Ep 76: The Price Of Prevention
Episode 76
Published Apr 15, 2024
Last updated Apr 23, 2026
Duration: 31:59
Episode Summary
When looking to improve your security situation, how do you decide which tool is right for you?
Episode Notes
How do you know what products will help solve your problems? When talking to security consultants how do you know what is right for you and your situation? How do you apply the right tool to the right environment? In today’s episode Bill Godfrey, Adam Pendley, and Billy Perry tackle these questions and more.
View this episode on YouTube at https://youtu.be/Db5FD8Sy05o
Transcript
Bill Godfrey:We often get questions from school leaders, church administrators, business leaders, what can we do to improve our security situation at our location? What are the things that we can buy? What are the tools that we can do? That is today's topic. Stick around.
Welcome to the "Active Shooter Incident Management" podcast. My name is Bill Godfrey, your podcast host. I am being rejoined by Adam Pendley and Billy Perry, two of my favorite instructors here at the C3 crew. Welcome back guys.
Adam Pendley:
Thank you. I guess you say that to all the instructors.
Billy Perry:
Hey. Thank you.
Bill Godfrey:
I do, I do. You're my favorites today.
Adam Pendley:
Oh, very good.
Bill Godfrey:
You're my favorites today.
Billy Perry:
I'll take it.
Bill Godfrey:
I'll take it. Exactly. That's an easy win.
So we were wrapping up another podcast, Adam, with Billy, where we were talking about school safety and school preparedness specifically, and we kind of started to drift into the topic of what do you do when these vendors all start approaching you with, I've got the perfect solution to make your campus safer to, and whether that campus is a school, a church, a business is really immaterial. How do you know when it's snake oil and when it's actually something that's going to be usable, and that's kind of what I want to talk about today. Not any specific product, but just how do you vet 'em? How do you get to the bottom of whether they're legit, or whether it's a hard pass and, you know, move on with your money to something else? Adam, you wanna start us off?
Adam Pendley:
Sure. I mean, this actually reminds me of a conversation we had some time ago about, if you were a city manager, what are some questions you would want to ask your fire chief and some questions you may want to ask your police chief about their active shooter incident management preparedness. And I think we can approach this in the same way.
And one of the very first questions I would ask that you need to be asking now is, what are the problems you're trying to solve? That's my very first question. Before you even look at products or go to a conference and look at the vendor area, think about what are your current issues that you wanna solve? What are your objectives?
Bill Godfrey:
Some examples.
Adam Pendley:
So is access actually an issue, or is access not going to be the problem in the structure of your school? Is post investigation your more important problem? Is that the objective? Is it the response phase? Like getting responders in quicker and getting them access to keys or cameras or things like that? So I think you have to identify what is the objective or what is the problem you're trying to solve. At least I would try to do that before I would speak to any equipment provider.
Bill Godfrey:
Sure. Now, Billy, you mentioned that you get phone calls--
Billy Perry:
I do.
Bill Godfrey:
Nearly every day from somebody that's got the latest, greatest widget to sell to your school. What are I, have you got a list of standard questions you go through now?
Billy Perry:
I do. Much like Adam, we are simpatico, I vet them initially with, knowing, I say, What are you trying to solve for me? I ask them, I literally say, What is it you're trying to do for me? What is it you think I do? What is it you think I need? What is your background? What is your experience? And why is this an issue that I have a need for?
And one of the things, like Adam says, it is imperative that you explain to your school administrators, depending on what your role is, what their challenges are when it comes to an active shooter, active threat intruder. Same thing with a church. It doesn't change. It doesn't change. And finding out what they want your response to be, because we say it all the time, you've heard me say it hundreds of times, you can't rationalize with irrational people, you can't reason with an unreasonable person and you can't barricade out evil. And an inconvenient truth that we have to realize is that violence does solve problems sometimes. And you have to have people that are willing to do that and to intervene violently on the behalf.
And it has become a huge industry and people are popping up and making companies, I've got a school security company. Great. What do you do? I was a SWAT guy. Okay, well, and that's awesome, and I'm proud of you, me too, from a major metropolitan area. What does it take to become a, to form a SWAT team? You're a fire chief. Do you know what it takes to form a SWAT team?
Bill Godfrey:
Are we talking about a legit team that actually meets the NTOA standards, or are we talking about somebody that calls themselves a SWAT team?
Billy Perry:
Either Because you know, by that answer, what does it take just for somebody to call themselves a SWAT team?
Bill Godfrey:
I don't think it's regulated.
Billy Perry:
They just call themselves a SWAT team. So you can just say, I'm a SWAT guy, and you really were, but what were you and how much operational experience did you have? And when did you have operational experience? Did you have at seven presidential administrations ago? You know, did you have, you know, and how many did you have? 'Cause things change. We talked about it in a previous webcast, how tactics, techniques and principles change. And that has changed a lot. And people come along and we have become so technologically dependent.
I think in the, I think you'll agree, in the law enforcement arena, we are so technologically dependent on tasers and everything else. And what's the failure rate of tasers now? Do you know, Adam?
Adam Pendley:
I don't know.
Billy Perry:
It's about 80%.
Bill Godfrey:
Failure to stop the behavior?
Billy Perry:
Failure to stop the behavior--
Bill Godfrey:
Not the device fails.
Billy Perry:
Failure to correct the behavior.
Bill Godfrey:
Okay. Yeah.
Billy Perry:
Or to bring a cessation to whatever
Bill Godfrey:
I just don't want legal action from Taser, that's all.
Billy Perry:
I don't either.
But you know, we become so technologically dependent. And the same thing when people come along and they literally tell me, virtually multiple times a week, I have the solution for the problem you need.
Bill Godfrey:
I've got the solution.
Billy Perry:
I've got it. I know everything about school security. That piques my interest, you know, and I play with them. And I do. And you know, I hit him with a "Game of Thrones" reference, firstly, We choose violence, and
Bill Godfrey:
Wow, digging on that one.
Billy Perry:
Yeah, so.
Bill Godfrey:
Last time it was the Romulans, now it's "Game of Thrones."
Billy Perry:
There you go. And I'm like, you know, I'm a sales--
Bill Godfrey:
I love the Star Wars references.
Billy Perry:
I'm a sellsword for little kids. But I think at the end of the day, you know, I had one just this week, you know, we have a product that tells you what kinda weapon they have if they've got it in their hand, I'm like, Why do I need that? I don't care if they show up with a Golden Boy .22, or if they have an AR, we are going to violently interact with them and shoot them. The end. That's what my team's gonna do.
And I think, you know, you bring this false sense of security and like we, my crew, we don't sit and stare at cameras all day. We're interacting and we're waiting, and you know, we have solid tactics. And I think, but the biggest thing is, what's your background? What are you trying to sell me? Why do I need it? And what's your, and your background is multifaceted. That's a rabbit hole.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, so let's take this back a step.
Adam Pendley:
Sure.
Bill Godfrey:
You're a school administrator, leader at a church, business, whatever the case may be, you've got no law enforcement background, no security background. You don't even really know where to start. So let's start with, how do you know if a security consultant that you're talking to is a legit security consultant that can actually provide you good advice or is somebody that's hung the label on themselves and called themselves a security consultant? Adam, what are the kinds of things that you would look for?
Adam Pendley:
I would wanna see if whatever solution they're presenting has been implemented elsewhere. Has it been tested successful? Whether in a real world event or, you know, through training and exercise and validation. I think a solution has to be validated in some way. And it's more than just references or reviews on a social media site. I think, those are real conversations you would have to have with others who have implemented the product.
But if I were calling someone else for a reference, I would ask them the same thing. I was like, what problem were you trying to solve, and did this particular solution work for that problem?
And I think, you know, in fairness to all security vendors of various sorts, every product has a purpose and a use. It's just a matter of applying the right tool to the right environment or the right circumstance. And not all tools are gonna be the solution for every problem.
So I think validating what you're looking at is, I think, a step that you want to take. And that just is gonna take conversations with other people and doing a little bit of research and reaching out to those that have experience in this world, you know, of responding to a violent event.
Bill Godfrey:
Makes perfect sense. Billy, you've been asked by your church leader, your pastor, to, he wants to get a security consultant that can kind of put together a plan for them. What are the questions that you would tell him to ask to vet the person that's gonna help put a plan together?
Billy Perry:
Again, I would wanna know what your background is, what your training is, what your experience is, your actual real world operational experience is. And they may not all correlate. Like you may be a dev group guy, but what does that have to do with doing something at a school? You know, and you may be an executive protection guy, but what does that have to do? You know what I mean? So I mean, I think you need to realize what your whole is and ask 'em what their actual real world background is, what their actual operational experience is.
And like Adam was alluding to, we have a three-prong process: Traceable. Where did this technique come from? Is it repeatable? Can we do it over and over and over again? And has it been vetted? I want it to be vetted a couple of times in a real world operation, if not hundreds of times in training. You know, something like the Texas Tech stuff that was done, the studies that were done there with movement in a room, remember? And I think that's what you want to know, is you wanna know who's used this, what's happened, what's your background? Why do you think this is a problem? Why do you think this would work?
Like, for instance, as an example, the detection equipment, the detection or barricade equipment. The internet is replete with examples of shooters that have shot their way into buildings through barricades. They have walked through and around detectors. If you're coming to kill children, do you really think that's going to thwart you directly?
And I think for the, you know, selling the big scary thing initially, again, that's not effective long term, 'cause you yourself said, the studies, the data shows, 'cause one thing, you can have an opinion. The data is the data, you know, and I think, you know, the facts don't care about our feelings. And I think that this is what is really required to stop the killing of innocent lives, is that. Would you agree?
Adam Pendley:
Sure, and what I'm, to extend on what you're saying is, what you don't want is a vendor or a security consultant that says, If you put these physical security measures in place, that everything's gonna be okay. It's multiple layers. And at the end of the day, one big question to ask is if the shooter is able to bypass any of those features, what then? Right?
And that's why having, knowing what's going to happen when the act of shooting or the act of violence happens anyway. A lot of times the threat comes from the inside. So somebody already has access physically to the place and they're already inside, and then the shooting starts.So having to understand that you are going to still need a human to intervene and stop that threat and then follow the process of dealing with a threat, having measures in place to begin rescuing of those that are injured and what happens afterwards.
So I think what we're really driving at in this conversation is all these layers of tools that are out there, products that are available are good and they all have a place, but we have to think in layers, and we still have to think in the training and preparing for the what-if when those things are bypassed.
Billy Perry:
And to expound on what you're saying, I couldn't agree more fences, barriers, they have a place, however, they're like tracers. They work both ways. And are you creating a fishbowl where my five and six year olds can't get out, when we teach 'em, run, hide, and fight, well, now you're compounding 'em into a corner, into a fence, and they can't climb it. Does that make sense? My 59-year-old self with Parkinson's can scale a fence still. And you know, but my five and six year olds can't.
Now should we have some fences? Of course, sure, without a question. But I think knowing where we have it and where we need it is huge, and that goes back to the question you're asking, What's your experience, and are you a student of current events? Cause history does repeat itself and they all have commonalities as you know, teaching this. And I think knowing again, what the probabilities are, not the possibilities.
Bill Godfrey:
And I think putting my hat on on that, my advice to 'em would be, you guys both went there, is what are their experience? But I would get more specific and I would say, look, you may be talking to somebody that used to be an FBI agent, but what did they do? Were they were responsible for preparing infrastructure plans? Were they responsible for physical security of buildings and campuses?
Billy Perry:
Or did they investigate accountants?
Bill Godfrey:
So for example, Secret Service. So everybody thinks about Secret Service as protecting the president, and I get that, but most of the Secret Service is about pre-planning risks and eliminating risk. They are experts in looking at venues and potential targets and saying, okay, how can we shift the risk more towards our side to harden the target, to be a little bit of a deterrence, to have a physical presence. And so I think asking those questions, so for example, you could, we have a lot of military veterans and very valuable people and valuable experience. But a military veteran whose responsibility was securing the base in a war zone is going to have a set of skills that's very different from a cop that worked a beat.And I think those are the kinds of specific questions when you drill down into what their background is. You've hit on what have you done already.
But I think the one that I would add is this: In the phone call or the conversation or the meeting where they're trying to sell themselves, so before you've engaged them, I would say, okay, if I told you that all I have is $20,000 to budget towards making us a little bit safer, where would you recommend that I spend that? Give them constraints and give them a hypothetical, and if they roll their eyes and go, well, you can't do anything at $20,000, you say, okay, you know, appreciate your feedback. Thanks for coming in and you go onto the next one. Because there are things that you can do. There's things that you can do that are not, that you can do at no cost.
So I think separating the ones that can be truly helpful from the ones that will give you a plan on paper that may or may not be worth the cost of the paper, I think those are the ways I would look at vetting those people who I'm asking to plan. And if you can't give me some idea of what you would do for a very limited budget, then you're not creative enough or not experienced enough to give me any of those kinds of suggestions, and I think that would be a red flag for me.
Billy Perry:
And I'm sorry.
Adam Pendley:
Go ahead.
Billy Perry:
One of the things that I sold my administration on, and I didn't really have to sell it, I'm like, this is my position, this is what I think, one of the hallmarks of it is not turning our institution into a draconian prison. Having an open, happy, exciting secondary and post-secondary education experience.
Bill Godfrey:
Same for a house of worship.
Billy Perry:
Same for a house of worship. Still have people that are willing to do incredible violence on their behalf, you know, but controlled aggression, ready, unabashed, unapologetic, unflinching
Bill Godfrey:
To stop behavior.
Billy Perry:
To stop behavior, to stop their behavior, but still having a free and open environment and not turn it into a draconian prison.
Bill Godfrey:
Sure.
Billy Perry:
Cause who wants to do that?
Adam Pendley:
Yeah, and to extend on that also, by giving them a a hypothetical, you're forcing them to reveal what their priorities are and what the priorities of protection are, the priorities of life. You know, that hey, if it, the priority should be, we need to make, even if it's just incrementally, we need to help you put together a plan that makes your campus, whatever kind of campus it is a little bit safer. And if we can get to the tool that I'm offering, great. If not, here's some other things. And that proves, I think, proves that they're an expert, first of all, and secondly, it proves that they have their priorities right, that we're really here to just help you be better.
And I think, you know, we recently, I think together, we recently watched a video, some training on the idea that that's kind of where some sales folks go wrong, is that they need to believe that you're actually helping someone. If you don't believe you're actually helping them, then you shouldn't be trying to sell them anything.
Bill Godfrey:
Amen, it's not a do you believe, it's how much do you believe? How much are you invested in, Adam, you made me think of one more that I would add into the pile in terms of asking a consultant who's gonna prepare a plan for you, or at least give you the guidance 'cause you don't know, that they're agnostic, they're vendor-agnostic. They are not tied to any one particular vendor or particular suite of products from a specific vendor, but rather are perfectly comfortable recommending a myriad of solutions from different vendors at different sites.
Okay, so that's how do you get a plan, you get some help. Let me ask you this before we leave that topic. Most law enforcement organizations that I'm aware of, they want to be supportive of their local community. But when they're asked to help them prepare those kinds of plans there's a little bit of reluctance because of perceived liability. Do you think that that is a real issue that we see in the US with the law enforcement agency that is responsible for that church, responsible for that school, responsible for that business? They kind of want to help, but they're afraid to put their name on it.
Billy Perry:
I think it could be. I think that's a multi, you're opening up a box there, because I think, and he's laughing, so I think, you know, most of the time when we bandy the word, liability, about, it's not true. And I tell people all the time, I say this weekly, I'm like, pull out your Google machine and Google the last time somebody was successfully litigated for that and go, because I'm gonna save you some time. It ends up with never, and it's zero.
And I think we do feel that way. I think they are afraid of that, A, and I think that's also an excuse that they use, because again, all firefighters are not the same. All police officers are not the same. And they all have different tools in their toolbox. And a regular EMS guy does not know hazmat like a hazmat person, and a hazmat person doesn't know EMS like an EMS person. And CPTED, security through environmental protection and design is, everybody doesn't know that as a police officer. And so even if you send out a patrolman, he may be an ace at writing crashes or whatever else, but doesn't know anything about physical security.
Bill Godfrey:
They need to have some training for it.
Billy Perry:
They need to have, right, and some experience, you know?
Adam Pendley:
But also I would say you bring in your police, fire, and EMS folks and have a conversation with them. They may very well, without trying to bash a particular security solution, they might from just experience say, well, you know, it's really good that you have this tool, but we really wouldn't use that because here's what we would do when we respond to the scene. And I think that type of advice is free. And I think most agencies would offer it. And especially if you offer it objectively, and again, we talked about this at a previous conversation about what really is going to happen when law enforcement arrives on the scene to respond to an active shooter or some other type of violent event? What does that really look like? And some of the tools and equipment that you're putting in place might be folly, right? It might not actually do anything to assist in the response.
Same thing on the fire and EMS side. There are some tools that have come out that are really, really good. I think Stop the Bleed kits have a great place, or a great innovation, but there's other things that folks might do that actually might hinder your response, right? So having those conversations, just like integrated training, bringing in the people that are gonna be responsible for responding to your location and getting some input is gonna be vital, 'cause then, otherwise, you're only getting one side of the story.
Billy Perry:
One of the questions that I ask vendors when they contact me is I say, Give me an example where this, where you intervened in a violent encounter with this product and it worked, and don't tell me you can't measure it. Tell me when you used it to intervene in a violent encounter. Go.
Bill Godfrey:
So I think I'm gonna move us a little bit further along. You're one of these leaders trying to get some help. So you got nowhere to start. I think you get somebody that's an expert, you ask 'em the right questions and you've vet 'em. And then I think you break it down into the functional areas. So there's the deterrence prevention.
Billy Perry:
Right.
Bill Godfrey:
There's response, and then there's the recovery or the aftermath. And I think you should be, if you're going to engage somebody to help you put together some recommendations and a plan, they should cover all of those areas. And your local response community should be involved. as much as you can get them to be involved.
Adam Pendley:
Agreed.
Bill Godfrey:
The person who's helping you should give you prioritization of those recommendations so that, if your budget is limited, you can kind of pick and choose. I mean, the really good ones will say, this is how much this deters risk versus this is how much this costs. And when you put it on a grid like that, it jumps out really quickly at you. This has a huge impact on the risk. This really lowers the risk, but it's really expensive. This really lowers the risk and it's cheap. And so it lets you kind of prioritize where you're going on the budget.
And I think a part of that is training your audience, whether it's kids and teachers, whether it's your parishioners, your church leadership team, whether it is the employees at your company, that part of that deterrence and prevention is the awareness.
You both mentioned the tendency to insider jobs. Agreed. There's usually warning signs and sometimes they are quite subtle. What are our plans to pick up and report those warning signs so that we can act on 'em? In the case of a workplace, we have an employee that is going to be discharged, they're gonna be fired, or they've been fired and they made threats. How does that impact our posture? What do we do differently? And I think all of that is part of that prevention piece.
And then in the response piece, it's not just the public safety response, but it's also how are the people who are now subjected to that attack, the hostages or the bystanders, how are they gonna respond? What are the things, if any, that they can do? You know, we talk about run, hide, fight. It's a great soundbite, but what does each thing mean?
Billy Perry:
Right.
Bill Godfrey:
What does that look like?
Billy Perry:
What does it look like?
Bill Godfrey:
What does it look like?
Billy Perry:
What does running look like?
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, when's it appropriate? When's it not appropriate? What am I looking for for cover, all those kinds of things.
Billy Perry:
Fishbowl again.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, stop the bleed. Great. Do you actually understand how to pack a wound or how to put on a bandage? Do you know how to use a tourniquet? Do you know how to put a tourniquet on? Do you understand it's gonna be painful and they're gonna scream like bloody, you know what?
Billy Perry:
And beg you to take it off.
Bill Godfrey:
And beg you to take it off, yeah. The response piece. And then of course the recovery and the aftermath.
You know, one of the things that I have seen routinely, and Billy, I don't know if you've experienced this, but when I was, my daughter also attended a private school and as I worked with them to improve and develop some of their plans, their administration assumed that their teachers and their staff would be able to manage the reunification and that they would be able to use their buses, which were in the parking lot of the facility that had been attacked. And I'm like, I got news for you. Those buses are now part of a crime scene. They're not moving. And your teachers and staff may have been injured, but they certainly have been personally engaged, and asking, some of them may be able to execute their job duties afterwards, but some of them are not gonna be in that head space. So what's your plan for another facility and for other staffing to help you out
Which led to them talking to other private schools that were in their affiliation, I guess, within their, however they get their sanctioning, that were nearby, and they worked out agreements to cover for each other--
Billy Perry:
The district, if you will.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, like a district approach, so they're not standing alone.
Billy Perry:
Right.
Bill Godfrey:
And I think if you have a plan, if you have a plan that looks at all of those things, then you have a template of what to work to. And it may take you three, five, seven years, but that's okay.
Billy Perry:
Agreed, but the challenge is that every principal headmaster has no idea about any of that. You're exactly right. And that's where they have to be insightful enough to get a security coordinator in that actually does know this and bring it up. And you're 100% right.
Adam Pendley:
And I think that frames the entire conversation is, to bring it back, and again, I sometimes, early on this, it felt like we're bashing vendors, which we're not--
Billy Perry:
Not at all.
Bill Godfrey:
Not at all.
Adam Pendley:
'Cause all of those solutions have a place. But unfortunately, sometimes we start with the cart and we forget about the horse. You know, like we we're looking at a solution before we even know what the problem is.
So everything you just said, Bill, I think is really what we're trying to emphasize in this conversation, is it's like any other type of incident management. What are your objectives? What are you trying to do? What is your strategy, and what are some tactics? And then what tools do you need to help make those tactics work? So just that process. So if your objective is we need to reunify students with parents after a violent event has occurred, well, what are your strategies for doing that, you know, and then let's pick one that that sounds, or one or two that sounds the most reasonable. And then what do we need to do to make that plan work?
Bill Godfrey:
That is precisely the point. And to tie that to the money, 'cause it's not the, there's very few vendor products I've seen that don't solve a problem and aren't good. I mean, they're very good. But unless you've got a billion dollars, you're gonna have to narrow down your choices 'cause you can't do everything. But everything you just talked about with the reunification and putting people back together, newsflash, that doesn't cost you money. It just costs some time. Some time for people to work on it.
Billy Perry:
And knowledge
Bill Godfrey:
And knowledge, you gotta do a little self-education. But all of that stuff is out there for free and I think becomes part of a good plan.
Billy Perry:
I agree.
Bill Godfrey:
So final thoughts on this one as we wrap up. Adam?
Adam Pendley:
Well, I am gonna try to make a joke. Tsunami awareness training is really, really good. You just need it in Ohio, right? So you have to determine what you need and then work towards that plan.
Bill Godfrey:
Billy.
Billy Perry:
The biggest bang for your buck. What works effectively, virtually, every time, and what is needed virtually every time, and what do you need to do to implement it effectively, professionally and adequately?
Bill Godfrey:
And I'm gonna piggyback those two things and tie 'em together. I think the plan should also look at, with the realistic expectations of what your budget is. This is our risk today and maybe we need to do something a little more aggressive to lower the risk while we put some of these other things in place and then we can back off on that expensive thing and we can make adjustments.
It doesn't have to be the same thing month over month. You may wanna start with a couple of key things that are temporary measures, and by temporary, that may be six months or a year, while you put other physical barriers, technology solutions to ease that burden a little bit. And I think all of those things are important as you're looking at it. But you're right. You know, your job is to run your business. Your job is to run your church. Your job is to educate kids. It's not to be an expert in target hardening and safety and security. So get you an expert, but ask 'em the right questions.
Adam Pendley:
Correct.
Bill Godfrey:
All right. Gentlemen, thank you very much for coming in to follow up and have this discussion. Shout out to our producer, Carla Torres, for putting this together. Please subscribe to the podcast if you've not done so already, whether you consume it on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts from. Please do like and subscribe the podcast and share it with those that you work with.
If you're, most of our audience is public safety and emergency responders. We also have our own houses of worship. We have kids that are in school. We have businesses and business friends that we interact with. Share those episodes and share those tips with them and see if we can make a difference. Until next time, stay safe.