PAUL HOWE AND KEN HACKATHORN ON SCHOOL SECURITY

1. Boy, have they raised a bunch of points no one wants to deal with. First off, the administrators of the schools need a reality check and a come to Jesus moment on the question of the need for armed PROPERLY TRAINED AND QUALIFIED school security.

   Now there are the many hidden issues on what the proper training and qualification might be. There’s an endemic problem with large organizations that there’s a certain expected career path for the successful person. Deviation from the path dooms the career. This results in certain job slots being filled with less than stellar examples of the organization getting sentenced to those certain job slots-like school resource and court officer. There’s also the fact that stellar examples with high drives often don’t see assignments like school resource officer as a good fit for both career and personal desires.

   There were many good points raised on the training content, methods and standards. Detail would take up too much bandwidth, but there are a couple of points to cover. Yes, tightened standards and more rigorous training might cause a few folks to fall by the wayside. But, the real barrier is simple: cost. OK, the “optics” of the concept might be a problem in some areas, a non-monetary cost.

   A brief note about training sources: at one point we came to a mutually beneficial agreement with a known and respected regional SWAT entity. We needed some upgraded training, they needed somewhere to do reduced light live fire. The dryfire building clearing stuff was exceptional, but when we went live fire, they terrified us with poor muzzle control. End of romance. Memo: just because someone “does it for real” doesn’t mean they do it well. With all due respect for Mas, the best trainer for the dynamic real world I’ve personally experienced was a retired SAS training specialist.

2. Excellent.

3. As this video brings out, there are multiple problems that interact to create a poor response to school mass murder events. This video mentioned at least three (3):

   1) Lack of training / improper training
   2) Lack of Will to truly address the problem / tendency to “throw money at it” in the hope of buying a solution.
   3) Lack of intelligence (prior to the attack) / Lack of situational awareness

   Mas and other trainers are better qualified to address the problems with No. 1. Fixing No. 2 will require weeding out the criminal grifters that pass for politicians nowadays. That is a big problem in itself and, frankly, it is hard to see a solution short of the American People rising up to demand better.

   However, I would like to make a point about No. 3. In our society today, the problem is not too little information, it is too much information. In almost every case, these school mass murderers give multiple warning signs of their troubled mental state, yet preemptive action to stop them seldom occurs. Why? One reason is that the government and police collect so much information about citizens that they cannot separate out the “wheat from the chaff”.

   This happens on a personal level too. So many people walk around with their heads buried in their smart phones nowadays. They are totally in “Condition White”. The lack of situational awareness, caused by our flood of digital information, is astounding!

   The human body can be highly sensitive to its environment if you will only listen to your “Sixth Sense”. Let me tell you a true story.

   Several years ago, before I retired, I had checked a government car out of the motor pool to use to attend a business conference in a neighboring State. I got back from the trip late in the week and decided to keep the car for the weekend and return it Monday morning. We were encouraged to return “clean” cars so, on that Sunday morning, I decided to drive the car, grab some breakfast at a local fast food joint, and then wash the car.

   While picking up my breakfast, I became aware that someone in the restaurant hated me. Yes, I “felt” physical hatred being directed at me. I looked around but did not spot any obvious source. No one was glaring at me, for example. However, the feeling was strong and would not go away. I ate quickly and got out of the restaurant ASAP.

   At the time, I thought that it was just my imagination playing tricks with me. Yet, the projection of hatred was so real.

   As planned, I returned the car to the motor pool the next day and forgot the incident. Then, a couple of days latter, I was called into my bosses’ office. My boss informed me that a citizen had filed a complaint against me for misuse of a government vehicle. Someone had taken down the tag number of the car and included it with their complaint. Since I was the one who checked out that particular automobile (during the time-frame named in the complaint), the complaint came against me. The complaint specifically reference my presence at that fast food restaurant on that Sunday morning.

   Since I had checked out the car for a legitimate purpose, had full approval to use it (in advance) and had a legitimate reason to drive it that Sunday morning (to clean it before returning it to the motor pool), the complaint against me was dismissed.

   My point here, however, is that my “Sixth sense” had detected hatred being projected toward me, that Sunday morning, and it was real as shown by the follow-up citizen complaint. I was not given the name of my accuser (I still don’t know who filed the complaint) but my situational awareness was true that day. Someone in that restaurant did hate me because I was a government employee who (they thought) was misusing government equipment.

   So, the moral of this story is that, if people would just pull their heads out of their smart phones and pay attention to their environment, they can “sense” danger before it materializes. The human sensory system evolved to detect attacks from predators and it will still work if people will only listen.

4. Excellent commnents!

5. 1. Israel solved this problem in 1974.

   2. Shouldn’t a uniformed school resource officer carry a long gun, and have handguns for backup? Or, is there too much danger of over-penetration with a long gun?

   3. Fight crime, shoot back.

   4. If at all possible, parents should not send their kids to schools which want them to get sex change surgery without informing the parents. Save tax money. Get rid of government schools.

6. This is one of the most important videos produced in the last 20 years on this (these) subjects.
   It is right on the money, no BS, no sugar coating, no slack. Every R.O., chief, sheriff, school district superintendent, principal, SRO / DARE supervisor should HAVE to view it…repeatedly if need be. The one issue they didn’t address deeper was personnel. Selection of personnel for a LE agency is not as important as it should be…not has it been for a long while. As much as I hate to say it, the Uvalde incident perfectly illustrates these points. It was a defining moment in Texas law enforcement history. We should honor the dead, and their survivors by learning from what happened.
   I retired in 2007 from a PD in the Houston area after 36+ years.

7. Congratulations to your grandson for his decision to enlist in the Marine Corps. There is a lot of talk these days about the poor state of our military but I have no first hand knowledge as my brother and I have been out for decades. If there are problems it is even more important for capable and honorable young men and women to serve. Despite the disdain that many of our politicians have for military service members, when we need them we really need them. Btw: I love Mr. Howe’s huggable demeanor. It reminds me of several past football coaches and senior NCOs.

8. TN_MAN wrote:
   ‘if people would just pull their heads out of their smart phones and pay attention to their environment, they can “sense” danger before it materializes.’

   Every time professional magicians test ‘psychics’ they are shown to be frauds. If they didn’t Uri Geller would win the lottery every week.
   But though pyschics don’t exist, we DO ‘sense’ things based on unconcious observations. Things usually feel they are going wrong before they do.

   Roger Wilco wrote:
   If at all possible, parents should not send their kids to schools which want them to get sex change surgery without informing the parents.’

   The conservatives solution to mass shootings; spreading more hate.

   • nicholas kane,

     I see nothing wrong with hating evil. In fact, I believe hating evil is a virtue. When evil people die, life on earth improves.

   • Quote of the Day:

     “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” – Barry Goldwater

9. After working in and around various schools for about 40 years, the most salient memory I have is the simple comment one mother made when I asked her why she was against having armed guards in schools. She said that she was afraid that her kid would get shot! Hmmm. Says a lot, actually. For one thing, you wonder what her kid was like? In a sheep herd, not so much unlike the populations that comprise many modern schools, you generally have a lot more pacific mother ewes, some wannabe hero rams, and a bunch of likely innocent lambs, than you see sheepdogs. Even the big rams are fair game alone against the better armed and capable predators like lions, tigers, bears, wolves, feral dogs, and coyotes. Funny that many people will believe in having a few big, toothy sheepdogs around a sheep herd to keep the peace vs. predators, not to mention having sharpshooting sheepherders with rifles, but won’t admit that it can take a certain number of deadeye armored staff members at a school with guts and guns to stop deranged wannabe killers, unfortunately even possibly including the recent appearance of six-year-old with a grudge and a weapon.

10. nicholas kane wrote:

    “But though psychics don’t exist, we DO ‘sense’ things based on unconscious observations.”

    As an engineer, I don’t believe that the “Paranormal” explains the human “Sixth Sense” either. In my opinion, a more scientific explanation can be given.

    Suppose a computer scientist wanted to design a data collection system. Of course, he would included a central computer (a CPU) with data storage to record and process the data. He would include the different sensors, that he wished to use, and tie them to the CPU through various data channels.

    However, one problem that he might have is signal overload. If the sensors are active 24/7/365, then the CPU could be overwhelmed with too much data. The critical data could be lost in the extra “noise” that the sensors generate. So, what could the designer do?

    Well, he could include pre-processors on his data channels. They could filter and “condition” the data. The pre-processors would filter out the noise and only pass important data on to the CPU for final processing.

    I think that the human mind has evolved in a similar fashion. Our “Conscious Mind” represents our Central Processing Unit (Our CPU). Our five senses (sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch) represent our sensor system. These sensors run 24/7/365 (while we are alive, anyway) and feed five data channels into our mind. However, so much data would overwhelm our conscious mind if it came in all at once. We would not be able to separate out the valuable data from the noise.

    I believe that one function of our subconscious mind is to act as a pre-processor for our senses. Our subconscious mind filters out much of the noise but important data (like spotting a leopard moving in the grass over to our left) gets shot straight up to our conscious mind.

    However, on occasion, our subconscious mind picks up on data that is too subtle to bring up to the conscious mind. We might not actually see or hear the leopard directly, but we might note that the grass moved contrary to the direction of the wind. We might note a “pool of silence” over to our left where the birds and insects suddenly became quiet.

    Our subconscious mind cannot warn us directly because the data is too subtle. So, instead, our subconscious mind broadcasts a “feeling of unease”. It sends a message that something is wrong, to our conscious mind, in order to create an increased state of alert.

    Jeff Cooper popularized the “Color Code” alert system as follows:

    1) Condition White – Not alert (one is asleep or in a secure location).
    2) Condition Yellow – General condition of alert – environment under observation but no threats have been identified.
    3) Condition Orange – Specific alert – a possible threat has been identified and planning to deal with it is underway.
    4) Condition Red – The threat has materialized and the response to counter the threat is activated.

    I would suggest that there is a fifth condition that sits between Yellow and Orange. I would define it as follows:

    2+) Condition Tangerine – Your subconscious mind has issued a danger warning. Your “Sixth Sense” is sending out alarm bells. You move to a high state of alert (Orange level of alert) but you are not yet in Condition Orange because you have not yet identified where the possible threat is located. However, your subconscious mind is actively warning you.

    Condition Tangerine is a rare alert level. Most of the time, one would move directly from Yellow to Orange. Only on those rare occasions when your subconscious mind goes into alert mode (based upon subtle data signals) would one have occasion to enter the Tangerine Alert level.

    So, I agree with your comment about subconscious observations. I don’t claim that I detected hatred, that Sunday morning, because of ESP or because I am psychic. My record at playing the lottery shows that I am not psychic! 🙂

    Rather, I think my subconscious mind picked up on subtle clues that trigger a warning to my conscious mind. As it turned out, it was a “spot on” accurate warning!

    • Well said. The word for what you’re talking about is precognition. Unfortunately, the New Age crowd co-opted that term and used it for an ability to see the future, which I think is BS. So, I went with the clumsier but effective term “subconscious cue correlation.”

    • I think that subconscious perception can be accepted as scientifically valid. There are studies that seem to confirm it. This one for example:

      https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0044496

      While there is debate as to the exact nature and extent of subconscious perception, I don’t think that anyone can doubt that it exists and that it can have an influence on our conscious mind and our actions.

11. Can feel the visceral frustration when Ken recalls dropping that single point. For as many people that Ken Hackathorn and Paul Howe will piss off with this video, they will never piss off anyone else as much as they piss off themselves when they make a mistake. And credit to Bill Wilson for giving them the platform to say what needed to be said in a commercial setting with his products on display. Displays complete confidence in his employees and utmost respect for these two gentlemen.

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