The Columbine incident, in which the shooters continued to kill and injure victims while police maintained a perimeter around the school, changed the standard procedure for law enforcement response to mass shootings. Subsequently, police have focused on engaging shooters as quickly as possible.
High-casualty incidents of any sort also pose challenges for medical providers, and in active shooter situations, treating gunshot wounds is particularly urgent.
Links to a variety of resources, including ALERRT and other training programs.
"Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training" or ALERRT, developed after Sandy Hook, is a widely used program for training law enforcement personnel to respond to active shooter incidents. The program is run from a center at Texas State University-San Marcos.
Discusses post-Columbine changes in police tactics.
Issued by the Police Executive Research Forum, March 2014.
Issued November 2015 by the Interagency Security Committee (chaired by Homeland Security).
Issued December 2013 by the Connecticut Police Chiefs Association. (The original has vanished from their web site; this version is from the Internet Archive.)
Following Sandy Hook, the American College of Surgeons developed a set of recommendations for improving survival rates of the injured in active shooter incidents, with a focus on controlling bleeding and removing the injured to safe areas. The meetings that led to these recommendations are called the "Hartford Consensus," and the group's materials are available free at this site.
Issued by FEMA, Sept. 2013
Offers a firefighter's perspective.
Offers a paramedic's perspective.
Offers an ER nurse's perspective.
