Ep 86: Injured Hostage Equals Active Killing
Episode 86
Published Jun 24, 2024
Last updated Apr 23, 2026
Duration: 32:54
Episode Summary
The shooting has stopped but there are now injured people being held hostage. Is that still active killing? That’s the question we tackle in today’s podcast.
Episode Notes
Our goal in an active shooter event is to stop the killing and stop the dying. If the shooting has stopped, but there are injured individuals in need of medical care being held hostage, is that still active killing? Today, Bill Godfrey, Billy Perry and Pete Kelting discuss this sensitive topic. Without the benefit of hindsight, decisions must be based on the current situation and evaluated according to the Safety Priority Tactical Action Evaluation (c3.cm/life).
View this episode on YouTube at https://youtu.be/ijIyMojNzlA
Transcript
Bill Godfrey:In active shooter events, we talk about the driving force and the active killing. If you have an active shooter event that results in people who have been shot that are now being held hostage but the shooting has stopped, is that still active killing? That's today's topic. Stick around.
Welcome to the Active Shooter Incident Management podcast. My name is Bill Godfrey, your podcast host. Glad to have you joining us today. I am joined today by two of my good friends, Pete Kelting, on the law enforcement side, Pete, good to have you back in the studio.
Pete Kelting:
Thanks for having me here, Bill, it's a pleasure.
Bill Godfrey:
And Billy Perry back in the house, always fun.
Billy Perry:
Thanks for having me, I appreciate it, Bill.
Bill Godfrey:
Well, thank you for being had, Billy, I appreciate that.
Billy Perry:
I like it.
Bill Godfrey:
So as we talk about today's topic, little bit of a sensitive topic, so I wanna kind of frame this up very clearly, that the bulk of traditional active training, active shooter training, has discussed the idea of the driving force, the active killing, and we often have said when the active killing is over, when the active killing stops, when it's no longer active, what is the driving force then?
And we talk about the active threat, rescue, clear, as our priorities, and that's all simple enough. But what about the situation where an active shooter event, which has resulted in people who've been shot, who have been injured, turns into a hostage situation, potentially barricaded hostage-taking situation, and the suspect is denying access to those hostages who we believe are injured. We believe that they've been shot. We believe that they're in need of medical care. There's no more shooting. He's not actively shooting them, but they've been shot and he's denying them medical care. Does that meet the definition of active killing, and how do we rationalize that?
Billy Perry:
Absolutely, and we rationalize it because it is.
Bill Godfrey:
Tell me more.
Billy Perry:
Okay. And it's funny you bring this up, because this is one of my top frustrations in the active shooter community, because, like you said, for the agency that I was with for so long, we neutralized the target, set up SIM, security, immediate action, then did medical. You know, we can give rote answers, but when you would ask what constitutes a barricaded subject and what constitute still inactive, that was when you saw the hourglass appear in the forehead and start spinning, and had a hard time delineating it.
And it's actually pretty simple, and it's like you said, if there's still a forcible felony going on, if somebody is still bleeding, then it's still an active incident, denying them medical care, because you're killing them. The golden hour, which was a... When I started in law enforcement, I had no idea what that was, I don't even know if it existed. I mean, it obviously existed, but I don't know if it was called that, if it had a name yet. But I think we have to be able to reason through. And it is pretty simple, truthfully, and once you have the paradigm shift of realizing that it's dying, what is it that is said? Known bleeding doesn't stop for unknown threats,
Bill Godfrey:
Unknown threats.
Billy Perry:
And, you know, that's a beautiful, beautiful saying, and if they're still dying, 'cause our goal is to stop the killing, stop the dying, and if they're bleeding out, they're still being killed.
Bill Godfrey:
Pete, what are your thoughts?
Pete Kelting:
I agree completely with Billy. I think when we look at, in an active shooter response, an injured person has now become a hostage of that active shooter, that bad actor, and we tend to slow down, mainly, normally, because of some type of physical issue, right, in a barricaded room, or somewhere out of our sight, and so forth, that we may have lost our quick intelligence on that, but that doesn't mean that our immediate entry should be any slower. We should realize that if we're comfortable with that individual is hurt and bleeding out and potentially gonna die, that's the clock, that's the clock part of our process, the gun and the clock. We've gotta keep pushing forward. And we need to make that immediate entry and get medical care to that individual with that bad actor.
Bill Godfrey:
So you just said something I want to drill down on, and for the benefit of the audience, of course, the two of you are both seasoned, full-length career law enforcement guys, both did a tremendous amount of time on SWAT and in leadership roles, and my background is on the fire EMS side. Not all gunshot wounds are created equal.
Billy Perry:
Correct.
Bill Godfrey:
You know, a gunshot wound to the chest very different than a gunshot wound to the arm or to the foot. Does it matter, from your justification or legal perspective, or whatever you call it, use of force, or I don't even know what to call it in the law enforcement world, but does the nature of the injury matter? Does it matter how severely they've been injured to make that case that they're still actively killing? And the reason I ask that question is because it is very unlikely we're gonna know that.
Billy Perry:
That was gonna be my response, is I don't know, so no. I don't know how bad. I don't know if their ears have been pierced or if their scalp has been shot, you know what I mean,? I don't know, and so I'm... And leg wounds can be crazy fatal.
Bill Godfrey:
Oh, yes!
Billy Perry:
As, you know, you know, so can a shot up here in the brachial, you know, so for me, no, but that's something that I've already prepared, and war-gamed, and made decisions beforehand, and I understand, you know, based on training and experience, like you said, if they're shot, they're shot, and I'm gonna get them help as soon as possible.
Bill Godfrey:
Pete, what are your thoughts about that? Does the nature of the injury, severity of the injury, or potentially the number of injured, factor into it?
Pete Kelting:
I don't believe so. I'm right in line with Billy. I think the... You talked about immediate action plan, right? I mean, that training has to be talked about and trained with our first responders that are responding to active shooter events, right, not just a tactical team which has a little bit more time to do that, but we want that immediate response. If we get in, and we may have challenges on that immediate response, and we find that the wound was a lesser wound, and we're kinda like high five a good thing that wasn't a fatal injury.
Billy Perry:
Right. That's a plus.
Pete Kelting:
Right? It's a plus. It was a a lesser of a wound. But we don't know that. We need to treat every hostage that's injured, to the extent that we feel they've been shot, that we're gonna make that immediate entry to get them medical attention.
Bill Godfrey:
So let's assume for the moment that this active shooter scenario which is, you know, stalled, the guy's retreated someplace, has one or more hostages, we believe that they've been shot, at least one of them has been shot and injured, and there's some sort of barrier, whether it's a locked door,
Billy Perry:
Sure.
Bill Godfrey:
or, you know, whatever, some sort of barrier
Billy Perry:
Right.
Bill Godfrey:
You gotta make entry, but you don't have a SWAT team, in fact, you don't even have any SWAT trained officers on the team that's at the door. How high a risk is this for a typical patrol officer or a group of patrol officers to make that entry, execute the neutralization of the threat, without additional harm coming to the hostages?
Pete Kelting:
There's obviously that potential for the skillset that's at the door, and that's why you hear us harping and harping about training of that first responder that's on the ground,
Billy Perry:
Good training.
Pete Kelting:
Good training, and including that type of iteration in a scenario, I mean, a scenario and iteration for training, to where, still, they don't know what the injury is behind the door, we don't know really what the skillset of the officers there, but the bleeding's not worrying about what the skillset is,
Billy Perry:
Right.
Pete Kelting:
The injury's not worrying what the skillset is. We still have to be ready for that immediate action plan and recognize that we wanna make entry to get medical treatment to the individual that is most likely bleeding out.
Billy Perry:
A quick Google search will show skilled SWAT teams have had horrible things happen during a hostage rescue. So we already have somebody dying, so, and I taught two classes last week, and one of my oft-said things is we train like we're fighting rogue members of SEAL Team Six, but in all probability, we're fighting genetic disasters that live in their parents' garage, and so let's go in there and let's take out that person, and go in there and neutralize that and get medical help to the innocents.
Bill Godfrey:
So the reality of hindsight, it shouldn't be a factor. The decision-making process and the review of that should look at what was known at the time, but so often, what gets factored in is the criticism after the fact of, you know, the knowledge of hindsight, where the injury wasn't that severe
Billy Perry:
We still use, right, we still use Graham versus Connor for a reason, you know, which is without the benefit of 2020 hindsight, the clarity.
Bill Godfrey:
There you go. And I guess that's my next question. You force the entry, it doesn't go terribly well, maybe a responder gets killed, a hostage gets killed as a part of the gunfire exchange. The thing just goes horribly wrong, and the nature of the one person that was injured was a fairly, was not a life-threatening injury. Is that still defensible?
Billy Perry:
One hundred percent, hundred percent defensible.
Pete Kelting:
I would agree. I mean, the decision making for that you're putting out variables that still, again, are unknown on our side of the door. Now, I don't wanna just say, you know, recklessly, that we're pushing, you know, a ram into every door to get on the other side. You know, in an active shooter event, that's the whole purpose about being organized and about pushing information up as responders, you know, go throughout the building
Billy Perry:
Correct.
Pete Kelting:
And you have that situational awareness, and so you can make the... The confidence level that the individual is shot and has a potential to bleed out behind the door is at a high level of confidence that those officers at the door are posed with, and if that's the case, then they, that immediate action plan is to continue to make it through regardless of what their skillset is. I mean, you could talk about a skillset set at January on a range versus a skillset set at, you know, July on a range.
Billy Perry:
July.
Pete Kelting:
I mean, certainly, in training, we wanna have, you know, higher firearms-handling confidence in being able to take precision shots on a room entry. And then all that comes into play.
Billy Perry:
A hundred percent, and I think one of the things that it begs to encourage us to do, don't lose momentum in the first place, 'cause generally, that's what has happened in these. Again, a quick Google search. It's not that everything stopped and then we realized, that's generally not the case. The case is, generally, we lost momentum, and then we're sitting back in law enforcement, and is this barricaded, is it active? Is it barricaded? Is it active? And then you're trying to make decisions there, whereas if we had not ended up in that situation, then we wouldn't be in this situation.
Bill Godfrey:
Makes sense. Karla, can you go ahead and bring up the safety priority chart? So I wanna tangent us a little, over to the NTOA's, the National Tactical Officer Association, some years ago, published the safety priority that they put together, and about a year or so ago, we put together an infographic that goes with this to kind of explain it. And so for those of you that are listening to this on audio and not watching the YouTube version, by the way, this infographic is available on our website, at c3pathways.com, under Resources, and then Safety Priority. Again, c3pathways.com under Resources, and then Safety Priority.
But the idea here is, and I just kinda wanna explain this for the audience, both those that are watching on YouTube and those that are listening on the radio, is you've got this idea of a food chain, if you will. At the top of the food chain is the hostages, and while the graphic is showing a hostage, a single hostage, with tape over her mouth and a gun to her head, which, obviously, literal hostage, but I want you to also think of this as they're a hostage of the situation.
Billy Perry:
Correct.
Bill Godfrey:
They are unable to get out, they're unable to move on their own or do what they want to do, so they're a hostage of the situation. They're at the top of the food chain, at the top of the pyramid. Right below them is the innocents, the bystanders or the potential collateral damage. So for example, if you think of a school where you've got a hallway of rooms, and you've got a bad actor that's in one room, the people that are in that room with him are absolutely hostages in that room. The people that are in the rooms that are adjacent and across the hall are the innocents, the ones that could be affected by gunfire coming through the wall, bad actions,
Billy Perry:
Right.
Bill Godfrey:
Things like that. Then right below them is the responders, and then at the bottom of the food chain is the suspect. And the idea here is that you articulate what your plan is. And your plan may be to do nothing. A choice to do nothing is still a decision,
Billy Perry:
It's a plan.
Bill Godfrey:
and it's a plan. It may or may not be a good plan, but doing nothing is a plan. And you articulate that plan, and then you ask the question, who benefits and who suffers under my plan? So for example, a bunch of street cops that are gonna try to push in to a room with three barricaded suspects with automatic weapons, it is very likely that the responders are going to suffer, but if we don't push in, who benefits? The responders benefit, but do the hostages benefit?
Billy Perry:
No.
Bill Godfrey:
Do the innocents benefit?
Billy Perry:
No.
Bill Godfrey:
No, they all suffer. And so the idea here behind this safety priority tactical action evaluation that again, this was put together by NTOA, the National Tactical Officers Association, we just put a graphic together with it to kind of illustrate this, is that there is a priority in evaluating whether the tactical plan is benefiting the right group, in the right order, and in the right priorities.
So that said, let's take a look at this as a way of articulating a couple of different options. So let's go back to, we've got an active shooter, he stops shooting, barricades up, the indications are there's nobody else in this room with him. Do you go in or do you try to talk him out? What are the questions that come up in your mind in terms of that scenario? So let me stop there, 'cause I don't wanna lay out the whole thing. So you've got an active shooter, you got people that have been shot. This guy breaks contact, barricades up in a room,
Billy Perry:
By himself.
Bill Godfrey:
We believe by himself, there's no indication that he has anybody else with him in that room. What else do you wanna know as part of your consideration for this plan?
Billy Perry:
Can he see us? Can he shoot out? But I'm gonna be worried... That is the definition of a barricaded subject.
Pete Kelting:
Right, I mean, we wanna have a high level of confidence that there's not somebody in that room,
Billy Perry:
In that room.
Pete Kelting:
That's hiding. You know, we were saying that that bad actor's gone in the room and we believe that he or she is by himself. You know, Billy made... That word momentum, you know, just resonates. It's like you're at the door, idling. I don't wanna lose that momentum, so get me as much intelligence as quickly as possible. You know, was the room empty, stuff like that. We're probably not gonna push that envelope at that point in time, because then if we can contain that bad actor in that area, then we can put a little more priority to things that are going on behind us with, you know, getting RTF down range a lot quicker and stuff like that.
Billy Perry:
If we can hold him in there. Right.
Bill Godfrey:
All right let me sweeten the pot a little bit. So he doesn't have anybody in the room with him, but he does have the ability to partially see what's going on outside, and he has the ability to shoot at you, and some of your injured are exposed and in range to that area. So there's no hostages, per se, in the room with him. Would you call the injured that are unable to self evacuate, that are in, they're exposed to his potential to start shooting again, in your mind, looking at the safety priority, are they innocent or are they hostages, or does it matter?
Billy Perry:
Yeah, I was about to say, I don't really think it matters. I think they could be hostages, by that definition, but I think you gotta go back to Murphy's laws of combat. If the enemy can see you, you can see the enemy, or if you can see the enemy, the enemy can see you, and if the enemy's in range, so are you. Well, if we're in range, so is he, so I think, then, yes. I think they're injured, they're in imminent danger of serious bodily injury or death, the least ability to escape the situation or help themselves, by definition.
Bill Godfrey:
Okay. Pete, what do you think?
Pete Kelting:
I'd agree a hundred percent. I mean, we wanna stay on the offensive mode there, we wanna keep the momentum in our play. I mean, obviously, we're gonna make immediate plans to figure out how to best either shelter in place with fortifying, or get them out of there, especially if there's injured in that side, or if that bad actor can put rounds into their room,
Billy Perry:
And what he's shooting, what he's armed with.
Pete Kelting:
He's still active. Right.
Billy Perry:
You know, how we can move forward. I mean, there's a lot of variables there, but speed, surprise, and violence of action, it's an old term, but it's still very viable and still very valid. But again, the safety priority matrix, that's what we call it, is a great roadmap. We've dumbed it down.
Pete Kelting:
And I'm gonna try to not over-talk here, in this sense, to describe this, but just in my head, saying, is the command and the confidence of the teams that are faced with that down range, right, and all the information that's flowed back up to our tactical command and so forth, is that happening routinely as the event is unfolding? Is the timeliness of that there? Because what happens is if the team at the door doesn't realize that there's a room just behind them with, you know, folks in it, because the communication has failed, they may start taking their foot off the gas, or maybe making a decision that they don't realize is impacting them behind them. So it's a lot of variables there to make that quick, immediate decision when it comes to those priorities
Bill Godfrey:
All right, let me spin it a little differently. So again, guy's shot people, they're injured, but he retreats to a place that's removed from where the injured are, fairly isolated. He has a couple of fresh hostages no indication that any of them have been shot. He is not currently shooting, he's simply saying, "Don't come in," so he's trying to deny you access, but he's in a completely different part of the building. Let's say he's in a different wing of the building,
Billy Perry:
Okay.
Bill Godfrey:
Different wing of the building from where the injured are, so you can effectively execute a rescue of the injured without having this threat who's not active at the moment, but still a threat, without having him neutralized, and there's no indication that there's injured in the room with him, just very traditional hostage situation.
Billy Perry:
Then we're gonna hold him, we're gonna set up a perimeter and we're gonna do an emergency assault plan, and form an emergency assault team, and stand by while everybody else is tending to the other people.
Pete Kelting:
And I think our decision stopwatch is running a little bit quicker, because if that bad actor has already shot folks, then the propensity for him or her to shoot again, I think needs to be into play. It may differ than someone just grabbing a hostage, going in the room, and hasn't crossed a line of killing somebody already. You know that bad actor can pull the trigger already now, so again, it's variable, like Billy's saying, and we start gathering that intelligence and moving into that posture a little bit more.
Bill Godfrey:
How much is this safety priority matrix in the minds of law enforcement leaders, and I guess it wouldn't necessarily be the top
Billy Perry:
Agency dependent.
Bill Godfrey:
What's that?
Billy Perry:
Agency dependent.
Bill Godfrey:
Do the guys and gals on the street have a clear, the, let's say, sergeants and up, do they have a clear grasp on this kind of a decision-making process, or is that a potential gap for us?
Billy Perry:
I think sergeants and down have a lot of it, depending on the agency and who's training. That was one of the things that we pounded, we drove home a lot for the patrol training and for the areas there, was the safety priority matrix. 'Cause it's not just in this, it actually goes into almost everything we do in law enforcement. So, I think, depending on the agency, I think it does play a big role.
Pete Kelting:
I think discussing a little bit of the white elephant on the table here is the whole reason this safety priority matrix is in place is because we have had first responders that have sometimes, in some some light, failed to make the immediate decision.
Billy Perry:
Right.
Pete Kelting:
If you get into law enforcement, you gotta realize whatever career you're coming from, or whatever age you are in life, that you have to be ready to sacrifice your life within a reasonable tacticalness decision to save others, and if you're not at that point, then this profession may be very difficult for you, and maybe it's not the right profession for you. And I think we're seeing that across the country on some of the recent active shooter events, that law enforcement has to be ready to take that risk within a priority, a safety priority matrix.
Billy Perry:
I agree, and I think that active shooter is its own entity, and I think a lot of rules are flipped for the active shooter, because for a regular building clearing, for a regular warrant, for whatever, we're never gonna make a one person entry, right? But are we gonna make one on an active shooter? You betcha! We're gonna be like, they're gonna write Red Book hymns about me, okay, and we're gonna step in here and we're gonna do this. You know, but I think that's the case. I think we have a ethos, sometimes, in law enforcement. One of the ones that was the bane of my existence, "the most important thing is we come home at night." No, it's not. The most important thing is that the innocents in your charge come home at night. That's one of the things that I pounded for my career
Pete Kelting:
Well said.
Billy Perry:
But, you know, that's not the thing, and this is one... you know, we don't wanna get shot at, in almost every scenario, we never wanna get shot at. If you're getting shot at in an active shooter, that's not horrible, because they're not shooting at innocents, and I think we are, you know, below them on the matrix. And I think a lot of things are inverted in an active shooter incident and we have a different responsibility.
Bill Godfrey:
So does tools like the safety priority help articulate, after the fact, the decision, and justify the decision-making from those that would seek to criticize, or even those that would just seek to understand. Do tools like this help you articulate and make the case?
Billy Perry:
A hundred percent, especially when it's written like that, because, like, where I come from, it was just hostages, innocents, responders, and suspects. It didn't go into the delineation, and like I said, even though people can regurgitate that, they can go, hostages, innocents, responders, and suspects, they couldn't define what they were. 'Cause when you would say, "What if they're bleeding?" and then again, what do you see? You see the hourglass spinning on their forehead. Am I right, Pete?
Pete Kelting:
Absolutely.
Billy Perry:
And, you know, but they're still dying, you know, and that's, in my opinion and talking to the state attorneys, that is easy to defend.
Bill Godfrey:
Perfect segue,
Billy Perry:
Okay.
Bill Godfrey:
So Billy, one of the things that you have talked about with frequency is the importance of understanding your use of force policies for your agency, and the use of force statutes in your state. So, and obviously, need to be very clear that, you know, you did your career in Florida
Billy Perry:
Florida.
Bill Godfrey:
with a major metro agency. Pete also did his career in Florida with a different metro agency. How challenging, if at all, would it have been for you, under Florida laws, and under your agency's use of force policy at the time, for you to have articulated the need to push in, to engage the guy if he had injured people in the room with him?
Billy Perry:
It would not have even been a challenge. I mean, it would've been a lean into the microphone, tap, and go, "Can you hear me? This is what happened, this is what I did." I mean, it would be, "Can I get some pizza now?" I mean, it would've been, it would've been a no-brainer, frankly.
And that's where it goes back to the knowledge. I think, you know, we've talked about, you know, lack of knowledge breeds inaction, just like cowardice, and I think that one of the things that fortifies you and gives you the ability to continue making hard decisions is knowledge. And like you said, in Florida, if you know Florida state statute 776 backwards and forwards, if you know your response to resistance policy backwards and forwards, if you know your safety priority matrix and you understand what it means, you understand what it means to be a hostage, those injured and in imminent danger, that's brilliant. And that's empowering right there, because it empowers and emboldens you to not lose momentum, to not lose inertia, to continue moving to do, 'cause you can go through the checklist, we like checklists here, we can go through the checklist, here, of, you know, they're injured, check, they're dying, check, if it's to be, it's up to me, check. Let's do this.
And, you know, they can say, they can ask you, "Were you in danger?" "Nope, not at all, never in danger at all until I made entry," you know what I mean, but they were in danger, you know, 'cause we have the legal authority, the mandate, I believe, even though some things have happened that have somewhat changed that, I still believe we have a mandate. I think the three periods of time in response to resistance, where I cannot use force, I can use force, and I have a duty to use force, and I will believe that till the day I die, even though some courts have taken away the duty, been like, "Well, you cannot," because of inaction that we've had in our community, I still think it's there. Do you agree Pete?
Pete Kelting:
Hundred percent.
Billy Perry:
And I think that if you know that, if you have empowered your people and if you have taken your craft and treated it like a profession, and you understand the justifiable use of force statute in your state, and your response to resistance orders, and you've provided yourself with good training, you're gonna be fine.
Pete Kelting:
That was well said. Let me add this to it, let me add application to it, 'cause I think you laid it out perfectly. You look at the responding officer, right? You respond to the old proverbial barking dog call, deadly force or high-level use of force doesn't even normally even come into your mind, right? But you get that tone out and you're going to an active shooter event, you're immediately running to, "Man, I could be using deadly force here," or "I may have to make a lot of decisions." Where both events could turn out completely the opposite. The barking dog could turn into the worst shootout you've ever been in, and the active shooter event could turn out to be airsoft or a hoax.
But it's that confidence that you talk about of the first responding officer or deputy knowing what their local jurisdiction's use of force is, the statutes that support them, and the training that the training division puts them through to make that little sea of confidence get into a bigger sea of confidence so they don't get paralyzed at the time when they need to, "You know what, I can pull the trigger," but just like you said, "Was I in danger?" A lot of officers think, "I gotta be in danger first before to pull the trigger."
Billy Perry:
You do not.
Pete Kelting:
You know, and so it's really working through those iterations of that's academic training, not just physical training, academic training of being comfortable of your policies, so.
Bill Godfrey:
Well, gentlemen, thank you for this discussion. I think it is one of the discussion elements that I think is very difficult.
Billy Perry:
It is.
Bill Godfrey:
It's very difficult. I think it's difficult for people to hear, I think it's difficult for people to contemplate, but I think the real danger is not thinking about it now and not considering how am I going to evaluate this. Rarely do we have identical active shooter events and identical active shooter scenarios. There's always something that's a little bit different. Whether it's the environment, or the suspect, or the weapon, there's always something that's a little bit different, so having the tools to evaluate it, your use of force policies, your state statutes, your safety priority, and having thought about it and had some debate ahead of time, I think is really key to making good decisions, if, God forbid, your day comes and you're put into that. So thank you, gentlemen, for talking about this hard topic.
Billy Perry:
Thank you.
Bill Godfrey:
I appreciate you both being here. Thank you to Karla Torres, our producer. As always, if you haven't liked and subscribed to the podcast please do so, and please share it with everybody that you work with. And again, the Safety Priority Tactical Action evaluation sheet is available as a PDF download from our website, c3pathways.com. It's under Resources, and under documents, I believe, as Safety Priority. c3pathways.com, Resources, Safety Priority. And until next time, stay safe.