‘Run, hide, fight’

A police officer and lieutenant stood at the front of a classroom in Peirce Hall on an early Wednesday morning, the lieutenant pointing a blue model of an M-16 rifle at the officer. The officer grabs the barrel and points it to his side, notices the onlookers facing down the barrel, then quickly aims it at the ground.

To his sides were people watching their scuffle closely. Every move they made was teaching those around them what could be the difference between life and death.

The Civilian Response to Active Shooter Events, a two-hour class that provided strategies, guidance and plan options for surviving an active threat event, was taught by police Lt. Sarah Clark with help from police officer Geoffrey Carlson.

Wednesday’s topics included the history and prevalence of active shooter events, civilian response options and preparing in advance what your response will be. The event was open to the public, but priority was given to Purdue students, faculty, staff and affiliates.

In the crowd were graduate students and various members of Purdue staff, but no undergraduates were there with the exception of the Exponent reporters.

Clark said the event is open to everybody and class sizes tend to range.

“We also do this for groups by request,” Clark said. “I've got a group of 60 next week, they all work together out in the residence halls, and they're going to go through it together.”

Near the end of the first hour, a professor in the crowd raised her hand and said that, at the beginning of the year, she always tells her students that in the event of an active threat, she will be the last one to get out of the room.

Clark said that reasonably, she can’t, and shouldn’t, do that.

“As their instructor, as their professor, as their leadership, they might be more likely to follow you if you run,” said Clark. “Some people are going to freeze no matter what because that’s just their makeup. We can’t change that and you can’t physically get that many people out.”

These teachings all came from the strategy to run, hide or fight.

A video from a Federal Emergency Management Agency program was shown during the event, displaying the strategy in action. The video said that in most cases, running is the best option, but hiding and fighting may be the key to saving your life.

To show how to fight, Clark and Carlson demonstrated a few scenarios with prop guns. Even though the two went through how to approach different scenarios, she knew that it wouldn’t make all those in attendance able to handle the situation correctly.

“It's just trying to give them some little familiarity,” said Clark. “With how the weapon works and something they can do. I would love to do just full on self defense and train, train, train. But it's just not possible.”