FASTER Day One – An Inside Look

“BLAM!” You’re sitting in a classroom with your eyes closed. “BLAM! You wonder what that loud noise was. At first you think it’s coming from Mr. Jones’ class down the hall, because he sometimes shows videos to his class. BLAM! Now, you start to hear people screaming and running in the hallway. BLAM! You realize with horror that a shooting is happening here. In your school. Right now. What do you do?”

With this imaginary scenario, police lieutenant Marty Garland, one of the instructors for FASTER Colorado, walks a room full of teachers, administrators, a shooting survivor and others through an active shooter scenario in a school. It’s Day One of the 3-day training course, and it starts with a review of what an active shooter situation would look like in your school or church.

“What is your protocol? Do you have established procedures for an active shooter situation?”

“Close your eyes again. Now, picture the shooter in your mind. What do they look like?”

Everybody pictured a young male of no particular race or nationality. I immediately thought of the Parkland shooter (I have a personal policy of not recognizing mass shooters by name or photo, with one exception below). Then this picture popped up on the screen:

 

These are the youngest school shooters who at ages 13 and 11 murdered four students and a teacher at Westside Middle School in Arkansas on March 24, 1998. They were armed with nine weapons, camping gear, snack foods and 2,000 rounds of ammunition. While one of them waited in ambush in trees outside the school, the other pulled the fire alarm and ran back to his accomplice. The two then proceeded to fire upon the teachers and students as they evacuated the building, killing five and wounding ten others. They ran to the van they had used and tried to escape but were apprehended by police.

Next, we reviewed the school massacre in Beslan, Russia in 2004. During this three-day siege, a group of armed Islamic militants took control of a school on the first day of classes and took over 1,100 people including parents and children as hostages. They forced everyone into the school’s gym and confiscated all cell phones. Two men were immediately shot, and the terrorists then selected fifteen to twenty who they thought were the most able-bodied male teachers, school employees and fathers who were removed and killed. Through the course of the siege, the terrorists committed various atrocities including sexual assaults and rape of young women and children.

When the siege was over, at least 334 people had been killed including 156 children and over 200 people were missing or unidentified. About half of the victims died as the result of explosions and subsequent fires. Most chillingly, Beslan was supposed to be a template for attacks on American schools and indeed, in the week before our FASTER class took place, a man was arrested holding 11 children at a compound in New Mexico where they were being trained to commit school shootings. This man, Sirah Ibn Wahhaj is the son of an imam who was an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The chilling thought is: we caught this one. How many others are out there?

To conclude the “Active Killer” lecture, we watched a video re-enactment of the Columbine shooting in the library. I remember real videos from the aftermath of Columbine, and this video was very realistic and extremely difficult to watch.

The Columbine Memorial

 

“FASTER” stands for Faculty/Administrator Safety Training and Emergency Response. Our class consisted of over 20 people, men and women; teachers and administrators, from rural districts where help is an hour away to a large Denver metro school district; charter school board members and three members of a church security committee. We also had Evan Todd, Columbine survivor; Aaron Boyd, Founder of Bullets Both Ways; Tim Hackmeyer, owner of DangerLee Industries; and me, attending as a blogger. Other attendees were there as volunteers and participating from affiliated organizations.

As we went through the initial introductions, everyone gave their name and what they did for their school. We also talked about why we were attending this class. The educators, without exception, were there because they want to be able to protect the children in their care. As one woman said: “Parents drop their kids off safe in the morning and expect to be able to pick them up safe after school”. A couple of the teachers attending were back for a refresher course, and the one from the metro school district was there because he wants to be a change agent in his district.

Evan was attending because he is a survivor of the Columbine shooting who now tirelessly works to promote school safety. Aaron and Tim are sponsors and supporters of FASTER. I have been a strong advocate for FASTER since the first discussions about bringing this program to Colorado and was glad to be able to attend as a participant.

Over a working lunch, Commander Paul Gregory led the class in a discussion of Colorado Use of Force laws and a high-level review of concealed carry laws in Colorado. Then it was range time.

This FASTER class was held at a law enforcement training facility north of Denver. There was a 25-lane outdoor (but covered) shooting range. We reviewed the four gun safety laws which are these:

  1. All weapons must be treated as if they are always loaded!
  2. Never let the muzzle of a weapon point at anything you are not willing to destroy!
  3. Keep your finger off the trigger until the sights are on the target and you are prepared to shoot!
  4. Always be certain of your target and beyond!

After reviewing these four rules and instructor range commands, we started the firearms portion of the training.

This class was not for novice shooters. In fact, one of the requirements to attend the class is that you must already have completed a concealed carry class and have a concealed carry permit. Everyone in the class was shooting semi-automatic pistols, mostly in 9mm or .45. A few had 1911 type pistols, but most had striker fired pistols such as Glocks or Smith & Wesson M&Ps and the like. To earn a certificate, a participant must pass a qualification based on the Colorado Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) qualification but which is slightly more difficult by adding two rounds on target.

Through the afternoon, we went over drawstroke and marksmanship. Police sergeant Graham Dunne showed us how to deal with various malfunctions like empty chambers, stovepipes and double feeds in addition to how and when to perform combat and tactical reloads. We talked about and drilled close quarters combat, one handed shooting and did a drill called “Dot Torture”, which to be honest, was a lot of fun.

The author doing the “dot torture” drill. From a news story by KOAA channel 5 in Colorado Springs.

During the afternoon, reporter Sam Kraemer from Colorado Springs KOAA TV showed up and interviewed some participants and shot some video. The full news story is here at this link.

As I was driving home, I thought about some of the myths and misconceptions surrounding the FASTER program. To me, the biggest and most blatant misconception is this one: “Putting more guns in schools is not the answer! It just makes everything so much more dangerous!” Another one: “How do we know that Mrs. So-and-so won’t get mad and shoot a kid?” Or: “Schools are Gun Free Zones. That will protect our children!”

The facts of the matter are this: We have multiple tragic data points that prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that Gun Free Zones do not work. Since 1990, the year that the “Gun-Free School Zones Act” was passed, there have been over 200 incidents of gun-related crimes on school and university grounds, with about 175 incidents including K-12 schools. Of these, 13 were mass-shooting incidents with the worst 3 involving K-12 schools being Columbine, Sandy Hook and Parkland. The Gun Free Zones idea is one that has failed completely.

As far as the “more guns in schools” argument: When the “more guns” involves police officers, opponents don’t seem to have a problem, except when they bemoan “turning our schools into prisons”. It’s clear that there is no logical consistency to the objections raised by opponents.

Another fact is this: it’s up to individual school boards to decide which volunteers get to concealed carry. Nobody is suggesting that all teachers should be armed or that teachers should be required to be armed. No, this is a volunteer program, and the volunteers are already likely to be comfortable with firearms, are already concealed carry permit holders, and most likely carry when they are not at school. If they are prepared to defend the kids in their care with their lives, shouldn’t they at least have a fighting chance?

 

By Richard D. Turnquist

August 14, 2018

Additional Reading and Links:

 

The Time for FASTER Has Arrived, by Richard Turnquist 

Keeping Kid Safe in A Broken World, by Laura Carno

Training as a Teacher to Carry a Firearm in School, by Stephen Gutowski

FASTER Colorado promotional video

Columbine survivor, teachers take firearm training, by KOAA News, Colorado Springs

Inside Class Teaching Colorado School Staffers to Carry Guns, Stop Killers, by Michael Roberts

Donate to FASTER Colorado to provide training to a school staffer

This was Part One, in Parts Two and Three I review Days Two and Three of the training. I’ll follow up with a Part Four – Putting It All Together.