Security Expert Emphasizes Value Of Training
Kenneth Trump’s cell phone rang nonstop Tuesday during his flight from Cleveland to Spokane, where he’ll lead a seminar today on preparing for school violence.
That’s how the security consultant learned about the Colorado shootings, and that’s when he decided to revive one of his key messages: Don’t wait until a crisis to pay attention.
“The public’s attention has been drawn away,” Trump said, because there’s been a blessed lull in school shootings. Unfortunately, it often takes a horrid event like the one at Columbine High School to jar people into making schools safer, said Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services.
So now he figures he’s got everyone’s attention. And here’s what he wants to say: No one can violence-proof schools. But it’s our responsibility to make them as safe for children as possible. Security training is a wonderful place to start.
“We send school personnel unarmed in terms of information,” he said. “If you have nothing to fall back on, you’re going to fall back on whatever’s behind you. And I don’t mean the couch.”
Most school personnel have no training in how to react to violence, he said. “They don’t get it in undergrad or grad school,” he said.
“Who’s going to find a suspicious device like a bomb? A custodian. Who’s going to take a call about a bomb threat? A secretary. Who’s the last person to see a student at the end of the day? A bus driver.
“Who don’t we train? All of them.”
Trump will talk about more ideas for making schools safer at a conference today at the Ridpath Hotel. Coordinated by Washington State University, the four-day event covers community-oriented policing and other safety issues.
Trump is the keynote speaker at a session called “Proactive School Security and Crisis Preparedness.”
He believes too much emphasis is placed on shootings and not enough on stabbings and other, more common, kinds of school violence.
Boxcutters, knives and razor blades are the most prevalent weapons on campus today, Trump said. People looking out for only guns could be surprised by a kid who pulls a razor blade from under his tongue, he said.
Schools should also work with police to survey their grounds and buildings, looking for problem areas such as too many entries that aren’t monitored and bushes where criminals can hide.
School administrators can also establish telephone hotlines and even e-mail addresses where students can report potential problems anonymously.
That would go a long way to prevent violent outbursts and give kids who fear being labeled snitches a simple way to alert authorities, Trump said.
“A lot of times, we find out somebody knew ahead of time,” he said.
Are schools making progress? Yes, Trump said. “We’re doing better than we have in the past, but we still have a long way to go.”