This past November, the news of a shooter at Ohio State University sent a wave of shock throughout Columbus and across the nation. Sirens echoed across the city throughout the day, and students continually refreshed their social media feeds to check on the safety and whereabouts of friends and loved ones.
The reality of a shooting hits hard when it happens close to home. It shatters the glass bubble of “it will never happen here” that we often use.
On Friday, Feb. 3, the Public Safety Department will host a student-centered session on how to properly deal with an active shooter. This training has been offered to faculty and staff in the past with student invitation, but this is the first session to be geared directly toward students.
The sequence that will be implemented in this Friday’s session is called CRASE, which stands for Civilian Response to Active Shooter Events, and it will be presented in collaboration with the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department.
This training is offered to all sorts of institutions, as it has been requested by schools, hospitals, places of worship, universities, and businesses.
It encourages these different places to have a plan for dealing with an active shooter so that everyone would feel prepared if the real event were to occur.
“I think of it this way: you practice a fire drill every year or month to know exactly what to do in case of a fire,” Sergeant Scott Kunkle of Public Safety said. “A shooting should be the same way. Students should know what to do and how to survive.”
When dealing with an active shooter, the CRASE presentation encourages the avoid, deny and defend method. While fighting is a last resort, it has still become important to learn about, rather than being killed in a defenseless manner.
“If all else fails, they don’t want you to sit there, like some students have in the past, and just get shot. They want you to fight back,” Kunkle said.
He highly recommends the training for students, and said that there are plenty of spots left for the training session.
If a student can’t make it to the session, being aware of dangers and being prepared in the case of an active shooter is still important.
He recommends viewing Youtube videos detailing a similar civilian response model, specifically one made by public safety forces at Ohio State.
This method promotes the idea that we are all capable of surviving if we know how to protect ourselves. We can survive and minimize the threat of a shooting if we know how to properly handle the situation.
Kunkle is always willing to offer general advice to students who want to learn more about this and encourages students to sign up for the class by emailing him at skunkle@capital.edu or calling the Public Safety Department at 614-236-6505.
