangering Students?

 

The students are instructed to respond the instant they see a threat.

 

"It doesn't give the guy any time to try to collect his thoughts, you just storm him and start hitting him with stuff," said one student, Ray Longo. So far parents, teachers and students support Burleson's take charge policy. But outside of Burleson, Texas safety experts are appalled at the notion of students being trained to storm a person with a weapon.

 

"When it comes to fighting an attacker even SWAT teams have a hard time knowing what to do. How can we expect kids to know what to do," said Ronald Stephens, executive director of National School Safety. Stephens also says the child who leads the charge is most vulnerable.

 

"Rushing a gunman with scissors or staplers or a book might cause a gunman to shoot that person on the spot," he said.

 

Browne concedes that his program of fighting back carries risk. He admits that the first student to swarm an attacker may pay with his or her life. However, he believes the risk may be worth it to save other lives.

 

"He won't be able to shoot the fourth, fifth, eighth, twentieth or thirtieth student," he said.

 

 

Oct. 18, 2006

 

 

This is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard of! Only in Texas!....Imagine the lawsuits!

Edited October 18, 2006 by Kor37

[Capt_Picard 0]

I just found something by Ken Scharm on this and he feels the same way you do Kor...

Desperation is not good planning

 

October 16, 2006

 

By Ken Schram

 

SEATTLE - Desperation is not good planning.

 

Students in a school district outside Fort Worth, Texas are being told they should fight back if and when an armed intruder shows up in the classroom.

 

The Burleson School District has hired a British Army Major to instruct kids - and teachers - on how they should throw books and anything else they can get their hands on.

 

The program is called "Response Options" and involves kids and teachers attacking an armed intruder as soon as he enters their classroom.

 

They're told to run at the gunman, grab him by the legs, stab him with pens and pencils, throw stuff at his head, and scream the whole time.

 

This is lunacy.

 

I don't care how frightened or concerned parents are about the kind of school violence we've seen. This is not an answer.

 

I don't care if it's in Burleson, Texas or Bellevue, Washington, this is nuts.

 

If this is the best that adults can come up with to protect kids from the type of violence we saw in Pennsylvania last week; if telling little Tiffany or Ryan to tackle some 200 pound animal who's armed with a semi-automatic pistol or rifle is considered anything other than stupid, senseless desperation, then this country is in far worse trouble than any of us can possibly imagine.

 

Have something to say to Ken? E-mail him at kenschram@komo4news.com.

[Kor37 9]

I know! We can give all of the students guns so that when someone enters their classroom, they can all blow him away! :)

[Theunicornhunter 2]

I agree it is horrific to think we are having lessons like this and obviously the answer is to keep the (Ignore me, I'm using profanity) um I'm mean gunman out of the classroom to begin with

 

HOWEVER

 

once it gets to the point where a gunman walks in to your room and you're one of the ones left in the room with him - what chances do you think you have of walking out of there alive?

 

It's the same if someone tries to abduct you in the parking lot - he may kill you if you resist but if you get in that car with him - you'll never see your family again.

 

So it's something to think about.

[trekz 7]

This does indeed seem to me like a program that just screams for potential lawsuits. The idea that it is being adopted in a TEXAS classroom seems about right, considering the "cowboy" mentality that it evokes imo.

 

I recognize what you are saying TUH, but I would hope other options could also be taught, mayve even the idea of diplomacy, and talking to an intruder, if the gunman is prepared and mows down the first half dozen kids to approach him.

 

And I hope that when a student brings up the idea of the brave souls that attacked the hijackers over Pennsylvania, that someone mentions that everyone on that plane died (even though others were saved by their actions.) Students attacking a bigger, heavily armed intruder seems foolhardy as an official policy imo.

Edited October 19, 2006 by trekz

[He Who Shall Not Be Named 2]

The first thing that these students should be taught is escape and evasion. However, this can quickly become not an option: gunman entering classrooms seldom knock on the door first. If the immediate choice for the student is to back in the corner or do something about it the odds of survival, although certainly not great, are better by attacking.

 

To me it is really simple. You can do nothing and have a 100% chance of getting shot or you can storm the attacker and have a 99% chance of getting shot. Sure the odds are not in the student's favor but a small chance is better than no chance.

[Wishfire 2]

Talk about bringing a knife to a gunfight...

 

This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard of.

[ARMS 0]

This is a fantastic idea, can't believe it didn't happen sooner, if only this could be taught to fight crime everywhere.

[trekz 7]

Again, I find this concept truly dangerous to the lives of students.

 

While I do not want to see America's schools turned into walled fortresses, perhaps more security measures might lessen such attacks. Use of student, and parent, ID cards for entrance into schools could be one tool. Entry for any others could either be denied, or only authorized when scheduled in advance. Use of more security camera's and metal detectors for visitors without school ID could be used too. If we can spend billions in Iraq, the federal government should be willing to spend far less to help secure our schools from easy attacks and to protect the lives of our young people.

Edited October 24, 2006 by trekz

[Theunicornhunter 2]

You're right trekz, this shouldn't be our first course of action. And I worry about the emotional consequences of making small children constantly aware of danger (I will say I did survive the airraid drills of the 60's)

 

Still, I have to agree with LVR - there comes a point when your only choice is how you will die.

[ARMS 0]

This is what's wrong with scociety, everyones afraid to fight the bad guy, when will people get a back bone a realise that if good people fight back together, the bad people will be more afraid of us, than we them, our fear is there power, we wouldn't need ASBO's here if what I'm saying come to pass.

[Kor37 9]

UPDATE:

Schools Reverse Policy on Gunman Defense

 

By JEFF CARLTON

AP

BURLESON, Texas (Oct. 25) - A suburban Fort Worth school district that has been teaching students to attack a gunman if he invades a classroom said Wednesday that it has halted the program.

 

The district will continue to train students in how to respond to life-threatening situations but will no longer show them how to take down an attacker, spokesman Richard Crummel said.

 

"That was not something we believe in and not something we supported," Crummel said. "It wasn't brought to our attention until they had already done the training."

 

Teachers in all 11 schools in the district in Burleson, a working-class suburb with about 26,000 residents, have received the fight-back training over the past 18 months along with students at one elementary school and the high school.

 

Robin Browne, an instructor for the security company that provided the training, had recommended that students and teachers "react immediately to the sight of a gun by picking up anything and everything and throwing it at the head and body of the attacker and making as much noise as possible. Go toward him as fast as we can and bring them down."

 

The district sent letters to parents Friday expressing regret for the training and saying the district "does not, nor will we support teaching our students to attack an intruder."

 

Burleson officials fielded calls from parents, law enforcement officials and other school districts after the policy made national news earlier this month. Some people expressed fear it would get children killed.

 

"On a national level, people are calling in and saying bravo for at least looking at other options," Crummel said. "On a local level, people are concerned about one thing: how it affects their children."

 

 

 

Finally! Common sense has prevailed!.. :P

[ARMS 0]

No backbones in this world *tut* *tut*