DoD’s decentralized strategy for active shooters could be dangerous, IG says

Since 2009, there have been 11 active shooter situations on U.S. military bases. The most recent was at the Army Recruiting Station in Greensboro, North Carolina in 2020. While no one was injured in that incident, other active shooter situations left tragic impacts on the military community. A shooting at Ft. Hood, Texas in 2009 left 13 dead and another at Washington Navy Yard killed eight.

“The patchwork of policies increases confusion even in the best of circumstances, let alone during the moment of crisis during an active shooter scenario,” Katherine Kuzminski, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told Federal News Network. “DoD law enforcement and installation leadership could therefore lose valuable minutes evaluating the rights and responsibilities assigned to them in such moments. DoD would benefit from the development of an entirely new instruction focused on active shooter prevention and response, including all aspects of emergency management, arming of personnel, lessons learned, incident response plans, and training specific to active shooter incidents.”

It’s not just the policies that are the problem though. The DoD IG found that installation leadership were not properly complying with the active shooter incident strategies that did exist.

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