It’s not a question of if, but when.
There were 346 school shootings in the U.S. in 2023 alone – and the numbers for 2024 continue that upward trajectory.
After having the steps of active-shooter drills ingrained into their subconscious for years, most college students today are adept at what to do in these scenarios. Active shooter and intruder response training became mandated by the State of Missouri July 1, 2014.
But there seems to be a generational divide.
Many faculty and staff, who grew up in a world with a much lower rate of school shootings, lack the years of experience current college students have when it comes to knowing what to expect.
In response to a 2020 shooting event that left four dead and injured 22 in Austria, a few blocks away from Webster’s Vienna campus, Public Safety created a training module to send out internationally for faculty and staff to better prepare in the event of an active shooter.
Jody Spiess, an assistant professor of Nursing, took the course and implemented it into the curriculum for her nursing students.
“When I was in school, we weren’t doing that [active shooter drills] yet,” Spiess said. “But my kids did it.”
Spiess added a human-made disaster section to the course and used the training module as a way to give a foundation for steps to take in the event of a shooter, building on it from a nursing standpoint.
“You don’t want to be paranoid, but you do want to be aware, right? That’s what that’s what the course does,” Spiess said. “It makes you very aware of the reality of something like this happening. And I would love students and everybody to take it but I feel like at the minimum, faculty and staff.”
The training module is broken down into three parts. Participants learn how to prepare for an event, which actions to take and what the aftermath would look like.
Trainees are taught to prepare for an active-shooting event by signing up for Webster’s alert system, Rave Guardian. They are also encouraged to practice situational awareness by planning an escape route for every environment.
Director of Public Safety Rick Gerger worked in law enforcement for 22 years before his time at the Webster Groves campus.
“You’re biding time until first responders can get there and neutralize that threat,” Gerger said.
Webster Groves Police Department’s Interim Police Chief Greg Perks said until law enforcement arrives, “you’re your own first responder.”
In the case of an active shooter on campus, a Rave Guardian alert would notify users of a shooter and their current location, followed by the statement: Run, Hide, Fight.
Run is the first option when it comes to an event. Those in danger are encouraged to get out as quickly as possible. The second, hide, involves sheltering in place, barricading doors and shutting off lights inside a room. It’s a routine most students know like the back of their hand.
As a last resort, fight. This step involves identifying which items from a person’s surroundings can be used as a weapon. “Your last option may be to fight back,” reads the policy. If an individual finds themselves in that scenario, it says they need to fight like their life depends on it, because in the case of that tragic reality, it would.
On average, shootings last no longer than five to 10 minutes.
The Webster Groves Police Department works closely with Webster University, speaking every week with Gerger. In preparation for an event, police were provided with floor plans of every building on campus and access cards with the ability to enter any building, if necessary.
The department works with university leadership at annual “tabletop” meetings to walk through different emergency scenarios. These tabletops run through an event and work through how each member of Webster leadership would react. The police are present to faculty and staff how to best act in the event of an active killer before they could arrive.
Once the 911 call is made, police enter MACTAC protocol – Multiple Assault Counter Terrorism Action Capabilities. All law enforcement agencies in the St. Louis metropolitan area go through this same training. In case of an event, they are all on the same page with responses.
“At the end of the day, it’s about making sure that people are safe. There’s no way to, if you will, put a force field around the community, but we can look at the best responses and the evaluations of previous responses have demonstrated,” Perks said.
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