3 Ways to Prevent Weapons Incidents

“NIMS is an information resource management system that helps people make decisions quickly and under pressure,” he explains. “It also teaches them how to work with multiple organizations – scho
ol officials, police and fire department staff, etc. – when an incident occurs.”

For more information on NIMS courses, visit http://www.fema.gov/emergency/nims/NIMSTrainingCourses.shtm.

The following are additional resources that pupil transportation officials have found helpful:

• The Crisis Prevention Institute

• Grace Under Fire: Establishing a Culture of Safety and Learning the Skills for Calming and De-escalating Aggressive Individuals, by Ellis Amdur. (Visit http://www.edgework.info/ and click on the “Verbal De-escalation of Aggression” link, then “Social Service Professionals,” for more information about the book.)

• School Transportation Security Awareness (a DVD that depicts a hostage situation on a bus).

3. Generate Procedures for Effective Emergency Response
Equally important to training bus drivers on weapons incidents is establishing policies and procedures for drivers to follow in the event of such an emergency.

Dorn encourages transportation officials and their bus drivers to work with law enforcement and school district administrators to generate policies and procedures for three distinct weapons incident-related possibilities:

1. There is a suspicion or an indication that a student has a weapon on a bus.
2. A student has used a weapon on a bus and has injured others.
3. A hostage situation.

Moreover, every school bus driver should receive a written copy of their department’s response procedures for these scenarios, and they should be trained on how to execute the procedures.

Dorn says the combination of establishing response procedures and training drivers on these procedures will “build confidence, which is something that will keep people from panicking.”

Pupil transportation departments’ procedures for resolving weapons incidents are similar, usually involving communication with the transportation office to notify the rest of the staff (if possible), followed by a call to local law enforcement.

Evergreen Public Schools drivers have been instructed to contact the dispatch office through the two-way radios on the buses, say “code red” and give their location to the dispatchers. A code red clears the radio so that other drivers cannot call in during the emergency. It also notifies the dispatchers of the seriousness of the situation and that law enforcement will need to become involved.

Thomsen says the office staff would then try to get as much information as they can from the driver about the situation.

“Anything a driver can do to keep the situation calm is key,” he adds. “That usually means talking to the student. If the opportunity exists for the driver to evacuate the rest of the students to isolate the individual, that’s even better.”

Ellis expresses a similar sentiment. “We train drivers and attendants that their priority in a weapons incident is the welfare of the other children on board. Their first goal is convincing the student (or other party) with a weapon to let the other students off the bus,” he says.

Ellis also has his drivers use a code. If a driver suspects that a student has a weapon on the bus, he or she calls base by radio and says, “I won’t be able to take that trip to Pennsylvania we talked about.” The office staff then contacts law enforcement, which intercepts the bus en route.

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