Ep 89: Witness or Defendant Decided by Actions? - A Listener Question
Episode 89
Published Jul 29, 2024
Last updated Feb 18, 2026
Duration: 27:09
Episode Summary
When you need to account for your actions, including what you did and didn’t do during an active shooter response, you are judged by a standard of care. Having a solid, vetted blueprint for those decisions is an essential tool for responders.
Episode Notes
Today, we address a listener’s question about the consequences for police officers making mistakes during an active shooter response. Responders must rely on objective reasonableness encompassing safety priorities, policies, procedures, and training, to provide a standard of care.
View this episode on YouTube at https://youtu.be/xGnGOmA2Mjo
Transcript
Bill Godfrey:We received a listener question that reached out to us because he wanted to educate himself after seeing police officers arrested for making mistakes in an active shooter response. That's today's topic, stick around.
Welcome to the National Center for Integrated Emergency Response. My name is Bill Godfrey, I'm your podcast host today. I'm joined by two of our other instructors here at NCIER, Joe Ferrara of the fire EMS, and also one of our training directors. Joe, welcome back in the studio.
Joe Ferrara:
Thank you.
Bill Godfrey:
It's good to have you back. And then we also have for the first time in this studio, one of our longtime instructors, Terry Nichols, on the law enforcement side. Terry, good to have you here.
Terry Nichols:
Thank you, glad to be here.
Bill Godfrey:
Good to have you guys. This was an interesting one. So we talked about a little of this in our warmup here before we started. So we received a series of questions from a person that was concerned about what he's seeing in terms of criminal charges and arrests being made against responders, and he laid out a fairly specific scenario. So let me set up the scenario, and then let's kinda talk our way through it.
So his scenario was a shooting at an elementary school, and specifically that there was a teacher, whose husband was seen on campus a few minutes before a shooting starts. They believe the shooting occurred in her classroom. And when the first three or four officers arrive, as they approach the door, they're able to look in and see part of the room. And they can see an adult female that's down on the floor, that appears to have at least one, maybe more gunshot wounds to the chest. There's a pool of blood under this adult, and then over visible in the corner is about 10 kids that are huddled. The door is locked.
And so the question revolves around the shooting is stopped. They got to the room based on the intelligence of reports of that's where this happened. But as they made their approach, and they've come up to the room, there hasn't been any shooting since. They cannot see a threat in the room. Again, they can see about 10 kids, and they can see one person that's down in a pool of blood. And the question really was around does that require an immediate entry? Does that require some forethought? If the bad guy is in the room with the kids, could we be putting the kids at additional risk? And down that road, does that make sense?
Joe Ferrara:
Certainly.
Terry Nichols:
You got it.
Bill Godfrey:
Questions about the scenario? Okay, very good. Karla, can we go ahead and put the safety priority up on the monitor? So we've referred to this before in previous podcasts. This is from the National Tactical Officers Association, is their safety priority tactical action evaluation. And essentially what they do is they set the level of the people that we want to consider in this. So top of the food chain is the hostages. And as I've said before, it could be a literal hostage, you know, person with a gun to their head. Or what we really wanna do is think of them as a hostage of the situation. They are not able to get out on their own, or do what they wanna do.
Right below them is the innocence. This would be like the collateral damage. So the kids that are in the rooms adjacent to the room where this person has been shot. Below them is the responders. And then bottom of the list is the suspect.
And the question that you have to ask is, with your plan, which your plan may be to do nothing, with your plan, who benefits and who suffers? Do the hostages benefit or suffer? Do the innocent benefit or suffer? Do the responders benefit or suffer? And the idea here is that if your plan is to do whatever, to do X, and the responders benefit, but the hostages suffer, or the innocent suffer, then that's not a sound plan, and we need a sound plan.
So with that framework, Terry, I'm gonna go to you, because I think the setup here starts with a law enforcement question. Now, he did say it appears that the person's deceased, because of these gunshot wounds to the chest, and the blood pooling. And we'll come back to Joe, 'cause I want you to talk about that a little bit. But from a law enforcement perspective, you're at the door, you got a couple other cops with you, where do you go?
Terry Nichols:
I wanna go back first to the safety priority list, because one of the things it mentions in there is about injured, people that are injured in there as well. Not just, you know, potentially injured, the gun to the head, like you mentioned. So we're looking through a window, we see someone injured. I can't say if they're, as a police officer, I can't say if they're dead or not.
So the the obvious answer is you have to push on it. This is a push, meaning we have to go in and rescue that person. If we're putting them truly, using a priority list that we're looking at with hostages first, and it could be an injured person, which we're looking at, we have to go in. You know, the tactical, all the tactical things come into play here. Try door handle, is it locked, is it not locked? I think the scenario he presented in the question was it was locked.
Bill Godfrey:
Correct.
Terry Nichols:
Do we have a key? Do we have breaching tools? But the fundamental answer is we have to push in there. And if we don't have any other driving force driving us elsewhere in that school, meaning gunshots, specific intelligence telling us there's this gunman is elsewhere, this is our priority. And I equate it to the fire side is like, you go to a place, a school, with a reported fire. And you walk by a classroom, and you see a fire in there, we're not gonna stop and put out this fire, we're gonna go look for other fires. This classroom, this person that's down on the ground there gets our attention immediately.
Bill Godfrey:
And I think that's a really good analogy, metaphor? Joe, I always mix those up.
Joe Ferrara:
It's okay.
Bill Godfrey:
It's kinda like doing math in public.
Joe Ferrara:
It's okay.
Bill Godfrey:
The other thing that I like about your point in what we're doing is in addition to the safety priority that the NTOA publishes, we have our priorities for the active shooter event, of number one is the active threat, number two is rescue the injured, and number three is clear. So as you point out, there's no ongoing gunfire, there's no intel of a bad guy someplace else. We're no longer in the active threat phase, we're now at the rescue phase, and so those things fit and dovetail together.
So Joe, talk for a minute, you're looking through the door. You've got a person that has at least one gunshot wound to the chest, pool of blood. Can you really say with any certainty that that is a fatality or not a fatality?
Joe Ferrara:
Well, no, of course not. I don't think, you know, even, you know, an EMT or a paramedic can make that call from, you know, quote unquote, "Doorway triage." And let's be clear in this situation, and I think, you know, Terry, you could probably reinforce this, we don't know where the gunman is. Is the gunman even in the room? Is this still, you know, quote unquote, "A hot zone?" It's at the very least a warm zone, so we're not gonna have paramedics, firefighters up there, and RTF up there. So this is a law enforcement triage situation, and I don't think anybody can make that call from the door.
So we have to assume, we have to say that we're dealing with an injured person, who's seriously wounded, a red tag, so to speak. And we gotta take action. In absence of other stimulus, you already said there's no other gunfire, this is our job. We've gotta get in there and do something.
Bill Godfrey:
And just to clarify, so the the hot zone, warm zone conversation, Terry, you're at the door, you've got this situation inside, you would still consider that room hot, until you've got in the door and made entry and looked at it?
Terry Nichols:
I would think so, we have someone down in there, we don't know what's in the corner. We can clear, you know, doing threshold evaluation, the different tactics, we can clear as much as we can in that room before we make entry. But as the listener wrote in, there's a huddle of kids in the corner, as you mentioned. So we know we have them to deal with. We've got to go and secure them. So yeah, it's a hot zone. We wouldn't be open the door saying, you know, "Fire EMS."
Joe Ferrara:
Right.
Terry Nichols:
Go in and assess this person. Now that's a law enforcement issue initially. Go in there, secure this. The gunman may not even be in there. Literally, you know, it could be on the loose in the school. So we need to solve this problem as quick as possible, get that person the medical help, but also determine is this where the bad guy is?
Bill Godfrey:
Okay, so I'm gonna come back to that one in terms of it, the bigger event, or the larger campus issue. You mentioned breaching, both of you have kind of addressed this a little bit. Let's spend a few minutes just, I don't wanna go too deep into it, but let's talk a little bit about breaching. You know, obviously Joe from the fire side, I know you've got significant background in breaching and the tools. And Terry, you used to, if I recall right, used to teach breaching for cops. So the two of you are in a unique position. What are some of the options? Beside the first, aside from the first one of get the key, Terry, lead us off, what are you thinking about in the classroom?
Terry Nichols:
Actually, the first one is try the door handle.
Joe Ferrara:
Yeah, try before you pry.
Bill Godfrey:
There you go.
Terry Nichols:
Try before you pry, it's a old, old saying. Yeah, so obviously first try it, see if it's unlocked. That's option A, always, always option A. Key, obviously second. If we've done our proper planning, we've worked with our schools, we do all the things we shoulda done ahead of time to prepare for something like this, we have access to that. If we don't, we have to start thinking breaching capabilities. You know, what do we bring in the door with us to be able to defeat this locking mechanism, whatever it was? It could be breaking the window if you had to. If it has a window, obviously it has a window, so you can break the window. Do you have a tool to do that with? But the fundamental issue is we've gotta have, bring the tools with us, okay, and be able to forcibly enter our way into a structure, into a room, to get the medical help to the person that's injured.
Bill Godfrey:
In your opinion, most law enforcement officers that are working patrol on the streets across the country, do most of them have some breaching tools in their trunk, or available to them?
Terry Nichols:
I would say generally not all. You know, you're seeing more and more of it where at least someone on the street, a supervisor, somebody like that, has a breaching kit. I know in some agencies, we at least had sledgehammers, you know, is that gonna work on an outward opening door? Not so well. You know, might it break out a window? Sure, but I would say as a general rule, no, your first responders out driving, day in and day out, your officers do not have breaching tools, A, and B, the training to go with how to use 'em.
Bill Godfrey:
And that's a significant, significant issue. Joe, from your experience on the fire and EMS side, of course, fire service carries a considerable number of breaching tools.
Joe Ferrara:
Certainly.
Bill Godfrey:
What's the value that fire and EMS can add or play in that need for law enforcement to be able to breach that door?
Joe Ferrara:
Well I think number one, it also needs to be emphasized that fire and EMS is not gonna, or fire's not gonna be forward in this situation. They're not gonna be there. So this is squarely on law enforcement. Fire can support with equipment. You know, if fire's already there, then that equipment can be sent down range. But just sending equipment-
Bill Godfrey:
Give me a couple of example of the equipment, specifically that you would send out.
Joe Ferrara:
You know, the quote unquote, irons, the Halligan bar, and a flatheaded ax, or some sort of hydraulic equipment, you know, a hydraulic spreader ram, you know, 'cause we're dealing with, you know, if we're dealing with a school, most likely we're dealing with hardened commercial doorways. We're not talking about a wood doorway. And we're certainly not talking about the TV scenario of somebody kicking a door in, that doesn't happen.
So with a metal door, metal frame, you potentially could need hydraulic spreaders. So that equipment's available, but are the law enforcement properly trained? We don't wanna get anybody hurt, we don't want to send all that equipment down range, have them use it, and it's ineffective. So I think training really is the key, and that speaks to preparation. That's probably a whole 'nother topic though.
Bill Godfrey:
And Terry, can you weigh in, 'cause I think Joe's right, and this might be one that we wanna come back to a little bit in another podcast, but can you talk a little bit about the preparation or training that, from your perspective, every law enforcement officer should have on breaching, and then maybe some of the things that are out there for law enforcement that they may not know about?
Terry Nichols:
Yeah, and I agree, this is a whole separate topic as well, but A, they need to have some type of tools. Halligan tool is a good perfect one, but you also need to have a setting tool, you know, an ax I think as Joe mentioned, flathead ax, or sledgehammer or something. But then you gotta be trained to use that stuff and know how to use it. Because, I say Halligan tools are magical, they do a lot. They're a great tool. They have limitations, but it's a great tool. So the officers need to train it.
But at the same time as a chief, I could outfit every officer with the best tools in the world. They make backpacks with all kinds of tools and things like that. But if you leave it in the car when you're running up to the school, to the shots fired call, it does you absolutely no good. And so the time it takes you to go and find, get that out of your car, and get back to the scene to make a breach, you might've been better off having a key. So, you know, thinking through these things, preparation goes a long way in this, and working with your partners and your communities, schools, i.e., specifically in this case would be schools. It shouldn't be that hard to have a key. I mean it ought to be like option A as you walk through the door, where gimme a key as I go.
Joe Ferrara:
Or Knox Boxes.
Terry Nichols:
Absolutely.
Joe Ferrara:
You see them in many schools.
Terry Nichols:
Absolutely, yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
A lot of schools do have the Knox Boxes. The other thing that I wanna reinforce, both of you mentioned this and I just wanna reinforce it, if you happen to be the one at the door, and you've got the glass, breaking that glass, raking the frame, and reaching through and turning the handle from the inside is going to be pretty quick. Unless that glass happens to be ballistic-level glass, or in some way impact rated, you should be able to get through that with the pointy end of something big and heavy, and make that happen.
So you mentioned the bigger event. So we've got our first three, four officers, they're up at the door, but meanwhile, you've got the rest of the response rolling in. Tactical's rolling in, you got more cops that are showing up. What are some of the other things on your mind about this event, because you don't have any gunfire, you do have confirmation that there's at least one person that's down. So you know this isn't a false call. What's on your mind, as the rest of your team, the rest of the responders are coming in?
Terry Nichols:
So A, I'd have another contact team formed up ready to roll, 'cause it may kick off another part of school. That was just a diversion, it was just the first target of opportunity, whatever it was before the school went in lock down. Gunman may be roaming the hallway and we just don't know. So I need to have a, we've got enough resources working in this problem right now. I would, you know, I wouldn't stop without enough resources working in this doorway to provide security and breaching, and everything else that we need to do.
But as more resources roll in, I've got another contact team or two. They're not, you know, out clearing yet. We still got a problem, sir, but they're ready to roll at moment's notice. Stand up to rescue task forces and staging, working with the triage to get those stood up, because we're gonna need them in immediately. As soon as we get a breach and we confirm what we have, we're gonna need them in immediately. So there's a lot of work to be done prepping for things. So that's where I would be thinking.
Bill Godfrey:
Joe, what about you on the fire EMS side? I mean, Terry mentioned standing up the RTFs. Do you get 'em geared up on deck? Do you move them up to the tactical triage transport locate, what's on your mind?
Joe Ferrara:
So, obviously preparation for this is gonna occur in staging. So RTFs do need to be stood up. Your staging managers need to lean forward, and anticipate that those RTFs need to be put together. A brief conversation needs to occur between the law enforcement side and the fire and EMS side of that RTF, and ready to be deployed at a moment's notice. If that means some sort of moving them to a forward location prior to the warm zone, like the location of tactical triage and transport, so the moment that law enforcement moves into the room, and determines its warm, we can get that RTF right in there to provide immediate care to that person.
Because again, doorway triage, I've got somebody who's down, there's blood on the ground, they've been shot, I don't know if they're deceased or not from the doorway. I've gotta get medics in that room and get the job done. So the best way is get that forward.
Terry Nichols:
Something I didn't mention, Joe, was also thinking about securing an ambulance exchange point right off the bat. I mean, 'cause we're gonna know that the contact team, one, that's at the scene, at the crisis site, they'll know where the closest exit point is, and they can start communicating, "Hey, get me an ambulance exchange point established at door B," or whatever it is, however, you know, that local jurisdiction has their doors numbered or labeled, and just get that ready to go, 'cause you know it's coming. Let's start thinking ahead, and get these things already in place, ready to roll. But also, again, have those contact teams ready to respond to another incident that kicks off. But while we're working the same problem, we do lots of things at the same time, and we get the resources there, and we can-
Joe Ferrara:
And we probably do have the personnel for that security right now, 'cause everybody's coming.
Terry Nichols:
Right, and I don't need 20 cops standing at that doorway trying to breach it. That's the last thing we need is a whole bunch of cops just standing around while we're trying to figure out how to breach this door. You know, we should have that door breached long before we get 20 cops there.
Joe Ferrara:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
I think that is a great summary, and certainly the specific answers to the series of questions that the listener asked us.
Let's take a moment and step back a little bit to some of the incidents that have played out, and there's been more than one, that have resulted in some responders being charged criminally, and some of those are still playing out. And I don't wanna go down the weeds in that, but Terry, Joe, from your points of view, when you have to account for your actions, the things that you did and didn't do in an active shooter response, how important is a tool like the safety priority checklist? How important are standards, and the policies and procedures, and the training that has to go with 'em? And when I say the training, I don't mean just giving somebody a PowerPoint about the policy and procedure, but the actual practice and rehearsal of those skills.
How much does all of that play into being able to account for how the response unfolded, whether it went well, whether it encountered some problems, or whether it went poorly?
Terry Nichols:
It's huge, everything you just said is huge, especially it comes down to both civil liability, and then criminal liability, you know. Objective reasonableness is what we're judged by. And if you have something like we're looking at now, the safety priority by NTOA, it gives you a blueprint to make decisions. It gives you a solid, vetted, standardized process to make decisions, and if you go with that, and you go with your policies that are in place, hopefully are in place, and your training, you should be okay.
I mean, you should be okay. You know, anybody can get sued. Criminal charge is a little bit different, you know, but, you know, everybody can face civil litigation. But as long as you've done things objectively reasonable, that another professional in your like mind and training and shoes would've done, you should be okay.
Now going back to your fundamental, another thing you mentioned was training. If you don't have the training, you're lost. You're just absolutely lost on this deal. So stick with your policy, you're gonna be okay. Have the training to begin with, and then go by great things, like the safety priority, the NTOA put out, that gives you a blueprint to operate from, and it's certainly gonna help you on the backend, whether it comes to somebody questioning your tactics, and what you did or did not do.
Joe Ferrara:
Yeah, and Terry, you mentioned it's very similar on the fire and EMS side. You mentioned having standards like this, like the safety priority. Paramedics have protocols, we have policies and procedures. I think every EMT and paramedic out there would appreciate this statement, you are judged against what's called the standard of care in your actions, and what you do. Well that standard of care includes rules, it includes laws, it includes protocols, it includes published standards. If we have a published standard, like safety priority from NTOA, that says those injured that are in imminent danger, that's a powerful statement.
And as long as you're doing that, as long as you're training for that on a regular basis, I think you're good. Terry said, look, you know, anybody can have civil charges brought against them. Criminal's a little different, there has to be an indictment and all that. But I just think that the more you train on it, the more you look to standards like this, better off we're gonna be.
Terry Nichols:
Best practices.
Joe Ferrara:
There you go.
Terry Nichols:
You know, standardize it. The checklist.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah.
Terry Nichols:
You know, the active shooter instant management checklist is a perfect example. It's a national, it's the gold standard. It's been called the gold standard by many people. You follow this, you're gonna be fine. You know, you may have a very negative outcome, tragically, we're dealing with tragedy.
Joe Ferrara:
It happened.
Terry Nichols:
We're dealing with tragedy here. We wouldn't be having this conversation if we weren't dealing with tragic situations. But on our end as first responders, we've got to follow best practices. We have to train, we have to have policies. All these things that we love to, many agencies love to talk about, but they don't do. And I think that's our role is getting them to do it, and showing them that there are best practices out there that will keep them safe, both from the civil side and the criminal side.
Bill Godfrey:
So I have one last question for you on this topic. The departmental policy, whether it's an SOP, or a guideline, you know, whatever the case may be, I've seen, as I assume you guys have, a number of 'em that are overly specific, is the phrase I would use. They're very prescribed, and you shall do this, you shall do this, you shall have this, these things. And that always concerns me when I see what I'm gonna call overly prescriptive language, as opposed to, for example, the policy guidance that we put out, the sample policy guidance we put out for people that's written more in that military style of commander's intent.
And for those of you that are not familiar with that, it's basically a procedure policy that says, you know, "I want you to do these things. These are the goals of the mission. This is what I want done," generally done in this order. However, you have the discretion to deviate from this in order to accomplish the mission objectives. And in other words, it gives permission to the responders to zig instead of zag, if they need to. How big a deal, and I wanna hear this from both of you, is it when you have these overly prescriptive policies, whether it's on the law enforcement side, or we've seen a lot of 'em on the rescue task force side coming out of fire departments as well, Terry?
Terry Nichols:
Well, you stole my answer. Commander's intent, you know? But I think when you see those very perspective, respective-
Joe Ferrara:
Prescriptive?
Terry Nichols:
Thank you, Joe.
Joe Ferrara:
Yes, you're welcome.
Terry Nichols:
See, fire brother helping a law enforcement brother.
Joe Ferrara:
Yeah, together.
Terry Nichols:
I appreciate that very much. But you see these, it locks you in. You know, you're gonna eat that if you find yourself on a civil side of it, or you find yourself on the criminal side of that, as a defendant or a respondent on the civil side, you're gonna eat that. If you didn't do exactly what it said, you're gonna be sitting in a witness chair, and you're gonna be saying, "Did you do X? Did you do Y, did you do A, did you do B?" And I think you're asking for trouble, as a former chief writing those kind of policies, or would not be in the best interest of the organization, I try to stay away from 'em, I did stay away from 'em. And I like our model policy, 'cause it does give you that left and right boundaries. You know, it allows you to make decisions that you need to make decisions, staying within boundaries, you know, staying within the buoys as it were. So yes, I would veer, I would edge, try to share with leadership of police agencies anyway, don't get too tight in your policies, because you're boxing yourself in a corner.
Joe Ferrara:
And I would, look, I would echo that from the fire side, as a former fire chief, and a student of the standard operating guideline, not policy, not standard operating procedure. There always has to be that out. We always had a saying, "Situation dictates procedure." So you have to write your policies, you have to train for your policies so that there's always that out, because you can never, ever, ever write down every inevitable circumstance that's going to happen in the future. It's impossible to do. But a good procedure, a good guideline allows the personnel that are there on the ground, seeing the situation, to adapt and overcome. And I think the military does that. I think the fire service does that well. And I think law enforcement does it. I don't think anybody has, you know, those super rigid policies, "You must do this, and then you must do this. And if you don't do this, you're in trouble." You gotta be careful of that.
Terry Nichols:
Yeah, I think going back to early days right after Columbine, when all this started to blow up, you saw somewhere, "You will not go in by yourself." You know, you saw some of that stuff, and that's since changed, which is great. At least most places I've seen has changed. But that's an example of one where, you know, you will wait for four officers before you make entry. And boy, you know, we set ourselves up for failure in those early days.
Joe Ferrara:
Absolutely.
Bill Godfrey:
I think that's a perfect, perfect, perfect place to leave this, and for this listener that sent this in, I hope we've not only answered your question, but provided you a little bit more.
If you have questions about this, or any other topics, please send 'em in to us, info@c3pathways.com, I-N-F-O, info@c3pathways.com. Just mark it as a podcast question. Everything that we talked about, the resources, so the safety priority that NTOA published, our active shooter incident management checklist, and the model policy guidance are all available on the c3pathways.com website under resources, and they're there for free. You can download 'em, we don't even ask you for an email address, so that stuff is all there for taking.
Thank you to our producer Karla Torres. I almost did it again, Karla, sorry about that. Thank you to our producer Karla Torres for always making us sound and look great. And until next time, stay safe.