Welcome to Aftermath, a portion of our First Line email newsletter where Attorney Anthony L. DeWitt walks you through a real-life self-defense incident and shares his key takeaways.
A 29-year-old man with “jealousy issues” brought his firearm to the Amazon warehouse in
Chandler, Arizona, looking for his girlfriend, who wasn’t even working at the time. When a
contract worker wouldn’t admit him to the building, the boyfriend began firing. A second
employee, who was armed, returned fire. The wounded attacker shot himself fatally before police
could arrive. No charges were filed.
Has your workplace taken the initiative to introduce active-shooter training to its employees?
Are you familiar with Run, Hide, Fight?
The armed employee almost certainly saved some lives. I wonder what Amazon’s policy is about carrying firearms in the workplace? If the second employee wasn’t an armed guard they may no longer have a job which would be a very unjust reward for saving lives.
Run, Hide, Fight in that order is probably the best option in an active killer situation for those without the needed tools and/or training to confront the attacker. With the proper tools and training there could be scenarios where changing that order around is the better way to go. Though sometimes if you don’t have a clear opportunity to stop the threat the best thing you can do is get yourself and as many other people as you can to a safer place.
Yes, and it’s phuckin’ phunny.
Fight with staplers, chairs, pens, post-it notes.
I kept my mouth shut the whole time because
concealed means concealed.
Same thing here. They made us watch videos of how to run and hide while attempting to impede the mass shooter by tipping over desks.
Me? I know where every possible point of entry into my building is, where and how I would go for cover/concealment depending on which entry point he used, and where I would wait for the attacker to move to before I took my shots.
And yeah, concealed means concealed for me. No way I’m going to work unarmed. We just had to fire a lunatic that somehow slipped through our 3rd party background checkers with two felony assault arrests pled down to some minor charges that don’t show up as easily as a felony would. He was totally inappropriate at work, and now he’s suing the company for millions claiming we discriminated against him. He claims he’s Hispanic even though he has an Itailan surname, was born in the US and seems about as average white guy as you can be.
My earlier response to this thread was typed as I was in a meeting room with about 40 people. I sat in the back where I could see everyone, the main entrance, and all the windows. I had concealment and minimal cover, giving me enough time to react and gain the upperhand in the case of an armed attack.
I have actually shown run, hide, fight at my workplace. I’ve also heard it criticized by those in the know. There are several other systems such as avoid, deny, defend.
The two criticisms I’ve seen of run, hide, fight is that it’s linear. There really is no order. It’s dependent on the circumstance. If the guy is at bad breath distance and pulls a gun, hiding isn’t an option. Running isn’t likely either. Armed or unarmed your best chance is probably to fight with whatever tools available at your disposal.
Second, some criticize run, hide, fight as sounding like you are taking a victim posture. Who runs away? The prey not the predator. So some see this as programming us all to be victims. That’s a valid thought.
I personally don’t see run, hide, fight as incongruent with concealed carry. The gun falls under the fight option.
I havent even had that…run and hide video. We had a customer that was mad at the sales department and tried throwing a chair through the window…but he couldnt lift it. I had the feeling he would be back but would be armed. Didnt happen…thank you Lord!!!
Great video. They should start showing those as part of HR after being hired. Like how you have to watch harressment videos. Never seen one before…I have to say it is spot on. Great info.
I can see the arguments for not running away in some circumstances but when an active killer starts shooting we are all the prey.
I think running is always a valid option regardless of our skills. In active shooter situations they have chosen the conditions they deem to be optimal for their success and everyone else is just reacting. But most people don’t have practice shooting at moving targets so running away, if you have the space to do so and preferably at an angle that isn’t directly away from the shooter, makes a lot of sense if you want to increase your chances of survival.
I personally don’t like the hide option unless I can hide in a location that will give me a good chance of ambushing the attacker before they can take aim at me.
Based on my limited martial arts training, if you are unarmed or armed only with a knife or other melee weapon, taking on someone with a firearm is a 50/50 scenario at best even if you are well trained, unless you can ambush them, . For unarmed people without training, fighting back has a very low probability of success unless they can coordinate with multiple other people to all attack at once and trust that those people will actually follow through even though some of them are very likely to get shot.
Most self defense folks who are armed will likely only have a pistol and will be facing an attacker who may have a long arm and will likely be surrounded by other victims running around unpredictably. Again not great odds of doing more good than harm.
If I had a reasonably clear shot at the shooter and knew my family was able to get themselves to a safe place without my help I would likely act. But without that clear shot, running away and getting myself and my family to a safe place would likely be my first choice.
The hide option has also been criticized as taking up a defeated option. “Hiding” is what they did at VA Tech and it was a horrible failure (they hid under desks and played dead-not what we are talking about these days when we use the word “hide.”). Instead of hide I would use the word barricade or “lock down.” In a school shooting context, if you can “hide” students behind a closed, locked door with no visibility into the space, your chances of survival are very near 100%. (We probably have more data on school shootings than any other type of mass shooting.) The shooter is looking for victims. When he doesn’t see them, he keeps moving and doesn’t try to breach a locked door.
Where I work (the context of the OP IIRC), I consider my coworkers and “customers” my family. I’d like to think I’d fight if brought nose to nose with an attacker. If he’s attacking me, at least he’s not attacking them.
Nasty stuff to think about. Appreciate your thoughts and input as always.
Literal lines on the floor drawn/taped and teachers/staff instructed on locking doors, everyone to the other side of the line, there is no visibility from the door, so attacker doesn’t know who/how many are or are not in there and has no line of sight/line of fire from outside
I prefer run-cover-sight picture. Run to cover get sight picture.
Back story and personal priorities.
I have been carrying for years but never religious about. But Lewiston ME changed all that. Living in rural NH I was not concerned about active shooter situations (I know I was a dumbass) but when a massive event happen right next door you find religion. I know that many people in Lewiston own multiple firearms but for some reason none of them brought one with them.
That will never happen to me!
My response plan is get wife and family out of harms way. Get cover and attempt to remove threat. If I do not come out of the experience unscathed (good cover and sight picture should dramatically reduce that possibility) so be it my wife, family and innocents will not be shot.
Only one place I’ve worked offered any kind of ‘workplace shooter’ training. They brought in the sheriff’s department and it was the ‘Run, Hide, Fight’ scenario.
I’ve never worked, anywhere, that officially allowed concealed carry. Most of the time, it’s been inside a chemical plant or refinery. Hell, one plant did a quick inside search of my truck and told me I had to leave a machete with the guards. LOL
I have had a couple of office positions where what they didn’t know, didn’t hurt me, though.
