NYPD Releases Recommendations For Dealing With A Gunman
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- The NYPD is trying to make sure a massacre like the one at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., does not happen again.
As CBS 2's Amy Dardashtian reported, on Friday night, the NYPD Counterterrorism Bureau released a study with recommendations on how to deal with an active shooting situation.
Many of the procedures were actually used in Newtown. There have been numerous stories of heroism in the massacre a week ago Friday, including teachers who hid students in closets, and others – including principal Dawn Hochsprung – who distracted the gunman and sacrificed their lives in the process.
With its report, the NYPD wants everyone to learn what to do if he or she comes face to face with a shooter. The recommendations include:
• If an active shooter attacks, the first order of business is to drop everything and evacuate if it is safe to do so.
• If not, then hide, lock the door, block it with heavy furniture, and stay quiet.
• If all else fails, then take action. Disrupt or disable the shooter with aggressive force, and yell or throw objects.
To prepare, conduct a realistic security assessment, identify multiple evacuation routes, limit access to blueprints and security information, and vary security guard patrols and patterns of operation.
Bergen County, N.J., has also released a video showing survival tactics in the face of a shooter.
Meanwhile, the NYPD is also examining ways to search the Internet for potential "deranged" gunmen.
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said that their searches would be similar to those being used to spot terrorist chatter online.
"And what we're talking about is publicly available websites, chatrooms, that sort of thing," Kelly said, adding that algorithms could be used. That will enable us to use, perhaps, commonly used terms that are used by people engaged in this sort of activity," he said.
"The techniques would include cyber-searches of language that mass-casualty shooters have used in e-mails and Internet postings," Kelly said.
Kelly said intelligence is most helpful in these cases since shooters can cause multiple deaths in seconds regardless of how deft the police response.
"The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said Friday.
The remarks appalled Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a staunch gun control advocate, who called the NRA solution "a shameful evasion of the crisis facing our country."
Commissioner Kelly also dismissed the NRA idea for a solution.
"I don't think that's necessarily what the world is expecting from the NRA," Kelly said. "I think they should make some meaningful recommendations on how to strengthen gun control."
Others have pointed out that Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., did, in fact, have an armed guard who was not able to stop the massacre there in 1999.
Bloomberg is leading an aggressive effort asking for a ban on assault rifles and high-capacity clips, as well as mandatory background checks for gun purchases.
In Washington, President Barack Obama is promising action, but what the reform will be remains to be seen.
Please leave your comments below...
