A security expert joined The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network’s Editor-In-Chief and CEO Michael Patrick Leahy on Tuesday’s episode of The Tennessee Star Report and discussed ways in which schools can fortify themselves against mass shooters.
The discussion occurred less than 24 hours after transgender female (biological male) Aiden “Audrey” Hale shot and killed six people at The Covenant School in Nashville.
Aaron Spradlin, CEO of Pale Horse Security, a private firm that “secures assets, people and environments where safety may be compromised,” joined Leahy and co-host Aaron Gulbransen.
Spradlin’s firm has completed more than 25 active threat assessments of school and church campuses and has taught active shooter trainings.
“About 2019, I think we did basically every school for the diocese for every Catholic school in middle Tennessee, and that’s everything from going in from the front of the school to the bottom of the school to the top of the school and around the school and making the suggestions to harden the schools and make this a much more difficult thing to happen,” he said.
Hale shot through a glass door to access the school, which Spradlin said can be guarded against with certain safety measures.
Spradlin said that should have been anticipated.
“Armchair quarterbacking is not something I like to do,” he said. “The first thing I would have done there, because that was the most vulnerable entrance, I would have added at a minimum ballistic film on the glass.”
Spradlin described the ballistic film as “a film that goes on the already placed glass” and said it is a relatively inexpensive solution.
“What that would do, is it collects the energy of the round, which would really depend on what the round is and the caliber, and it stops it from going past [the window] because of the way it’s designed,” he said. “You start shooting into that target and not getting anywhere, that’s going to deter the suspect and off they go, because there’s no breaking of the glass to climb through.”
Spradlin said that school shooting trainings discuss the “run, hide, fight” method, meaning potential victims should first run from the danger, then hide from the danger and only fight if it is absolutely necessary.
Spradlin also praised the Metro Nashville Police Department for its response time, which took about 14 minutes from when shots were fired to neutralizing the threat.
“Obviously the response time from the shots fired to the putting down of [the suspect] is very impressive,” said Spradlin. “It was a very diligent attack to get to them as fast as they could.”
– – –
Pete D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on Twitter.
Photo “Aaron Spradlin” by Aaron Spradlin. Background Photo “Covenant School” by Metro Nashville PD.
Campus security ideas:
CCTV array
One way Entry
ID badge for employees
Armed security
employees armed: Taser, Mace, gun etc
Entry for vendors
See Nashville model for all cities, states
Your collection of terms is not COHERENT, much less the solution to EVERYTHING you post it to.
Simple solution here: check the background of each, and make certain they are not progressives, and arm the teachers. Israel armed most teachers, mainly due to wacko Arabs, but not one school shooting.