Enhancing Law Enforcement Training for K-12 Security Incidents

Mike, let's talk about this. So you have a let's say let's talk let's talk about Utah. You have a state that is requiring every campus to now have this one manufacturing brand of gun detection, which, listen, that's a very good system. I'll give them props. They they do a very good job. Sure. And and I would say that I don't dislike it, but what I would tell you is that that should not take precedent over a strong mental health plan. That should not take precedent over a solid behavioral threat assessment plan. That should not take precedent over having an individual campus data analyst that runs through this data to identify these patterns of behavior in these kids. It should not take precedent over not having an emergency action plan for every single campus. Not at all encompassing EOP, because there's there is a difference. What I'm saying is there's probably a list this long of things that I would do before that. Yeah. It's it's similar to what we what we've talked about on some of the gunshot section stuff. Like, we've we've been in the school that's considering spending a tremendous amount Oh, yeah. Of money on a gunshot section system and they've got sixteen cameras on the entire campus. They have doors that physically don't lock. Yeah. Right? And won't close. Yeah. And and they're gonna go spend all of this money on a gunshot detection system. Yeah. So it's not that gunshot detection systems aren't effective or efficient in some way. It's that you have to look at the entire vulnerability of the entire facility and you have to prioritize it because there is a limited amount of money and you have to go back in and say, okay. Let's get the doors to actually close and lock. Let's start there. Or you'll go into a school of, let's say, seven thousand kids and there's eight tourniquets and a stop the bleed kit for the entire school or one AED. Right? With all of the the stuff that's happened with COVID and and even stuff that we've seen that, how how many gyms have we been into that it's regulated Yeah. To have zero ADs. Nothing. Right? And we hear all time and time again about a kid playing basketball or playing football and drops dead on the field. And we have no medical aids for those kids. There's so many other things that you have to look at and what's crazy about it is they can mandate that but they can't mandate this. They can mandate mandate that you have to use this this technology but they won't mandate to hold, architects accountable to stop making schools glass boxes Yeah. And actually building some material that could help. Well, it's because there's no standard. There's no standard across the board and I know that there are some people and there's some announcements that are gonna be coming out where there will be a board that's going to be put together. I will be on that board at the highest level, be working on creating a standard throughout the United States. I put out a poll on LinkedIn yesterday, I had, as of this morning I had fifty one people, that participated in the poll and it was, do you think that there should be a national K-twelve secondurity standard? Kind of like the CFR, right? Right. It was developed in two thousand and two, passed two thousand and four. It basically says across the board you have to have these minimum standards, right? Across all fifty states literally in the state of Texas or in the United States you can go district to district and have completely different You can go school to school in the same district. Right. And so, so we will be working to create that standard. Will it get to where it needs to be? I don't know, but I tell you this, the people that are on that board are professionals Yeah. And I think that we can do that, but it has to be done. I mean, let's even go even deeper, right? Let's talk about those that are qualified to even be able to, plan, organize, and execute these particular types of events at a k twelve campus or at a university campus. I mean, hell, let's talk about Uvalde. And I have no problem saying this guy's name and I don't care. Pete Arrendondo, chief of Uvalde, CISD. Perfect example of someone not qualified. But what happened? You have an uninformed school board and superintendent that say, hey, Pete Hernando was a police officer in x y and z. Hey, he's qualified to do security. Let's take Pete and let's put him over here in charge of our six thousand kids and however many campuses. Oh, let's see another. And you saw the complete shit show. Yeah. We've seen other ones where promotion within. Right? So you take an officer who who may have had very limited outside exposure, goes to get the school job and is there and becomes chief just because he's been there a long time. Right? Let's go even further and this may offend some of even our clients, but let's talk about this, right? And this is not meant to be offensive, but it's the truth. Just deal with it. It is what it is. This is why I'm saying this is what separates me from a lot of other people. A lot of other people wouldn't talk like this. You're talking about a law enforcement officer that's been in schools that's promoted to chief. I'm talking about a teacher who was a principal, who became an administrator, who's now the executive director or the director of security for a school district. Well, I mean They understand the k twelve space. Yeah. We've had we've had things where, you know, somebody comes in and and starts off as a, you know, let's say, running as a in a very small district runs, security, cameras, access control. And we've seen them move from that role into, executive director of safe and security for the school district of a much larger school. Yeah. Right? And, the complexity is exponential. Yeah. Right? You you go from a very, very small rural district, you go into a much bigger one. Even let's say if it's even if it's rural, but it's a much larger district. And then all of a sudden now, they were looking at cameras and maybe access control and then then now everything's falling under them. Radio communications, behavioral health, emergency planning, incident command, mass communication, video access, film, the entire behavioral threat training and management of their team Yeah. Reporting to the executive cabinet, all of these things, where where did they suddenly get the experience or the skills to be that? Where there was no additional training for that person? We we have clients. I mean, you and I both have clients that and and I feel bad for some of these individuals that they've they've just been heaped, you know, all this responsibility on top of their head and they haven't been prepared. Well, I think what's scary is that you take something like a Uvalde, you take something like, Santa Fe, you take a whatever, they're looking to hang that on somebody. Right? Whatever happened there. Where where in the school did this come back to? What, you know, where Oh, that was exactly the director of security. You're like literally playing hot potato going, well, this didn't fall under me. You know, I'm I'm superintendent. I hired somebody to do that. Yeah. Here you go. Pass the potato. Right? And it's this, you just wanna be the last one not carrying a potato. And then that superintendent and that school board have failed to prepare that individual, you know. And unfortunately, I don't think that there's a whole lot of really good training and resources I agree with that. To prepare them. All of the things that they are putting under those departments. Which is why I say that you have to have had some experience in this space. And how many schools have we seen where all of that weighs on one little guy's back? One person. One person. Guy or girl because we know some ladies that But like, I mean, it's one person and you and you you see them and if they're really doing it, I mean, look I remember you when that when that was hanging over your stuff, right? Yeah. I mean, and I would do the right way. I didn't have it all figured out. Right? Yeah. But you even then I did the best that I could. You ran ragged. Oh, man. That was war. I mean, I remember stories and and seeing and being involved in things where you just didn't sleep. No. But you were up all night. You were dealing with trying to get resources in and and people to get kids taken care of that you knew were going through so challenging, and then you would have events the next morning in the school, and and it just never stopped. And it was it wasn't just Monday through Friday, you know. No. It was weekends, holidays, you name it. I mean And the phone rang all Non stop. At a time. Non stop. Right? And it was never I mean, how many meetings did you did you and I have? I was a vendor. It come back in. You're in that position. I gotta go. And you literally goes off, and everybody in the room that we're having me with is, like, I'm a I'm out. And it's, like, okay, well I guess this is over, right? Well, it's different too and I think that, you know, speaking from experience, you know, I'll be the first one to tell you. If people think that, I mean, coming from my background with the Secret Service, very preventative, very proactive, I truly feel like guys like me are best positioned for these particular types of jobs because we've worked in that preventative field for a very long time. But even I will tell you that when I got there, k twelve whooped my tail. I mean, I it you know, I come from an environment where it was like you ask someone to do something or you give them essentially a directive. And they go and do it. And they do it. And they do it. K-twelve is not that way. Right. We are not dealing with the same people. Now we're dealing with some very intelligent and very much needed people. Listen, you can never replace a teacher that mold America or even administrators, but you're dealing with a different animal, man. And I love watching. I know of a guy right now that retired recently from the Secret Service, and he thinks he's got it all figured out. And it's like, dude, I've been there. I've done that. Just wait. You're gonna learn, and you don't wanna listen to me, but you're gonna get eaten up. Yeah. You're going to get completely eaten up. And it's like, okay, well, you don't wanna listen, I tried to tell you, but it's okay, it is what it is, you know? You'll learn, but You know, I think that, this is a perfect segue here. Definitely we have a lot more to talk about. Oh, yeah. You know, I think there's as we talk about, I think all things in life, there's gotta be a middle ground. Right? I mean, everything in America is so decisive. There's there's this the pendulum swing on either end and and I think Mesquite was was a a perfect example of that where, you know, we had Eovalia on the side and we had, you know, the Mesquite bill on the other side. There's, we've gotta find some middle ground. Right? And I I think that it can be and, you know an ounce of prevention is worth pound of flesh. Yeah, yeah. It's you know this whole Mesquite thing I mean, you know listen, people are probably gonna watch this and go, man he's Monday morning quarterback and yeah, I mean essentially yes, but that's what we're supposed to do, is let's break this down, let's figure out how to do it. It's talking about in general what else can be done, right? Well, I just think that different tactics could have been done. I mean, it was typical police tactics, It's not the same. It's like I was on LinkedIn, I talked about that, that after the report came out that nineteen shots were fired, nobody was hit. You know, my questions were how many other people were put in harm's way by their actions? Right. You know? Yeah. What type of traumatizing effect did that have on the campus? Yep. Could that distance have been closed from the breach of the door to the couch where the gun was on the ground. And if they had done that, would he even have reached for the gun? Because I truly believe that that kid didn't wanna hurt anybody that day. Right. Because if he did he wouldn't have gone to the office. Yeah. Or he wouldn't have sought that that assistance. He would have just walked in like the Santa Fe shooter and just started killing people. Right. Right? For sure. But, we can we can break that down another day, right? This whole Santa Fe deal, but I just feel it could have been handled differently. That's one person's perspective. But the bigger point I wanna make is that k twelve is different. You have to treat it different. It's not a law enforcement environment. It was never designed to be a law enforcement environment. And it's, like I said, the perfect example of what I'm trying to articulate is that until the cops got there, that administrator had that kid under control. Correct. What dynamic shift happened? Well, and there was a there's always a level of trust and respect and everything else that had already been established. Yeah. But again, prevention. Let's get to that point. Let's let's let's don't even let it get to this level. That's really what this is about. That's really what our passion's about. Yeah. That's really what we're trying to change is so that we don't have another Mesquite. Not because of the training of the officers or the situation. Let's just not get kids to that level. Right? Well, like I said, I mean, they got there quick. They got on it. They did what they were they did what they were trained to do. I have no criticism of that. What happened in the in between is where I think maybe we need to have further conversations. I would love to have a couple of those guys on. I know they probably wouldn't, but I'd love to have them on. Just be like, hey what led you to find out what's going on with the kid? Yeah. You know what led you to not to decide to not close that gap? And and being former law enforcement, what I believe that it truly was is that in law enforcement training, yes, there's a certain level of vocal de escalation, but officers see that gun and they become polarized by it. It's like dude, just close the gap, man. Like and I know some people will say well listen we want to let that person make that decision on how they get handled, right? Like it's going to be up to them to decide I disagree. In some cases, yes, right? But in this particular case, violence of action or even just an assertive movement towards him, I think that that kid would have surrendered. I really think he would have surrendered. But like you, I'm like you. I wanna know what was going on in that kid's head. Because that's really the key too, is what was going on with that kid at the time? Who knew, right? And who knew about it? Yeah, who knew about it? Well, we know, mean look at the two thousand and eight bystander study from the Secret Service and the National Threat Assessment Center. You know, over eighty something percent of the cases from ninety nine, which was column nine, to two thousand and eight, there was always at least two people who knew, right? Yep. That number has now increased. Yep. Over ninety percent of the cases someone knows about it. Yeah, and and reality is everything is more social and mobile and texting and group chats and Oh, yeah. And the kids are just more and more social and makes more and more people aware of what's going on with somebody. Right. So, we we could talk about this all day. Yeah. We could. Alright. More to come. Right? Yeah. We're gonna keep pumping these out and getting more content out. What are gonna be some of the the next ones we're gonna talk about. We we have that's actually probably the hardest thing Yeah. Is what do we talk about next? There has been so much going on from from legislation to, you know, technology to, to actual events. I would say we have a wealth of things to talk about. It's just getting the timing. I think we're gonna talk about Santa Fe some more because I'm passionate about it. I think we're gonna talk about now that we're we're no longer the Secure Ed podcast, we feel that we can provide, not only amongst the two of us, but also within our network, a group of professionals throughout the nation and in the industry that talks about security as a whole. And so we've changed the name from Secured to Secured. It was always Secured. Secured. Well, it was always Secured, but there was an emphasis on education because we're just passionate about it. Well, I think we're still educating people, Right? It's just not specific to, in the education space. True. I think that, you know, I think the reason why we've been successful at what we do is about finding that middle of the road, being able to sniff out things and being able to, like, yeah, this doesn't work. Well, and talk about the things that no one wants to talk about. I think that's the difference. Right? And, you know, sometimes, you know, people come out with products or solutions or methodology that, just need to be called out, right? That they don't work. The one that I got in my inbox this week, I wanna say the vein so bad, but I'm not gonna do that. Yeah. It's not worth it. No. But what I would tell you, listen to me, if you're a director of security, corporate security director, K-twelve, university, you have us. You have my team, which we collectively have thirty consultants in fifteen states now. Mike's team who is the one of the largest privately held security companies in the state of Texas. Before you buy something, call us. We will provide some assistance and guidance to you that will make sense and will give you reasons why you should or maybe you shouldn't or maybe yeah that's a good idea but let's think about this before you do that. Right? So that would be our plea to you is this don't just go hastily buying something because you see everybody else doing it. Well, and I mean you see the projects that we have done where we've been able to sit down with a team of a corporate security, and maybe it's a board, maybe it's a a dedicated, security team, and actually systematically walk through, you know, the the holes in their security fabric, right, as a whole, as a company, and then put together a plan Mhmm. And then execute in in how we've been able to change the culture and climate and how much more difficult those facilities are. How much more aware everybody in the organization is of what's going on. Mhmm. How they have more data at their fingertips, getting rid of pen and paper, putting everything in there, being able to make systems work together. And when you see that all happen, how much different the security posture is. Yeah. It's just It's so much more comfortable. And, and and, you know, when you start talking about, you know, a lot of these corporate facilities and you put a a dollar sign next to that facility, whether that's a manufacturing facility, whether that's a corporate office, whether that's a a refinery, critical infrastructure, you know, any of those types of things. If that facility goes down, or if there was an event to happen in this corporate office, what is the business interruption? What's the dollars associated with that? And we start having those kinds of conversations that they're meaningful, they're impactful, and and you can get people on board to to really start working on a systematic approach of how to fix things and go, we're gonna tackle this first here here here, and here's why. And and working as a team you know we've done that quite a bit and it's Well I think the hardest thing for me is this that individuals that recognize that they're not qualified to make the decisions, they hire us, and then they wanna be adversarial when we give them, you know, we wanna we give them advice, and then they're like, I don't like that. That that news is hard to swallow sometimes. Well, I I know you don't like it, but, this is the reality. Right? Yeah. You know, when you're when you're taking pictures of, you know, sitting in the CEO's office or, you know, in the main server room or You're you're eating lunch with, with their employees for three hours and you're Well, right. I mean, there's a lot of lot of different things or, you know, you Those are all real scenarios. You go through, you know, some high security, you know, facility and you're next to, you know, a tank of some really nasty vehicle and you're sitting there taking selfies. And and that goes into a report. And it's like, how did you get in here? Well, this these are the things that we need to fix. Right? And so our our you know, when we when we work with organizations, many times, they have an implied sense of security that they feel is like a eight out of a ten. That's really about a two. Right. And so then when they actually get that, it opens up a lot of eyes. Yeah. And so it's either it's well received with open arms and we found and and we can make great strides and things can be changed, or they go through a rough patch. And and and sometimes they come back and and and things happen, but, you know, maybe that's a a changing of the guard or something happens. But, I think, I think it's, you know, exciting what we do. And, you know, this podcast, these other companies, other products that we're developing and building, the board that you're on, that's about changing the status quo as a whole Right. Making a difference. So, you know, I hope to be holding or having podcasts and talking about data of prevented situations. Sure would be nice, wouldn't it? Yes. You know, that's that's something that's not measured It isn't. Very often. Right. You know, when I was at Texas City ISD, I can recall close to a dozen suicide saves. Yeah. You know, and I think, here's the other thing, this is this is a direct plea to anybody who's in this space. You can't just be the executive director of security for your school district, you know, between seven thirty and three thirty, you have to be twenty fourseven. Yes. And I think that was, honestly, I think that was hard for a lot of people to to swallow because that's who I am. Well, and it if you don't we also have to have a quality of life, which comes back to you have to have the staff to where you can Right. You can operate because so much intel is collected after nine PM. Yeah. Sure. Right. I mean, I can recall being out twelve, one, two, four AM, looking for kids. You know why? Because the police, you know, we had a couple kids that were runaways, some of them that got caught up literally in sex trafficking, we found them. Right. You know, with with my investigative skill that I learned from the service and the network that I had, we found them. Right. Parents had gone to local law enforcement like, oh, they hadn't been gone for long enough. You know, a, you know, there's they're not an imminent danger. They they're just a runaway. Right. They may be a runaway, but what we're telling you is that we know the people that they're associated with, and these are people that are associated with this criminal element and what what my predictions were in this one particular case, it's in my it was actual it was an actual sex trafficking ring. Sure. And the the thirteen year old child got caught up in a sex trafficking ring. Let me tell you how disgusting these people were. These individuals took this mother's credit card and they utilized her credit card to book the room that they used to sexually assault her child. Yep. I found them based upon the mother's credit card information. The police did not get involved until we had located them. Yeah. Why did it take an executive director of security for a school to do that? You know, we've gotta get better. This is not a eight hour job. This is a four hour job. That's not even a K-twelve twelve hour job. You really get back. This is a law enforcement issue, right? It was a law enforcement issue. Yeah. But the thing is, is that there's policies and procedures. It takes that fortitude. It takes it takes someone willing to put in that work like like I was back then. And this child's father was a staunch, enemy of mine. Yeah. And I showed him where my heart was and and we're friends to this day because he realized like, okay, this guy, okay, he was he's a real deal. Like, he he really cares. Right. You know? But that's what I'm saying. It can't be, hey, I'm just on from seven thirty to five. You have to, like Mike said, find that work life balance, but you have to be willing to go out at one, two o'clock in the morning when a kid's got a cry out for help through your anonymous reporting tool. Show up. Don't just call the police and let the police handle it. Show up. Let them know that someone cares because what you've done is you've now created an advocate for that kid to see at school. It it it's about building a team because, unfortunately, so many times we saw over and over and over and over again that it doesn't matter how big the district is. This is often on one person's Yeah. I agree. That is unacceptable. We were an anomaly. You were, but Yeah. Think about how hard you had Oh, man. If I to get an additional brain around was a behavioral threat management analyst. Someone that could work on my team that could just all they were doing was breaking down behaviors so that we could identify kids in crisis because I did not have the bandwidth or capacity to do it. I was doing everything that I could with the great team that I had. I mean, we had a fantastic team. You did, but you had to fight for those positions. We did. Right? And so, unfortunately, there's so many so many organizations that we've gone into that it all rests on one person's shoulder. Well, and now that I'm gone And is that realistic? Well, now that I'm gone, that district has pretty much completely diluted my whole division. Alright. They shut they shut it down. Yeah. That's a small district. They shut it down. Yeah. And it's it's because they don't understand and it's because certain individuals at that district think that their PhD, you know, compensates for the lack of experience that I have. And you know what? It it's that get out of your head. If you're a superintendent, if you're, in the k twelve space and you've never done what I've done, I would never tell you how to teach a kid how to educate an entire district. Don't tell me how to protect people. And so if you wanna get a good relationship built with your your safety and security director, get out of their way. Absolutely get out of their way. Let them do their job within reason, obviously, but let them do their job. You hire them to be a professional, just like you hire a special education specialist. Right. You hire a curriculum specialist. This person is a specialist. Superintendents, you are not. I'm sorry, but you are not. Let them do their job.