The Best Defense

We’ve all heard about incidents like the January shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) in which six people were killed and 13 injured in front of a Safeway in Tucson, Ariz.

More common are the types of shootings that occur at workplaces as the result of robberies or a desire for revenge, as happened last March in Florida when a man shot his estranged wife in the head, killing her as she worked the checkout in a Publix supermarket.

Although statistical data that tracks the growth in active shooting incidents is not available, public shootings seem to be happening more frequently.

In July 2010, a man who killed two (including his former girlfriend) and wounded four in Albuquerque, N.M., was prevented from inflicting further carnage by the quick action of employees and police first responders. Albuquerque police chief Ray Schultz says that domestic killings in the workplace are becoming more common. “Often,” he says, “the aggressor knows that even if the person being targeted moves to a safe house, the one thing most likely to remain consistent will be their place of employment.”

Consequently, retailers, mall operators, school districts and others are “partnering more and more proactively with law enforcement agencies.

“It is important that law enforcement work closely with employers and their own internal security forces and have emergency and contingency plans in place should an event occur,” Schultz says. Those procedures “must include a post-incident recovery plan.”

Online training
One new tool, the result of a partnership between the NRF and the Department of Homeland Security, is an online training program called “Active Shooter: What You Can Do.” The program can be found at FEMA’s Emergency Management Institute website, http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/IS/is907.asp.

The online training program “provides a visual of the problem and explains it in a way that is very comprehensive, but not too graphic,” says senior asset protection advisor Joe LaRocca. “It gives people what they need to know.”

Steven Bova, director of U.S. partner and asset protection for Starbucks, says the DHS online training is “comprehensive and easy to translate into the retail environment.”

Training for shooting incidents is “all about awareness and being prepared,” he says. But it’s also a difficult subject to talk about, “So you have to find a way to use language that is not alarmist and that relates to the culture of the business you’re in.

“That’s the way to get people to buy into the program, and the online training course assists with that,” Bova says. “But you also need the full and consistent support of senior management to get to a strong level of preparedness.”

Gary Johnson, vice president of loss prevention for The Vitamin Shoppe, says he found the section of the training guide that focused on what to do when law enforcement arrives especially helpful because “there has been a major paradigm switch that happens when first responders arrive at a shooting scene.

“People’s general perception of law enforcement is that they are there to help injured people,” Johnson says. “But in a shooter situation, law enforcement is not there to help the injured or bystanders at first: They are there to take out the threat. So we wanted our store staff to know, if there is ever a problem, what steps to take when they see a police officer.”

A cardinal rule in active shooter training is that no one should ever confront an armed person unless their lives are in immediate danger and they have no choice. “You never want to use the words ‘take action’ in a retail critical incident training program without quantifying what the action should be,” Bova says.

Making a plan
Retail LP professionals and law enforcement officials stress the importance of developing, refining and rehearsing an Emergency Action Plan specific to shooting events. “It’s as important as having fire drills,” says Schultz, whose Albuquerque police force “drills regularly with major shopping malls.

“It gives all the partners the chance to do an internal assessment of themselves, to identify what their shortcomings may be so they can be prepared,” he says, “and it gives first responders a chance to get a behind-the-scenes look at the properties and the facilities, so that, together, they can come up with alternative plans.

“It also prepares people so if an emergency happens, they don’t freeze or make mistakes that could be fatal.”

The Vitamin Shoppe’s LP team has used the online training guide, but, “We haven’t mandated that our associates take the training,” Johnson says. “In our departmental newsletter, we’ve told them about the existence of this portal and the information it contains, but we’ve so far left it to their discretion to take it.”

On a corporate level, The Vitamin Shoppe has created training programs that teach all employees to exercise “more awareness of their surroundings,” Johnson says. Emergency training is “built into our orientation program for all new employees, and in our home office and distribution centers we have emergency evacuation drills regularly.”

Some national retailers like Starbucks meet with law enforcement agencies in major cities like Seattle and New York, “to understand what their protocols and procedures are,” says Bova. “We mimic those in some of the smaller-tier cities.”

Cooperation and coordination
Echoing Schultz, Bova stresses that a strong preparedness plan will contain a post-event component, including the care of employees and protecting the company’s reputation and brand.
“There are a lot of events that indirectly impact not only our business, but also our employees,” he says. “It’s important to put employees first by making sure they are taken care of.”

Schultz asks retailers who partner with his department to prepare and maintain “a go bag” that includes critical information like employee lists, phone numbers, floor plans and master keys.

“There needs to be cooperation and coordination with local law enforcement and mall security,” Bova says. “That ensures that you are all speaking the same language, that there is consistency in your plans, that you are sharing that information and planning for all contingencies.”