One tactic is the five person rush. Before a situation gets out of control, five people rush the man. Each person grabs a limb...i.e. one person grabs a leg while another person grabs an arm. The fifth person disarms the man. This is something that you can practice with a group of people at work as a way to handle these situations.
Let's not limit the training to a 5 man bum's rush. That is only applicable to a very limited number of situations and so just training for that seems awfully short-sighted. All of the board members obviously need extensive training in any one of several martial arts as individuals and then need the additional training in team tactics. Of course, this should probably be applied to the entire staff, right?
So just when are these folks going to actually have time to do their jobs?
In this situation, while the man was spray painting the wall, 5 people could have rushed and each grabbed a limb.
I really doubt that 5 people behind the desk are going to be stealthy enough and fast enough to get to the guy while painting without him turning, seeing the threat, drawing his gun, and shooting them.
Another moment was when the lady came in and hit the man with her purse. The board members could have rushed him.
It was an opportunity, but a tough one to act on and an even tougher one for an entire group to act on in unison.
It is easy to know what to do after we know what happened. It isn't easy to know what to do when it is actually happening.
The key ingredient is to take care of these situations at the start rather then waiting for it to escalate.
So escalate now instead of later? Okay, but before the situation escalates, how do you determine that escalation is necessary?
Human nature is to stay still, be quiet and hope that help arrives.
Remaining still and quiet is but one type of reaction of human nature. I don't know that waiting for help to arrive is human nature as much as it is a taught behavior.
However, if someone produces a weapon in the workplace then they mean to use it.
It is probably most wise to assume they intend to use it, but time and time again, people produce guns in workplaces and don't use them. It depends on the circumstance.
There is usually one or two opportune moments where an attacker can be rushed and disarmed. By practicing these situations with your work team then you can defuse these situations. The key is for everyone to move at once and act quickly.
Okay, and those 1 or 2 instances are not always readily apparent when they are happening or in a manner that a response can be mounted before the opporunity passes. Given that the key is for everyone to move at once, basically what you are saying is that it is almost certain to be doomed to fail as there is virtualy no way that you are going to get 5 people to react simultaneously to such a situation. Even if trained, they all must be able to see the situation in the same manner so as to know when to make the rush. If they don't all have the same knowledge, they won't all know when to react.
Once again, when are these folks going to have the time to do their actual jobs.? Training to be an efficient, tight knit unarmed reaction force that can react in unison to unplanned circumstances to overwhelm an attacker is going to take months or years to accomplish.
Okay, we have that settled. Now we need to train the school board to be able to handle two attackers with guns. Bad guys aren't always solo. How long will that take?
Of course, they need to be trained to handle the school board meeting situation, but also must have the same training when doing their regular school administration duties when they aren't in the meeting room.
Wait, we need everyone to have all this training because bad guys don't always just attack school boards.
Somehow, it just doesn't seem so easy anymore. The reality of the unknown is much more complex to plan for than an event that has already passed.
