RISKAlert Report # 1005 January 25, 2018 Benton, Kentucky
KENTUCKY HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT KILLS TWO, INJURIES EIGHTEEN (18)
IN DEADLY ATTACK
A 15-year old teenage boy, armed with a handgun, opened fire on Tuesday inside Marshall County High
School, killing two classmates and wounding 18 others. He has not been named yet, but the Assistant Country
Attorney Jason Darnall said he will be charged as an adult.
I talked to a mother with children at the high school, and she described the extreme panic and fear that gripped the community, where parents didn’t know whether their child was dead or alive.
The unnamed student entered the school’s common area are started shooting, before entering the main building. According to student Bryson Conkwright, a junior at the school, said he was talking with a friend on Tuesday morning when he spotted the gunman walking up near him. “It took me a second to process it,” Mr. Conkwright, 17, told law enforcement.
“One of my best friends got shot in the face, and then another one of my best friends was shot in the shoulder.” He said he was part of a group of students who fled, kicked down a door to get outside and ran.
This was the 16th mass shooting in the U.S. in 2018!
LESSONS LEARNED:
1. Every school should be required to have instant lockdown. This shooter was able to fire his weapon over and over, from outside to inside the school.
2. The school’s communication system was deficient. It should have sent texts to all students directing them to an area of refuge, and updating frantic parents.
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Every day more information comes out about the terrible murders by the Active Shooter at the Baptist church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. Since my mother was from Texas, and my father taught Adult Baptist Sunday School for 36 years, this one was personal.
This is a classic case of how the risk of an active shooter is everywhere these days. With so many recent shooting incidents, because it was done in a church, it makes it worse and should encourage all churches to hold active shooter training classes for their congregations.
No question that the shooter was a monster. After uncovering his record for domestic violence and even fracturing his infant’s skull, it turned out he practiced his shooting skills on pet dogs. He bought dogs on Craigslist, or took dogs promising to give them good homes, and then practiced shooting and killing them.
Houses of worship have been adverse to putting in stricter security, because they obviously want to be open and welcoming, but that
doesn’t seem to be possible these days.
A is all about Access Control. Most churches have some kind of vestibule, a sort of anteroom before you actually enter the church. Instead of haphazardly asking people to bring in their guns, maybe it’s time to have a “watcher” in the vestibule, keeping an eye out on who’s entering the church or synagogue.
Most shooters enter their chosen site with guns blazing, not hidden.
Getting back to basics, have some kind of access control is the first step. So keeping them out in the first place is the best option.
Another option might be a few cameras with monitoring station in the church office and someone there to watch before the services to catch someone taking their guns out of their car before they even reach the church or synagogue. This would be a simple solution because it would only need to be manned before, during and immediately after the services.
Another favorite control, panic alarms can be very expensive and useful for a group shooting situation. It gives the instant ability to ‘sound the alarm’ and get people down, or even better, out the side door and also gives advance notice to the potential victims.
Assuming we’re not profiling the entire group in advance, the best protection is doing quarterly security facility risk assessments. These assessments give you a quantitative measure of your risk, including not only looking at the threat level (the threat assessment part of the total assessment), but also reviewing a list of the 50 controls we’ve identified that will enhance security, and looking at the interaction between the highest potential risk, balanced by the offsetting, or preventive controls.
Every terrible incident like the shooting at the Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs should be an opportunity for building a foundation of security awareness in your community or congregation.
TO FIND OUT ABOUT AN ACTIVE SHOOTER PROGRAM FOR YOUR CHURCH
Contact me : caroline@riskandsecurityllc.com or info@riskandsecurityllc.com
A local Doctor was shot and killed by a patient while he treated others in his office near East Jefferson General Hospital in New Orleans yesterday.
The 73-year old shooter walked into the doctor’s office, and killed the doctor with a single shot to the head. He then ran out of the office and into a Wendy’s restaurant. Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office deputies were nearby and they responded and chased the shooter into a nearby Wendy’s restaurant, where the shooter killed himself by putting the gun in his mouth and pulling the trigger.
The doctor, 75-year old Dr. Elbert Goodier, a urologist, was treating patients at the time of the shooting. Colleagues said that Dr. Goodier was a very kind and popular physician. The shooter’s family said that the shooter had been treated by Dr. Goodier in the past. While the shooter did not have a criminal background, his family said that he had suffered from mental illness in the past.
Dr. Goodier had practiced for 50 years in the New Orleans area, according to East Jefferson General Hospital.
According to Wendy’s employees, a woman was placing her order when
the shooter pulled the trigger as the deputies advanced on him. The man’s body remained inside of Wendy’s more than an hour after the shootings. Yellow police tape cordoned off the parking lot and the hospital’s exit lanes. Some workers and patrons were also still in the building as of 4 p.m., speaking with
investigators. Outside, other workers, concerned relatives and onlookers watched.
This type of shooting, the Baby Boomer Shooter, is the second attack on a urologist, and one in an increasing number of seniors who attack their physicians. Another shooter killed his urologist in Reno, Nevada and injured two others before taking his own life. The shooter said had struggled for 3 years with ailments resulting from a botched vasectomy, according to messages he posted on an online support group and a law enforcement investigation.
Lesson Learned :
While doctors have not been a target in the past, they have been shot and killed recently by patients unhappy with medical results. All hospitals and medical offices should review their access controls systems, based on the increasing, and alarming rate of attacks on healthcare workers. Stay Alert and make sure to subscribe to RISKAlerts
Sign Up at: caroline@riskandsecurityllc.com
A Florida Man Shot his Neighbor to Death, Put the Body in the Back of his Pickup Truck
and Drove Dead Body to his Lawyer’s Office
A Fort Myers, Florida man shot his neighbor to death during a struggle before loading the body into the back of his pickup truck and driving it to a lawyer’s office, according to the News Press of Fort Myers, Marshall claimed he shot the neighbor in self defense.
Lawyer Robert Harris, said that John Marshall (the shooter), walked into his Fort Myers law firm claiming he had shot and killed neighbor Ted Hubbell in self-defense and had the body outside in the bed of his pickup.
The shocked attorneys called 911 and Marshall spent hours at Harris’ office before finally leaving
for the hospital around 10:30 p.m. that night. Marshall had a swollen lip, missing tooth and what
appeared to be two broken thumbs.
According to attorney Robert Harris, John
Marshall wrestled a gun away from neighbor
Hubbell and fatally shot him earlier Wednesday.
Harris said late Wednesday that Marshall will
not be arrested, because he shot in self defense.
Lessons Learned:
1. Avoid fights with neighbors.
2. If a fight seems unavoidable, call 911 and wait for police in a safe area.
3. Do not transport a body to your lawyers office in the bed of your
pick up truck!
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RISKAlert- Active ShooterNo. 625, January 21, 2015, Boston, Mass.
Middle-Aged Shooter kills Cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and then Kills
Himself, in an apparent Grudge Shooting Because the Doctor had Operated on his Mother.
On Tuesday morning on Jan. 21, at 11 am, Stephen Pasceri, 55, walked into the Shapiro Center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and asked to see cardiologist, Dr. Michael J. Davidson. When he saw Dr. Davidson, outside of an exam, he shot him twice, critically injuring him.
Dr. Davidson later died from his injuries. Pasceri then went to the 2nd floor and killed himself with a gunshot to the head. Later, it was discovered that Dr. Davidson had operated on Pasceri’s mother, Marguerite, and she had died on November 15, 2014. Pasceri’s sister was quoted as saying, “He loved his mom, and he
loved her very much. He appeared to be handling her death well,” the sister said of her brother.
“Everything seemed to be going really well. I have no idea why he snapped like this. He was a great guy. He took care of his family, he had a beautiful house and he has four
beautiful children. He was an upstanding citizen.”
The hospital locked down and rushed Dr. Davidson into surgery, but he died during the night from his injuries. Brigham and Women’s Hospital’s COO said the hospital was one of the first to institute an active shooter training program. The hospital does not use metal detectors.
Lessons Learned : “A is for Access Control”
1. Metal Detectors can be are a reliable tool to Prevent In-Hospital Shootings.
2. Active Shooter Drills are NOT ENOUGHas these incidents unfold in just a few minutes.
3. Installing ‘NO WEAPONS’ Signage at Entrances can be a deterrent to these first time shooters.
Despite having a good job, family, and a beautiful home, when confronted with a mid-life crisis, his mother’s death, another middle-aged shooter goes to a hospital and shoots the doctor, in a scenario that resembles
the Johns Hopkins shooting in 2010. To protect staff and patients, hospitals will have to increase their
security protective measures, including use of metal detectors, no weapons signage and
situational awareness of the staff.
RISKAlerts is a publication of Risk & Security LLC. To subscribe, write to: info@riskandsecurityllc.com
Incorporating Active Shooter Incident Planning into Health Care Facility Emergency Operations Plans
National preparedness efforts, including planning, are based on U.S. Presidential Policy Directive (PPD) 8: Preparedness, which was signed by the President in March 2011. This updated directive represents an “evolution” in understanding of national preparedness based on lessons learned from rom natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy, terrorist acts like the Boston Bombing and active shooter and other violent incidents.
Preparedness is centered in five areas: Prevention, Protection, Mitigation, Response, and Recovery. These concepts are applied to Health Care Facility (HCFs) Planning for active shooters and other violent incidents.
Emergency Operations Plans for Health Care Facilities (EOPs) should be living documents that are routinely reviewed and consider all types of hazards, including the possibility of an active shooter or terrorist incident. As law enforcement continues to draw lessons learned from actual emergencies, HCFs should incorporate those lessons learned into existing emergency plans or in newly created EOPs.
It advises a whole community approach that includes staff, patients, and visitors as well as individuals with access and functional needs. Examples of these populations include children, older adults, pregnant women, individuals with disabilities, etc.
The key concepts include not only familiar concepts like “Run-Hide-Fight” but also concepts on addressing a wider range of risks (threats), how to do drills, improvement of situational awareness activities, expanding the definitions of risks, how to do Psychological First Aid (PFA), and how to integrate these with HIPAA guidelines and Rules and the importance and role of Security in Emergency Operations Planning (EOPs).
Lesson Learned : Don’t Wait to Respond!
A 2005 investigation by the National Institute of Standards and Technology into the collapse of the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001, found that people close to the floors impacted waited longer to start evacuating than those on unaffected floors. Similarly, during the Virginia Tech shooting, individuals on campus responded to the shooting with varying degrees of urgency. (ref:Federal Building and Fire Safety Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster: Occupant Behavior, Egress, and Emergency Communications.)
Frequent Security Situational Awareness Training, and Active Shooter –
Disaster Drills can prevent this “frozen” phenomena and save lives in
a violent incident , a terrorist attack, or a disaster scenario.
RISKAlerts are publications of Risk & Security LLC
According to Delaware County District Attorney Jack Whelan, police in Upper Darby, Pa., where Plotts lived, were aware of at least three mental health commitments, including once after he cut his wrists and once when he threatened suicide — but said such stays can last just one to three days. Whelan also noted in his press conference that Plotts had also spent time in a mental health facility.
Not only in healthcare, but throughout the U.S., these random active shooter trends are increasing. To see how much of this violence is related to severe mental health problems, we only have to look as far as these high profile incidents:
June 14, 2012 – Buffalo, N.Y., trauma surgeon shooting
July 20, 2012 – Aurora, Colo., movie theater shooting
April 2, 2014 – Fort Hood (2nd) active shooter incident
None of these incidents were related to poor performance review, losing a job, and only one of these could be called “domestic violence,” but what they all have in common is that the perpetrators were all severely mentally ill.
Guns scare me. Guns kill people by accident and on purpose. I never let my children play with guns. However, as I analyze the elements of these shootings and dozens more, my bias is changing. I think it’s less about guns and more about mental illness.
Healthcare and hospitals would be the one industry where you would think that people would be concerned about the state of mental health of their patients and staff. Instead, it seems like mental health problems are walled off by society, treated ineffectively, and violent tendencies (which sometimes make their way onto patients’ Facebook pages) are largely ignored and unreported by the clinicians treating them.
So it’s left to the security and law enforcement community to deal with these individuals who are paranoid, depressed, angry, frustrated, disappointed, hurt, confused, and, ultimately, violent.
Now that mental health has been re-classified as another medical problem, the money is flowing to the treatment centers and it’s covered by Medicare. But progress doesn’t seem to be either easy or effective.
Dr. Graham C.L. Davey, Ph.D. writing in Psychology Today in January said: “Many of those health professionals (GPs and family physicians) at the first point of contact with people suffering mental health problems are poorly trained to identify psychological problems in their patients, and have little time available to devote to dealing with these types of problems. This increasingly makes medication prescription an attractive option for doctorswhose time-per-patient is limited—an outcome which will have all the potential negative effects of medicalizing the problem into a “disease.”
And that’s exactly what we see, patients who don’t take their meds because of the negative side effects and so they become isolated and increasingly violent. The side effects are clearly pointed out in TV commercials, that you’ve probably watched.
For example, one medicine has side effects that include sexual side effects, convulsions, brain shrinkage, stroke, death, suicide, violent thoughts, psychosis and delusional thinking.
The increase in hospitals adding seclusion rooms, expanding the number of beds for psych patients, and the time spent by both law enforcement and security professionals in dealing with these troubled individuals, may account for one-quarter to one-third of an organization’s security budget.
Many of the security risk assessments we do are focused on handling mobile mental patients, including the baby boomers suffering from Alzheimer’s and dementia.
As violent incidents continue to increases in our society, our workplaces, and in our hospitals, we need to spend more time looking for, and demanding treatments that work and that are sustainable by the patients so they can lead happier lives and we can protect the rest of society, and our healthcare facilities, from their potentially violent behavior.
Since 1988, Caroline Ramsey-Hamilton has been a Thought Leader in All Aspects of Active Shooter and Security Risk Assessment in both Public and Private companies and organizations. Specializing in Hospital and Healthcare Security. Hamilton is Certified in Homeland Security (CHS-III), Anti-Terrorism (ATAB) and Security Risk Assessment. As President of Risk & Security (www.riskandsecurityllc.com) she works with many hospital clients, and develops affordable risk-based apps for improving security risk assessments, and publishes the RISKAlert security awareness program. She lives in south Florida with two beagles, a rescued kitty and (on weekends), 4-year old twins.
Reprinted with permission from www.SecurityInfoWatch.com
Psychiatrist Draws Gun in Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital and Shoots the Mental Health Patient who Killed his Caseworker by Shooting Her in the Face. Witnesses near the scene reported hearing screaming and gunfire, as suspect and mental health patient Richard Plotts confronted his caseworker, Theresa Hunt, and then drew his gun, and killed her. Another bullet grazed a doctor, adjacent to the scene, but the doctor had a gun of his own, and he shot Plotts 3 times in the torso.
The doctor, identified as Lee Silverman, was treated was treated for a head wound and released after being taken to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. The shooter, Richard Plotts, of Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, who had a long criminal record, was undergoing surgery Thursday night at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. If he survives, he will be charged Friday with murder, said Delaware County District Attorney Jack Whelan.
There is a Lesson Here— KEEP POTENTIAL SHOOTERS WITH WEAPONS OUT OF HOSPITALS.
A is for Access Control! Once a potential shooter brings a weapon into a hospital, everything is much more difficult to control. Keep them out.
Weapons should be checked at the hospital entry points and no-weapons signage should clearly indicate that weapons are not allowed, and that should be followed up with either stand-alone, or wand metal detectors which give staff members a initial level of protection.
Bernice Ho, a spokeswoman for Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital, said Thursday it was against hospital policy for anyone other than security guards to carry weapons, so there are questions about why this doctor disregarded the policy, although Donald Molineux, chief of the Yeadon Police Department, said “If Silverman returned fire and wounded Plotts, he without a doubt saved lives.”
District Attorney Whelan described how the meeting among Plotts, Silverman, and Hunt abruptly took a violent turn. Plotts and Hunt went to Silverman’s third-floor office shortly before 2:30 p.m., Whelan said. Plotts was apparently armed, and people near the room soon heard shouting.
Concerned, a hospital employee “actually opened the door, saw him pointing a gun at the doctor,” Whelan said. The worker shut the door quietly and immediately called 911. Plotts then opened fire. According to Whelan, he shot Hunt two times in the face. The psychiatrist then ducked under his desk, retrieved his gun, and came up shooting, striking Plotts three times. Keep Weapons Out of the Hospital to Dramatically Reduce Violent Incidents!
When I turned on the news today, I was in the middle of writing an article on the 2nd Shooting
at Ft. Hood from last week, and then saw that there had been a violent knife attack at a
Pennsylvania high school, with 20 casualties and at least eight injured critically, the next day,
there was a hate crime shooting at the Jewish community center in Overland Park, Kansas.
Once again, we see violence on a mass scale, the FBI has been brought in, and next will come
information on the victims. With two major events, in two weeks, what can we deduce about the
security in place at both Franklin Regional High School, Pennsylvania, and Fort Hood, Texas.
NEWS FLASH: THE CURRENT SECURITY MODEL IS NOT WORKING!
CURRENT SECURITY MODELS
Disaster preparedness is improving, Emergency Management is working, but security is still not where it needs to be. It is a systemic problem based on the fact that security around
the U.S. is still locked in a REACTIVE mode, not a PROACTIVE mode.
The main reason for this reactive mode in security organizations, is because most security
officers come from a law enforcement background, with a model which is based on crimes
and arrests, and it is totally REACTIVE. A crime happens and police officers go into action
and arrest the perpetrator(s).
CRIME HAPPENS = PERP IS IDENTIFIED = PERP IS ARRESTED
Unfortunately, this reactive model does not work for preventing security incidents and mass violence
because it is INCIDENT DRIVEN, not Risk-Driven. It focuses on individuals, not on a more holistic,
generalized view of Threats, and it totally leaves Solutions (Controls) out of the equation.
After studying pages of after action reviews, post-incident analyses and media sources, the one
recommendation that makes sense is that organizations need to switch to a RISK-BASED,
PROACTIVE mode for security to work.
This was highlighted in a remark made by a Pentagon official, commenting on the 2nd Fort Hood
Shooting on April 2, and the fact that new DOD recommendations for security, had just been released.
“After the Navy Yard shooting in September 2013, another round of recommendations were made to improve security at all DOD installations, however, a Pentagon official said thatthe new
recommendations had not yet been put into effect at Fort Hood. At Fort Hood, very little had
changed from 2009 regarding security procedures for soldiers at the entrance gates.”
The question for the Department of Defense is “how could this happen again at the same military
base? I took extra time to study the 89-page document called An Independent Review “Protecting
the Force”, one of 3 reports created after the initial Fort Hood Shooting, whene 13 were killed, and
43 injured.
If you look at the recommendations, they are very bureaucratic and procedural. They could have
been written by an efficiency expert, not by anyone with a background in security, and covered things
like policy changes, and having screening for clergy and psychologists, and improved mental health
programs. These are all important, but they do not provide a secure environment.
The LAX after action analysis’ Number One recommendation was to change
the security focus to a Risk-Based approach.
RISK-BASED SECURITY
The problem with a reactive approach is that you can’t screen and lock down everyone. At Fort
Hood, for example, there are 80,000 individuals living on the base, and probably hundreds of
visitors who go in and out every day. It’s impossible to assess the mental health, and the
‘intentions’ of all of them.
That’s why a Risk-Based Approach works – because it focuses on the potential threats and then evaluates the existing controls to see whether they offer the required amount of protection based on the likelihood of the threat occurring.
You stop violent events by controlling access and by controlling weapons. No matter how unpopular they are, you use metal detectors at certain points, you use security officers at key entrances, you control entrances and exits.
Once the event starts, you can improve security by having faster notification (panic alarms), ability
to block, or disable weapons and attackers, adequate transport, better emergency response, but to
avoid the violence, you need to have strong access control.
The Risk-Based approach makes use of annual risk assessments that are holistic in nature. They
are not done in stovepipes, they include the entire organizations, they include input from staff
members, visitors, students, vendors, soldiers, patients on how they see security from their point
of view, which is always dramatically different from management or administration.
A risk-based approach requires an organization to:
Define potential security risks.
Develop standardized risk assessment processes, for gathering and
analyzing information, and use of analytical technology
Risk-Based Security focuses on PREVENTION OF NEW INCIDENTS
whether they are active shooter, general violence, etc.
Enhances security’s ability to rapidly respond to changes in the threat environment.
MORE BANG FOR THE BUCK
According the LAX (LAWA) after action report, “Simply adding more security does not
necessarily provide better security. Determining priorities and where to achieve great
value for the dollars invested requires regular, systematic assessment of the likelihood
and consequences (risks) associated with a range of threat scenarios that morph and
change more quickly now than ever before.
Collaborative engagement in a security risk assessment process across the community builds
the buy-in needed to develop and sustain a holistic security program over time. Leaders must
be open to challenging established practices and demonstrate a willingness to change direction”.
Making the switch to a Risk-Based security program is the best recommendation for those who
want to protect their staff, students, patients, vendors, clients, soldiers, and visitors from a mass
casualty event, or for all the organizations who don’t want to have a terrible incident happen in
the first place!
RiskAlertINCIDENT REPORT 473 – ACTIVE SHOOTER 12-27-2013 Oschner Hospital Administrator Shot to Death in his Home in Active Shooter Spree
Dateline: December 27, 2013 pm
A Louisiana man attacked his former in-laws, his current wife, and the Administrator of a hospital
where he’d worked, killing three and wounding three others before killing himself, authorities said.
The shooter, Ben Freeman, 38, was found late Thursday night in his car along a highway,
dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
The shootings happened at four locations in two parishes about 45 miles southwest of New Orleans
on Thursday. The first report came about 6:40 p.m., when Lafourche Parish Councilman Louis Phillip
Gouaux, who was shot in the throat, called 911 from his home in Lockport, Houma, La.
The suspect, Ben Freeman, 38, was the ex-husband of Gouaux’s daughter Jeanne, Lafourche Parish
Sheriff’s Office spokesman Brennan Matherne said in a news release.
Gouaux’s wife, Susan “Pixie” Gouaux, was dead when deputies arrived. Louis Phillip Gouaux and his
daughter, Andrea Gouaux, were injured and taken to Interim LSU Public Hospital in New Orleans.
Both were in critical but stable condition, Matherne said.
About 20 minutes later in Raceland, Ochsner St. Anne General Hospital Administrator Milton Bourgeois
was shot and killed at close range at his home. His wife, Ann Bourgeois, was shot in the leg, and taken
to the New Orleans hospital, where she was listed in stable condition. Raceland police said Bourgeois
was shot at close range and his wife was shot in the leg.
Freeman had been employed at three area hospitals over the last few years, including Oschner St. Anne Hospital, where Lafourche Parish Sheriff Craig Webre said he had been a registered nurse before he was fired in 2011. All three hospitals were put on lockdown for a while Thursday.
Freeman’s wife, Denise Taylor Freeman, was found dead in the couple’s home in Houma in Terrebonne Parish. Matherne said her cause of death was not immediately known.
RISKAlert is a publication of Risk & Security LLC at www.riskandsecurityllc.com.
r as the deputies advanced on him. The man’s body remained inside of Wendy’s more than an hour after the shootings. Yellow police tape cordoned off the parking lot and the hospital’s exit lanes. Some workers and patrons were also still in the building as of 4 p.m., speaking with
n
