Every active shooter situation makes our hearts break. Our thoughts immediately go to the victims involved and we cannot help but think about the fact that these events can happen anywhere at any time. We’re then moved to think about our family, friends, coworkers and loved ones.
It seems that there is a shooter situation in the news every week because these events are becoming more and more prevalent. Last Friday, only 45% of students attended school because of an unknown threat that was made against Jefferson County Schools.
In Louisville, we recall 25 years ago, one of what would be the first of many mass workplace shootings. It doesn’t take much time to search for similar workplace events. Just yesterday, there was a shooting at local business, Cardinal Kitchens Inc. Although we don’t know most of the details that happened, we do know that it must have been very stressful for those involved.
Photo via WLKY News
In a crisis situation, panic can cloud judgment, and the very real threat of physical danger may prevent people from assessing, gathering accurate information and alerting authorities to respond.
We hope that you are never involved in a crisis situation like this. As people, we start to think that if something like this happens at the place where we work, how would we respond and what would we do?
So how can you possibly plan to have an appropriate response to something as severe and terrifying as an active shooter situation in your school, warehouse or office complex? Planning for appropriate response actions and timeframes means simplifying the number of variables in a situation of panic and minimizing human reliance to increase speed of response.
In an active shooter incident, every second counts and acting quickly can help save lives. An Active Shooter Detection system takes out the human reaction time and uses technology to detect if an active shooter is present and can automatically notify authorities.
The Active Shooter Detection system scans an environment and uses infrared and acoustic sensors to analyze the sounds coming from that environment, searching specifically for the unique signatures that indicate active gunfire. Once the system has identified the source of the gunshot, indicator panels track that source as it moves throughout a building and alerts local police and emergency departments immediately. When first responders arrive, they can use the display panels to quickly and accurately pinpoint the location of the shooter in the building. Thanks to the unique combination of infrared and acoustic sensing technology, this system returns virtually zero false positive alarms.
Although having a detection system in place does not prevent a crisis from happening, it does allow your business to be best prepared if one does. We hope that your business never experiences an emergency like this, but we come to work every day to help you be as best prepared as you can be.