Threat of an attack

Just curious. We have a lot of diversity here in regards to what we do for a living or used to do for a living prior to retirement. How many of you had a fair number of your days start with something alone the lines of: "We have received a threat of a (shooting, bombing, violent) attack. Please be on high alert today." Words to similar to that or something like it. It's getting a little too common in my profession. It's how my day started today, and today is the second to the last day of school before the summer break. I've been at this for 31 years tomorrow. In the first 15 years I never experienced anything like this. These days I have to deal with this several times of year, and these are just the threats we know about. It's the one's we don't know about that keep the anxiety level high these days. I just got to make it 10 more years. Trust me in the back of nearly every teacher's mind is wondering if today will be the day an attack will occur. Pretty taxing to be honest.

I’m sorry you and all teachers have to deal with that, Troy. Living so close to Washington, DC those sorts of things happen. But, they tend to be much larger area wide concerns.


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Originally Posted by Big Skyz

Just curious. We have a lot of diversity here in regards to what we do for a living or used to do for a living prior to retirement. How many of you had a fair number of your days start with something alone the lines of: "We have received a threat of a (shooting, bombing, violent) attack. Please be on high alert today." Words to similar to that or something like it. It's getting a little too common in my profession. It's how my day started today, and today is the second to the last day of school before the summer break. I've been at this for 31 years tomorrow. In the first 15 years I never experienced anything like this. These days I have to deal with this several times of year, and these are just the threats we know about. It's the one's we don't know about that keep the anxiety level high these days. I just got to make it 10 more years. Trust me in the back of nearly every teacher's mind is wondering if today will be the day an attack will occur. Pretty taxing to be honest.

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It is definitely stressful to have to live in a serious state of “condition yellow” all the time.


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We had quite a few “red alerts” in the military (as well as a few actual attacks), but I’m not sure that’s what you’re looking for. As a kid, we went through the duck and cover drills at school (like hiding under our desks would’ve helped during a nuclear blast)! We were just minutes from Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis and regularly went through drills more often. But, they were basically the same as fire drills. I can’t say (other than the military) that I’ve ever experienced an actual, serious issue. We did go under “lock-down” at work once in L. A. but there was no immediate danger. The cops had a perp (armed robbery suspect) cornered in a building about 3 doors down. I think it was mostly to keep us out of the possible line of fire in case of a shoot-out.

The condition yellow I was referring to was established by Jeff Cooper and close to yes on by LE trainers like Dave Grossman.

Condition white is a state of complete unawareness where if a threat happens it isn’t recognized as a threat until it’s right in your face and there is no plan in place to deal with it.

Condition yellow is the state of scanning for potential threats and having a plan in place in case one is identified.

Condition orange is when a potential threat has been identified

Condition red is when the threat initiated action and the plan goes into effect.


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Sometimes I can’t believe the burden we put on public school teachers. I feel for you, Troy. That kind of pressure is wrong.

BKB

I can't imagine going through something like that on a regular basis and feel for those of you that have to deal with such things.

We had a couple of lockdowns happen during the whole DAPL situation that became a bit alarming when you can see the mob out your window and can only hope they focus their efforts elsewhere. But other than that and the occaisional mass email stating some weirdo is meandering around the grounds, it is not something I've had to deal with though there have been a few disgruntled folks that have made their way to my office that made me think things were about to get a bit western but my good looks and charm de-escalated the situation.

Again, sorry you have to deal with such craziness.

In today's world I try to live in "condition yellow" and be aware of my surrounding always. Things like is it hot outside and someone's wearing a coat, what are the exits, or anything that generally seems out of place.

Sadly it’s one of the main things I try to instill in my kids. Ever since they were little I tried to make sure that they were aware of their surroundings and have a plan in case something happens.

My wife never took me serious until one day she stopped by our neighbors house to heck on it when they were on vacation. She pulled in the drive right up to the garage and when she opened her car door there was some guy standing next to her car. I was on duty but luckily I just happened to drive by at that time. I pulled in and asked the guy what was going on and he said “I’m with her”. I told him “bullshit, get the fuck outta here”.

I ended up following him and managed to find a reason to stop him. He was drunk and had meth in his car so he took a trip to jail. [emoji16]

Not sure how it would have ended up if I hadn’t been right there.


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I appreciate the support. I guess my point with this is that unless one is in the military or some type of law enforcement having to worry about being shot shouldn't be a normal part of the routine at work in most careers. I never in my wildest dreams imagined feeling the need to go to work armed and always on the alert for potential serious danger. In fact, during the middle part of my career, when the Columbine tragedy occurred, I was very much against arming teachers. Things have now deteriorated to the point that arming we trained teachers is going become more and more necessary. I still don't think every teacher should be armed and that there should be formal training. However I now live in a state where concealed carry is legal on school grounds, and I actually find some security in knowing that at any given time there are 8-12, or more, staff members armed and ready if necessary. It saddens my heart that for many teachers here in my state that their morning routine as they get dressed for work includes: keys, phone, wallet, and firearm.

About 22 years go just before I retired, a lady teacher (chicken little type) came running into my office and hysterically said "someone left a bomb out side my door, it's in a backpack and I can hear it ticking"
I said stay here and I'll check it out, only Admin in the building at the time and didn't want to pull the fire alarm and dump 500 students outside in the winter.
Walked down to her classroom and noticed the backpack next to the door, and heard it ticking. Times were different back then, school violence was rare and even the thought of a real bomb was way far back in my mind.
Teacher was watching me way down at the end of the hall, I bent over lifted the backpack and found it was very light, unzipped it and there was an alarm clock on top of a bunch of cloths. Opened the door to the classroom and said "who's backpack it's this?'
Nice young lady said "mine" I asked her about the clock and she said she was going to a sleepover with a friend after school and needed the clock to wake up for work in the AM.
Old chicken little just about wet herself when she saw me open the backpack and proceeded to tell me how stupid I was.
Today, maybe I'd have done it different.

Ha ha! Like the good old days when you could drive through the high school parking lot and see guns on the pick-up gun racks, I did something that would send me straight to jail these days. I built a fake bomb and gave it to my math teacher as a gag on his birthday. Man, when I think back, I put some effort into it and it would have made a great, professional looking movie prop. I mounted it on a 1”x6”x12” board. It consisted of a Baby Ben alarm clock, an old lantern battery, three railroad flares and some coiled wire. I had the wires hooked to the (dead) battery terminals and had drilled a small hole in each side of the clock. One wire went from the battery and entered the hole on one side of the clock, another wire exited the other side of the clock and went to a wire that connected to 3 wires going into an end of each flare. A wire came out of the other end of the flares, tied into a single wire that went to the other pole of the battery. All pieces were neatly fastened to the board. TBH, just thinking back about that “bomb”, I’m proud of the neat job I did on it. He was leaving that year to teach at a different school (moving to a different city). It was toward the end if the school year and I gave him a small card to open before opening the gift. It said, “Your time is short here, we’ll miss you.” (Or something along those lines)

The last day of school, I gave him a nicely wrapped package and a card that said, “Enjoy your summer!”

Inside was a nice sized baggy of catnip. I thought he was gonna shit when he opened it at his desk. He got all wide-eyed, covered it up immediately, looked at me and said, “Is this real?!?!?”

Yes, I was known as a class clown and quite the jokester while in school. I could go on and on about some of my practical jokes while in school. ;)

Never had that happen. We're kind of a smallish tech college and not the kind of place that has a high profile. Under the radar can be a good thing can't it?

I think some jerkoff pulled a dorm fire alarm at night during finals week one time.