It Can Happen Here

• NCJ Number: 252815
• Date Published: February 2013
• Length: 1 page
• Agencies: NIJ
• Publication Type: Report (Technical Assistance); Instructional Material (Programmed); Case Study

Annotation

This 1-hour video uses an interview format in drawing school security and response lessons from the active-shooter crimes committed at the Colorado high schools of Columbine and Platte Canyon.

Abstract

Based on site visits, interviews were conducted with victims' family members, school staff, and police officers, The video shows some video clips from security cameras that recorded some of the events of these shootings. The focus of the interviews is on the urgent need for all communities to assume that what happened in these two schools could happen in any school anywhere, which requires that every community and school research the causes and defenses against active-shooter crimes in schools. School staff members discuss their actions at the time of the shooting and what measures have been taken to prevent it from happening again. Police managers discuss the absence of a strategic plan for responding to an active-shooter crime at a school, having failed to envision that such a crime would ever occur. They also discuss the action that every law enforcement agency must take in planning for and practicing how to respond to a report of an active-shooter occurrence at a school. Parents of victims of these shootings indicate how this has changed their view of the dangers children and youth face at school, as well as how parents can be participants in planning and implementing measures for preventing and responding more effectively to an active-shooter crime at a school.