A school safety consultant talked Thursday about acting and reacting in the face of an active shooter situation.
Cooper Dixon, of Kosciusko-based Dixon's Safety Consulting, spoke to almost two-dozen school officials, law enforcement officers and other first responders gathered in the boardroom of the East Tallahatchie School District central office in Charleston for an active shooter tabletop exercise.
Active shooter scenarios occur all too frequently.
According to FBI statistics, in the 20-year period from 2000 to 2019, there were 333 active shooter incidents in the United States. In 2020 and 2021 alone, there were 101 such occurrences, the FBI noted.
A deliberate, coordinated response can mean the difference between life and death.
Preventative action, on the other hand, is far and away the most effective kind to ensure safety.
Dixon discussed a number of real-life school shootings and said while they all occurred in different places and at different times, they all had one common precursor. In every case, he noted, the shooter all foretold his or her plans.
"Every one of them put something on social media," Dixon noted. "These things can easily be prevented. Somebody knew but didn't want to say anything. Sometimes, law enforcement dropped the ball."
He also said officials on every level must be prepared to take decisive action when an active shooter incident unfolds.
Picking up the phone to get ducks in a row is not a viable option, Dixon stated, as school officials and members of the general public will be tying up the lines.
"Within 2 to 4 minutes, your cell tower will be overloaded," he added, as he continued easing into his presentation.
The East Tallahatchie School District does have a crisis management plan, which lays out the actions to take in the event of such an unthinkable incident, and periodically hosts live active shooter training sessions.
Dixon, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran with over 20 years of law enforcement experience, is a Mississippi Department of Education certified school safety specialist whose firm offers facility/school assessments, safety schematics, crisis response review and planning and other services in Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas.
