- I am really very glad to be able
to introduce two presenters
who are going to be talking about
and helping us prepare for workplace threat.
We have two officers here
from our Campus Police Department.
I'm going to first introduce Lieutenant Sue Dolly.
Lieutenant Dolly has been here for 23 years.
You oversee all of Smith, Mount Ho-lee-oh,
and Hampton College.
- [Sue] Mmm hmm.
- Campuses, and we also have Officer Earl Brown,
who is the community outreach coordinator,
and he oversees Crime Prevention Unit as well.
He's been with the department for seven years.
They're going to give us an introduction
and give us skills and key strategies
for thinking about and handling a workplace threat.
- Thank you, hello everyone.
Thanks for giving us this time to speak with you.
- You have to speak a little--
- Yeah, thanks for giving us this time
to speak with you all.
The active threat, this thing is very dear to us,
a lot of violence that's been
going on in the workplace
and on campuses, and in various communities
when you turn on the news everyday.
So we wanna do our part to try to keep
the community safe.
One of the things that we're gonna be discussing
is basically the workplace threat that comes into.
A lot of us we probably see this all the time
that comes into the community.
Am I speaking loud enough for everyone?
Can you hear me?
A little bit louder?
Okay, a little bit closer, okay.
I'm not use to this.
I only sing to myself in the bathroom in the mirror.
(audience laughs)
(laughs) Okay, so...
And I sound good too, you know.
(audience laughs)
So what we're gonna be doing
is basically just talking about that threat,
that workplace threat,
what it is, how to identify it,
and if it comes into your environment,
the things that you can do to keep yourself safe.
It's very important,
so we're gonna be covering a few different things
in relation to that,
but one thing I do wanna mention,
normally when we do this program,
it's about an hour and a half long,
and it has a video that's attached to it,
but today we just kinda condensed it down.
There's no video attached to it,
so we're just gonna be doing more discussion,
and then right at the end we'll take
any questions and answers that you have.
Okay, so first thing I wanna talk about
is what is the active threat?
So when we start thinking about
what is that threat that comes into your environment,
a lot of times we think about the person
that comes in with a firearm,
but we know that that threat can be
someone that can come in with a knife
or with a blunt object.
We also know that that threat can happen
by a person that's already inside the environment.
Maybe there's a meeting,
maybe there's an intense meeting
that you're meeting with some individuals,
and, you know, maybe they're upset
and become hostile,
so that threat can become a chair
or whatever they choose to use,
but right now, we're gonna focus
a little bit on that active threat
where we're dealing with someone
with a firearm.
How to identify that,
so when you start thinking about that,
if it comes into your environment,
what do you do?
Because we know that fear
and that panic is gonna set in,
but in many cases, we know that
sometimes when it comes in,
people don't think it's really happening.
We ignore it because we hear so much
that's going on outside and around us
that we don't pay attention to those little things,
now we are in a place that we
actually have to pay attention
to different things that are going on
around us because it may not just happen
to us here, but it can happen to you
when you go to the mall,
when you go to the movie theater,
so now we gotta think about everything
that goes on around us
when we're moving around.
So now that's where we get into
what is that active threat
and how to identify it.
- What I've noticed...
I'm in my 50s.
Many of you probably thought I was in my 20s.
(audience laughs)
But it's almost ever...
We are, we're an act, the two of us.
But we're very passionate about this.
Times have changed.
10 years ago, 20 years ago,
I remember fights on the schoolyard.
I don't remember people bringing guns to school,
and it's almost every day
we open up a newspaper, turn on the radio,
and turn on the TV,
and what do we see?
There's been some type of a shooting
or something somewhere.
I just wanna share with you just a little bit from...
The FBI actually just...
We've really been anticipating this report
from the FBI.
They did a study on active shooters,
active threats.
In this study they concentrated mainly
just on active shooters,
so people with guns.
It's staggering, the statistics.
70% of active shooters incidents occurred
at commercial business or educational institution, 70%
The study was based on,
again, just on a shooter, not anything
that included knives or any other
type of weapon.
The FBI found 160 active shooter incidents
meeting the criteria from 2000 to 2013.
That's 160.
During the study time frame,
over 1,000 lives were lost,
and the worst...
And I hate to even bring these up,
but we know what they are,
Sandy Hook, 29 casualties,
Fort Hood, Texas, 45 casualties,
Virginia Tech, 49,
and Aurora, the theater,
70 people were killed.
The majority of the shooters are young males,
acting alone, but we do know
I believe there are about six females.
There was a professor that didn't
get her tenure, and went in
and shot her colleagues.
40% of the shooters committed suicide
at the scene or shortly after,
and 69...
The is the percentage that I really wanna hit home
'cause this is really frightening.
69% ended in five minutes or less.
Nearly half ended in two minutes or less.
Sandy Hook Elementary School,
all those children,
it was less than five minutes at Sandy Hook,
so my point is on this that
we don't know when these are gonna occur,
but when they do occur,
they're rapid, and it's unpredictable.
So we need to be prepared.
So this brings me into
we need to have a survival mindset.
We really need to start thinking about our surroundings,
and the first one is awareness.
Are you aware of your surroundings?
Like do you ever get that feeling
that there might be something wrong?
Have you ever thought about
you know, that something's happening
that might lead up to a threat?
It's just that you have to start
thinking about this now.
Preparation, have you developed a plan?
A workplace is different than a mall.
And as we go into our discussion
a little bit more,
we're gonna show you the simple concept
that you can use in any area of your life,
wherever you're at, wherever you're out.
And rehearsal, you know, we want you
to come up with a plan,
and we want you to rehearse that plan.
I don't know if you guys are like me,
but every day I go to work,
I go in the same door.
Well, let's go to parking.
I park in the same spot.
If somebody parks in that spot,
"Hey, that's my spot.
"What are you doing parking there?"
Or I just go in and out of the building,
every where I go, I tend to be very...
I go in the same doors,
I leave by the same door,
so we need to change our mindset.
- That's a very good point.
Again, I mentioned earlier how
in many cases, you may be dealing
with situations like that
that's very similar, and you know things are...
Something's off.
We've been doing this job for a long time.
I've been a police officer for about 10 years.
I worked for another department,
and in many cases,
when I'm responding to addresses
or dealing with domestics,
I really count on social workers.
We make a lot of phone calls
where we're doing 5180s or whatever
we need to do,
so we really count on you,
and we also know that you guys are always
dealing with situations that can
be very sensitive and things can happen,
and now we're talking about the workplace,
so we know how dear this is,
and that awareness is really key
to pick up on those different signs.
I know when I pick up on different things,
I have no problem picking up the phone
and maybe calling a social worker
that I know, or calling the ADA
and asking a question
'cause we're dealing with stuff
'cause we rely on you guys as well,
so when we start talking about, again,
preparation, what can we do
to better prepare ourselves
in case something happens?
When you're in the workplace,
as the lieutenant had mentioned before,
not using the same door,
maybe checking certain doors.
Sometimes you'll find doors where
people are stacking boxes near the exit
'cause they really don't use that door,
and that's like a storage area.
Well, in a case like this,
if there is an active threat,
you may need to remember where's
that exit at?
I may need to use that door to get out,
so you need to think about that.
When you're hiring new people
into the workplace, maybe someone
needs to go around and bring them around
and show them the different exits
of that building, so they understand
and know how to leave if they need to,
even if it's a fire.
You look at the school system today,
we always have fire drills, fire alarms,
but nobody's preparing for the active threat now.
Look at where we're at now.
Now we got to prepare
in case there's a gunman
that comes into your workplace now.
So now we're doing those types of trainings,
so we have to prepare for these types of things.
And we have to make sure that
our colleagues, the new hires that we bring on,
that they're familiar with this new building,
and the layout, so they can escape as well,
if they need to.
So that awareness is key,
and that preparation is key.
Well, we're doing that.
Rehearsal, maybe periodically,
if you just kinda move around,
maybe a couple of times a year
with your staff and just go through
that rehearsal of the building
and the layout.
Have some kind of plan in place in case,
maybe it's a code word.
Maybe you set up some type of alarm.
Maybe you think about the way your doors open,
if there is an active threat,
what you need to do to hide out,
to get out, whatever you need to do with that,
and we're gonna go over some of the
tips for that as well,
but these are things we gotta
start thinking about now,
so we can have that plan in place
moving forward.
- So these are the simple concepts
we're gonna teach you.
So, you go out to a mall,
go to a movie,
anywhere you go, your workplace,
here at Smith College in the summer.
It'll be warm, no snow.
The first concept, let's look at it.
Figure out what's going on.
Virginia Tech, this was sad.
There was construction at Virginia Tech,
and two professors...
People were ignoring it.
Construction going on.
Then there were other noises.
They ignored those noises.
They just assumed it was construction going on,
and two professors went to the second floor,
and they were fatally shot
by the gunman,
so you need to figure out what's going on.
If it sounds like a gunshot,
but it's a car backfiring, get out.
Nobody's gonna...
You know what I mean?
You'd rather save your life, than not,
and people ask, "What's a gunshot sound like?"
Believe me, you'll know what it sounds like.
You really will.
Think of fireworks, firecrackers.
It's louder than that.
So figure out what's going on,
and then make your plan.
The biggest thing that I tell people,
get out, get out if you can.
Wherever you're at,
your workplace, whatever, get out.
Get out.
I don't even know what else to say.
I feel bad because sometimes people go,
"What about my coworkers?"
You gotta save yourself, unfortunately.
And we did a presentation in front
of a school, some teachers.
They're like, "What about all these little children?"
That's a choice you have to make.
I couldn't even tell you
how to make that decision,
whether to get those children out,
save your life, try to save them.
It's something that I can't even imagine.
Stuff I read about and see all the time
on the news.
Then we talk about if you can't get out
what are you gonna do?
You gotta hide.
You gotta get away from the gunman.
You've got to hide.
What you should do...
And this is where your preparation
and planning comes in.
When you go back, wherever you're working this summer
in your office or whatever,
take a look at that office.
Does the door lock?
Are there shades that I can pull down?
Is there somewhere that I can hide in the room,
so if the gunman comes in?
These are all things we have
to start thinking about now.
Survival mindset.
I'm gonna let you take over a little.
- I'm sorry we have to go back and forth
with the mic, but it's a good thing
'cause I talk a lot,
so if we had two mics,
I wouldn't shut up.
Again, what the lieutenant had mentioned
about the getting out of the room.
If you can get out, do that safely.
Think about where you're at.
Are you on the second floor?
Are you on the third floor?
Or maybe you can't exit a window.
So maybe the gunshot sounds like
they're very close,
so you don't wanna go in the hall too much
because now you wanna get back in there
and secure yourself in there.
You may have to do that.
So if you can't get out,
you're gonna have to basically
bunker down in that space.
Lock the doors.
If there's a window on the door,
try to cover it up with something.
Get quiet.
Move away from the doors
and get low.
Do now make a sound.
Make sure that you take those cell phones
and put 'em on silent.
You don't want 'em ringing
because usually if that active threat
is coming in, they have one focus on mind.
They're moving forward.
Anyone gets in their path,
they're gonna shoot 'em, okay?
So what you wanna do is make sure
you get down, stay quiet,
lock yourself in,
and then wait for the authorities.
Don't make a sound if you can, okay?
They're not gonna spend a lot of time
trying to get into a locked door.
They're there for a purpose.
They're gonna try to move on.
They know that they authorities
are on their way, okay?
So just do that, and try to keep yourself safe,
as long as you can,
until we get there.
Very important.
You may have to get to a point
where you have to make a stand.
This person may try to come into that room.
So you gotta make a plan in there.
This is like your survival mindset,
as the lieutenant has mentioned.
What are you gonna do?
So someone's gonna have to do something.
They're gonna come through the door,
but we don't want everyone huddled up
in one area, so when they come in,
they start firing on the whole group.
Kinda spread out, get low.
If they come in, have a plan.
Who's gonna do something?
I'm looking in this room.
We have all these glasses on the table.
I may have to throw something to distract them.
We may have to tackle this person.
Someone may get shot,
but they're not gonna shoot everybody.
But you gotta do what you gotta do at that point.
And this is the kinda stuff we have to think about.
That fear and panic's gonna set in,
but we're gonna have to react.
We're gonna have to survive.
That's our natural instinct.
So that's the last part.
Basically, you're gonna have to
take this individual out when they come in.
So now, if we back up a little bit,
and we think about the preparation for that.
As the lieutenant mentioned, the doorways,
different things you can do.
So you don't wanna try to barricade a door
because you think the door opens in,
and you don't realize the door opens out,
and the person just opens the door,
and kick the stuff out of the way,
and they come in.
Know how your doors open.
Do something cheap.
Door stoppers, you can get 'em at
like a hardware store or Home Depot,
just a little wood chip.
Have it, so you know if your door opens in
have a couple of those around,
so when I lock the door,
just put one up under the bottom.
Make it harder for this person
to come into that room, and be quiet.
If you can exit the building,
and you can get out,
get out as safely as possible,
and then start calling 911 right away.
Let them know what's going on.
Tell the dispatcher so all the authorities
can be coming, okay?
So get out safely.
Do the best you can,
but if you can't get out,
you're gonna have to basically lock yourself in,
so this is why it's important to know
your area, your workspace that you're in
every single day.
It's important to know how those doors work.
It's important to know where the exits are
So it's a shame if you go to go exit
the building one way that you come in
every single day
and the gunman's downstairs,
but you didn't know that if you
go down the hall, around the corner,
there's another exit downstairs that way.
So we gotta think about that
because that stuff sets in.
The people you're responsible for,
if you have students in there,
kinda think about them.
What can you do?
So if you're gonna have to make a decision,
Maybe I need to get everyone down quiet.
Keep 'em quiet, keep 'em calm, okay?
If you have a cell phone,
get to a corner, quietly, whisper,
try to talk, let 'em know.
One thing law enforcement do,
if we get phone calls that come in to the station...
Okay, this is at any PD.
If they come in and we have a bad connection,
something's not quite right,
and we drop a call,
automatically, they send an officer
to that location, automatically.
Okay, so dropped calls.
Someone could be calling, they need help.
They could be sayings something,
"Could I order a pizza?"
"Could you please get that pizza here to me?"
We're trained to know, okay,
something's not quite right.
Maybe we don't need the officers here.
Something's not right.
We still go and check it out.
So we're gonna be coming,
so just make those calls,
and make sure you get that information
out to us as soon as possible,
whatever you can, but just be quiet,
and just wait, wait for us to arrive.
- So reminds me of
we need to sign up for the campus alerts.
If you're not signed up for it,
not quite sure how it works with your group,
but I'm assuming it works the same
as the rest of us that work for the campus.
It is so important to sign up for those notifications
because you're gonna...
You'll get a notification from campus police
saying, "There's a shooter in this location",
"Or there's some serious threat in this location.",
so it's gonna tell you to stay in place,
or it's gonna tell you to get the heck out of there,
so it's really important to sign up for that,
and then, I just wanna go into
law enforcement's response to a threat.
This, by no way am I promoting...
This is not a promotion for us to be armed.
Our campus police department, we are not armed.
We are not an armed department.
Times are changing.
Who knows where that's gonna go in the future,
but when something does occur on the campus,
if there's an active threat,
local police will be called.
We're fortunate enough to have the state police
barracks right up the road.
We will form a perimeter,
and law enforcement will arrive,
and it will be in a matter of...
Like what I was talking about,
these things happen rapidly,
and they're unpredictable.
Unfortunately, things will probably be done
by the time law enforcement arrives.
But it's why it's important,
have your phones, 911 in your phones.
If you can get to a campus phone, 800,
but make sure you have those numbers in your phone.
- Yes, it's gonna take moments for them to get there.
As we mentioned before,
sometimes these incidents happened
in like two to five minutes.
It doesn't take that long
for a lot of individuals to lose their life
by this person, unfortunately,
so law enforcement is gonna be coming
as fast as they can
they can get here.
That's why it's very important
that you do what you can
to try to stay safe.
Lock yourself in, and be quiet
until we get there.
The reality is, even if we were
an armed department, the odds
of no one getting harmed
by an active shooter
is almost impossible
'cause that person is already there.
What happens is is the response time.
You want to get there as fast as you can.
That's the response time,
and that response time can reduce
the number of lives lost,
so what we're trying to do here
is reduce that number as best we can
by giving you these tips
and ways to keep yourself safe
if this does happen.
When law enforcement does arrive,
okay, they're gonna come in tactically, okay?
And they only got one purpose on mind
is to stop that threat.
Hands are a threat.
So when they start moving around,
they start coming across individuals,
remember, they don't know who this person is.
Maybe they have a description because
someone called up and gave them that information,
but if I said the person had blue jeans on
and a blue shirt, okay,
I could probably come across a lot
of different people with maybe blue jeans on
and a dark purple shirt, dark blue shirt,
different things,
but what I'm looking for is the person
that has a weapon in their hand
that's pointing it at me,
or the person that looks like a threat.
So if I come across you,
and you're hunkered down,
maybe you're under something,
and you see law enforcement that's coming in,
they're looking for the hands.
We can kinda tell who's the threat
and who's not, just show the hands.
Hands are dangerous.
We see the hands, we know you're
not a threat to us.
We may ask you a question like,
"Which way did they go?"
Just let the officer know,
so they can keep moving forward.
As they're moving forward clearing the building,
every place that they go,
they're gonna be clearing that space
to make sure no one's left in the room.
They're gonna keep moving,
until they find this individual.
In cases like that,
you don't wanna run up to the officer.
They're there to help you,
but don't go running up to them
because they have not stopped that person yet.
That person could still be somewhere in there.
Just stay where you are,
and just continue on, and just show them your hands.
Tell them what they ask you,
and let them go stop this individual.
It's very important.
So they are there to help you.
So as much information as you can give them
before they get there,
when you give it to the dispatcher,
they're coming, they're gonna come into the building, okay?
As the lieutenant mentioned,
our department, we do not carry firearms, okay?
So we can't respond.
Usually it takes us about two to three minutes
to respond to a call.
A call like that we cannot respond to.
We know that information, unfortunately,
is really tough for our officers, our department.
A lot officers work for other agencies, as well,
and this is what we trained to do,
but we can't go in,
so we actually have to stand back,
secure the perimeter, keep people out of that area,
and hope everyone else keeps themselves safe,
and then we just kind basically
meet up with the other law enforcement
when they come in and let them know
how to get into these areas
so they can go in.
Okay, we're coming.
You stay in place,
until law enforcement comes,
so if you're bunkered down in a room,
you stay in that room,
until law enforcement comes banging on the door,
and they announce themselves as police.
Just stay right there until they come.
When they announce themselves, okay?
And let them get in and do their job
and stop this person, okay?
It usually happens so fast.
It doesn't take that long,
and if anyone hasn't...
I know it's kinda hard to
know what a gunshot sounds like.
It's like a car backfiring.
Sometimes you can hear multiple shots.
Sometimes you're not sure.
If they're doing construction,
and they're always banging, and doing stuff outside,
you'd probably just ignore it.
Just pay attention to that
'cause maybe it is a gunshot.
Maybe that day that you sit there,
"Ah, it's no big deal.",
no this person's getting closer and closer to you
because you ignored it.
You know, be suspicious.
Maybe go check it out a little bit.
If you're not sure, just,
"You know what, maybe I'm gonna go
"outside the building.
"I'm gonna call the authorities anyway."
That's okay.
It's better to be safe than sorry,
that's what I say.
You know, that's what we're here for, okay?
So just think about some of those things.
How you can be aware.
How you can prepare, and just rehearsal.
Very important, the rehearsal part.
You hire people into your organization, your office,
periodically, kinda go through.
Remember, the new hires that come in,
they don't know your layout.
Talk to them so they know those exits.
Be prepared.
It's gonna reduce the number of lives lost.
It's very important.
- So I just wanna reiterate the outs.
Just remember it's a simple concept
you can use anywhere you go,
the mall, the movie theater,
a park, doctor's offices,
so just remember those outs.
We'd like to open it up to discussion now.
If anybody has anything that they'd like to add
or any questions, yes?
(indistinct speech)
Here, I...
That's...
- Okay, in a situation like that,
basically they're trying to...
If the information comes in,
they wanna make the community aware.
We try not to shock the community,
but we want to let you know exactly what's going on.
It's very important for you to know
what area it is,
so if this happened across campus
in another area, and you think,
"Okay, maybe I kinda wanna clear out,
"maybe get off campus.",
okay then do that, okay?
So you make your judgement call there,
but at least you know what area
that this threat is in
and what's going on, so you're not going over there.
Maybe later on in the day,
"Yeah, I got a meeting over here.",
you just gonna go over there
because you didn't pay attention to the alert.
That's not an area you should be going in
That's why they put that out there,
so either you can kind of leave campus,
or just stay away and pay attention
to the alerts that's coming in,
but also you know now where that threat is in particular,
and not to go over,
and if you have other individuals with you
or students, tell them don't go over
to that location.
Unfortunately, everyone don't have a...
I know everyone has a cell phone,
almost, but I have seen someone,
recently with a flip-phone.
People still have flip-phones.
So maybe they didn't get that alert.
I don't know, but now at least,
if you got it, you can let these individuals know
so they don't go over there,
and let them know what's going on,
so now you're aware.
Yes?
(indistinct speech)
Okay, that's a good question.
Just tell 'em, "I don't know if you're the police.
"I don't wanna open the door."
Okay, they'll show you something,
so either we have a police ID.
One of the officers can show you
a police identification, slide it up under the door.
Even if I could pop my badge off my shirt
and pop it under or something,
to let you know that I'm the authorities.
Maybe if you asked me more questions,
I'm gonna keep talking to you
'cause I know now, we're at that point
where we have to reassure you
that we are the police,
so we can get you out of there safely,
so whatever I need to do,
if I need to go in and take out
my identification, I will slide it to you,
and let you know, okay?
So we can have that...
Keep the door locked, keep talking to me,
that's fine, but we'll do whatever
we need to do to prove to you
that we are the authorities.
Yes?
(indistinct speech)
- I worked on the Smith Campus for almost 20 years
before we merged with the other two colleges,
and I know exactly what you're saying,
in some of these buildings.
We've gone around...
We really haven't presented in front
of such a large group like this,
so we might be a little nervous,
but we talk to people that work in offices,
and they feel like they're sitting ducks
because there's only one door.
One thing that we thought about,
and we've talked about,
is how can you protect yourself
if somebody does come in.
Locking your door, if you feel safe,
lock your door.
Also we talked about
taking something like hairspray, bugspray,
anything like that and keeping
it in your desk drawer
because I'll tell ya, these buildings
on this campus are all different.
When Officer Brown and I
came in today, we were walking around the campus center,
and what's the first thing we said?
"Well, what if there was ever an active shooter in here?
"Where would you go?"
So we're getting you thinking, you know?
When you come in the summer, into your workspace,
I'm hoping you're thinking about that,
like, "What if something happened here?
"Where would I hide?
"What would I do?"
But we're never gonna be in an ideal situation
wherever we're at, whether it's a mall,
movie theater, or your workplace,
even in school, you know,
so you really have to start thinking ahead on that.
(indistinct speech)
- Yeah, just call dispatch, let 'em know,
"Hey, I'm in the building.
"I'm in Lilly Hall.
"I'll be here maybe until 11."
Call when you leave.
Call when you get there.
Call when you leave.
If you don't feel comfortable walking,
we'll have an officer come give you...
Not when it's bad out, give you rides,
just because you don't wanna walk
in the bad weather.
I'm really talking about the students,
but, no, we will, we'll give you an escort.
We'll walk, we'll give you a ride,
but really, it's really important to let us know
because we've actually, through the years,
you know, we've had people with medical conditions.
You know, they were working in their office,
something happens, "Hey they haven't called
"to say they're leaving".
We'll send somebody over to check, definitely.
Thank you, that's very good.
- Question back here, yes?
(indistinct speech)
- No, not in Massachusetts.
And you need an FID card for
mace, but that's not allowed, either, on campus.
- [Voiceover] Personally, just wanted to thank you.
I think this is very important, very helpful.
Where I work, we received a one page document,
what to do, and primarily it was run
in a zig-zag motion away from the shooter.
(everyone laughs)
That was it.
I was kinda was like,
it scared us more than anything,
but there was no concerted efforts,
so I just wanted to acknowledge
that a lot of this is very important,
and I also wanted to ask, too though...
I also wanted to ask...
I can talk to her.
- You do, okay, all right, okay.
- [Voiceover] Are efforts being made
not just to educate faculty, but students as well?
Because it seems like what you're saying
in terms of what if something happens, yes,
somebody distract that person, grab something to throw,
those would be the times to get
those smart phones out (indistinct speech),
but you know what I'm saying?
Are there efforts being made - [Sue] You're my outreach.
to educate students about this because...
And I ask that for a couple of different reasons.
I had a student once that I failed for plagiarism,
who I really was very concerned about
his personality and really
more sociopathic sort of thing, and I had to...
It was an effort to try to alarm people
to take action, and eventually it got so...
What I did was I sent an email
and CC'd it to the dean,
and once it was in writing in an email,
then I had security at my door,
and they watched my classes around the clock,
so that sort of thing,
my office and that sort of thing
because I was concerned about him coming back
and doing something,
so I guess what I'm wondering is
what other kind of strategic efforts
are being made about this?
- Actually we've been having some discussions now.
We've been moving around doing the active threat
program for a lot of faculty and staff.
Next, what we're gonna be doing
is trying to get out there to some of the students,
so we wanna include that into
a lot of our outreach programming that we have
'cause it's very important
'cause we have a lot of these students here,
they need to know what to do too
'cause they're asking questions,
"What can we do?"
Some of these students come from
other high schools where they've done
maybe some similar type of trainings already
to prepare for that,
so now we're looking at ways
that we can prepare our communities also,
but, again, as I mentioned before,
you folks are already dealing
with these types of situations,
and one thing that's important...
You asked a question, you said,
"Are students allowed to carry concealed?"
No they're not,
but the thing is, really,
let's think about it.
I know people that don't leave their house
without carrying a concealed weapon.
They walk their dog, they have a little
five-shooter that's tucked away.
You can't even see it.
It's concealed.
People jog through our campuses all the time.
They walk around here all the time.
Yeah it's a beautiful community.
It's safe, we have a lot of patrols.
We wanna keep the community safe,
but really, in reality,
a lot of people carry concealed weapons,
and they're not suppose to be here.
I went on vacation in North Carolina,
and I'm going to places,
I'm not even use to seeing...
You know, you see the "No Smoking" sign,
the big circle with the line through it,
"No smoking".
I'm looking at a big circle, "No guns",
and that's like, to me,
you know, I'm from up here,
like, "No guns?"
Every time I walk somewhere, they've got a sign.
"No guns", I'm like, "Who brings guns
"into an amusement park?
"There's kids everywhere.",
but what does that tell ya?
Every state is different.
So when you think about everyone
that keeps coming here from different states,
and they're coming here,
they don't know our laws in our state.
You know some of these folks probably are packing.
They're probably carrying weapons,
so we know that this happens all the time.
You just don't see it.
You'll be surprised at the people
that you deal with that come see you
and meet you that probably got something
in their purse for safety.
Now, I think everybody should know
you shouldn't be bringing weapons
to a college campus, right?
But people do.
People walk through the malls with it.
We know that it does happen.
You have a question?
- [Voiceover] I'm from Vermont, originally.
It's the only state where you don't need
to have a permit, and even a non-resident
can conceal and carry.
It's a little different than Massachusetts.
It's a simple question, probably obvious.
Since it's not permissible to conceal and carry,
I assume it's not permissible to open carry, either.
- Right.
(laughs)
You're right, it's...
Yep.
Question in the back?
(indistinct speech)
- Yep,
yep, it's right on the paper there.
(indistinct speech)
- Yes, go ahead, here.
- I mean, put our campus police number in,
but put 911 in.
911 that's the number to call
'cause what's gonna happen is
you call from the Smith College Campus.
We've got the state police barracks
right up the road.
They've got a central dispatch up there.
Their response is gonna be quick.
I can guarantee it.
Everybody will be coming if there's
any type of a threat here at Smith College.
Oh, go ahead.
(indistinct speech)
Campus phone.
Correct, and if there's some type of a threat,
a lot of the phones...
No, I'm thinking is it students?
You might wanna check your phone though.
Everybody will be knocking their phone off the hook.
As far as students, check your phones.
I'm not sure that it works on the faculty
and staff phones, but check it out.
With the students we do have an emergency,
the 800 number.
If that phone gets knocked off the hook,
it immediately comes into our dispatch.
So I don't want y'all going knocking phones off,
but you might want...
That's a good thing that I'm gonna check on.
I just wanna say on the flip side
of what you were talking about too,
we need to be more aware of our surroundings,
and I always say, when you get that hair
that goes up on the back of your neck,
or you get that horrible feeling in your stomach
that something's not right, call us.
That's why we're here.
That's why we get paid.
We're here, that's what we're here for.
A lot of people go, "Well
"I saw that about an hour ago,
"but I didn't think it was anything."
You know, or you just get that feeling.
I always said that.
I get the feeling, even in my job.
I get that feeling in my gut.
I get the hair goes up, and I go,
"Something's not right."
Call, a lot of people won't call.
Yes?
(indistinct speech)
I think it goes right to our.
- That's gonna go to
basically a state police barrack,
and pretty much, you're gonna be speaking
to one of the troopers, and they're
gonna ask you where you're at.
They're gonna ask you some information,
and then they'll redirect the call.
Okay, so even if you call 911,
they're gonna pick up.
Someone's gonna pick up.
Just let 'em know where you're at,
and then they'll just redirect that call.
If you're calling an active threat like that,
they're definitely gonna redirect those calls,
so those authorities gonna be on their way,
and they'll be contacting us,
so we'll know what's going on,
so you're gonna have a lot of folks
that's gonna be arriving.
(indistinct speech)
- Campus police, yes.
Call us, I mean, we have officers out there.
Believe me, they'll get there within a minute or less.
'Cause the campus is so small,
and then, you know, we'll have officers there.
If it's something more than we can handle,
like a threat that a fire arm
or a knife or something's involved,
obviously, we'll call the local police,
but make sure that you call,
and think of these outs
with something like that happens.
(indistinct speech)
I'm gonna keep pushing that.
- Let me add to that.
Also, if you know that you're gonna be
meeting with someone,
and things could become hairy,
again, let us know ahead of time
when they're coming.
Give us a heads up,
so if our department knows that you need
us to be on standby,
we'll have an officer on standby.
If you need us to be in the next room,
just in case something happens,
let us know.
Like I said, these things happen all the time.
More than you know.
So when we started actually doing the active threat
presentations, and we started hearing from folks,
we were like, "We're doing the active threat presentation,
"but people have been dealing with these situations
"for how long?"
So at any moment, these things could explode,
at any single moment.
Again, as I mentioned before,
we don't know who's carrying anything,
and we also know that it doesn't
have to be a firearm.
We're finding out someone's going on
an attack with a knife,
a stabbing spree, running through campus.
We've seen that.
We've seen some videos,
someone in the hospital, taking the railing
off the wall, that's about six feet long,
and attacking nurses through the hospital,
and you're seeing in on camera.
We're seeing it,
so this active threat can happen
at any given time, and no one's aware of it,
so those signs, those preindicators
that we all see, as you mentioned before,
there was preindicators,
those are the things.
So maybe you need to have some type
of team in your area,
so if there's things going on,
you have these different preindicators.
Maybe you need to come together with your team
as a group and start talking about things.
Have a plan in place
to kind of deal with that.
If you're noticing something that's not right,
you've been dealing with certain things.
The hair stands up on the back of your neck,
you need to sit down with some of your colleagues,
your staff, and talk about that.
Maybe you need to form one of those teams
in your area, if you don't have one
because now, if that individual is coming in,
and they're on alert with you,
maybe you need to let everyone else know
because now if that person comes into your place,
you know that there's some dangerous things
that's going on, these preindicators existing,
and you never shared it with your colleagues,
and now this person comes in,
you put everybody in jeopardy
'cause we're all involved right?
So now we start thinking about a plan.
It's always like a plan.
Let's put a plan in place.
Now we have to start thinking about these things.
Every time I turn on the news,
it's always something.
It's ridiculous, so we have to start thinking,
and we can't be one of these places that says,
"Okay, it only happens over here.
"It hasn't happened here."
Someone just said that to me the other day,
"very safe out here.
"I don't know in this area,
"if you really need these type of things."
You know, did they think that in Sandy Hook?
I bet you nobody ever thought
something like that was going to happen.
I can't imagine anyone who went through
these type of tragedies thought
one day, this is gonna happen here,
and it did, so we can't be one of these places
that what for something to happen,
and all of the sudden, everyone
wants to put all these plans in place.
So we're trying to get a jump
on this stuff now, so we're prepared,
so if things does happen, we're ready.
We can act appropriately,
and faster, and help save lives.
That's the whole point.
Yes?
- [Voiceover] How do you sign up for text alerts?
I only get emails. (indistinct speech)
- Oh, the inner web?
(indistinct speech)
Yeah. - [Earl] Yeah, I'm not sure.
- The inner web.
If you want a human resource website,
take a look on that.
The emergency notifications,
or go on our campus police website
and take a look at campus police,
and it will have information
how you sign up for that.
Any other questions?
(indistinct speech)
Is somebody answering that?
(laughs)
(indistinct speech)
We do get a lot of snow announcements,
and we have more coming, just so you know.
Another foot.
(indistinct speech)
Thank you, thank you.
- So there's clearly a lot for us
all to think about.
Thank you very much for a wonderful,
clear presentation, Lieutenant Dolly and Officer Brown.
(applause)
- Thank you.
(applause)
- What I particularly like is the moments
of relief that you provide.
(laughing)
It's hard stuff to think about.
- [Sue] It is, it is. - [Earl] Yes.
- But as you've made very clear,
it's very, very important to think about.
And so these kind of particular questions
that have come up that are logistical,
we're gonna take those back and figure that out.
- [Earl] Do we give out the cards?
- Yeah (indistinct speech).
- (indistinct speech) Frequently asked questions
and get some answers to those.
It's time for lunch.