Lessons from the San Bernardino School Shooting

We don’t always like to talk about the lessons we could learn from a tragedy in the immediate aftermath of the incident.  However, I think it is critically important to look at what happened in San Bernardino and see what lessons we can learn.

It might be easier for me because I came out of a career as a violent crime detective and conducting fatality reviews was a necessary part of what we would do.  Analyze the murder and determine if there were things that could or should have been done.  Were there signs or signals that were missed?

The goal is not to place blame but to make sure we learn and apply what we learn to ensure that it does not happen again. 

What we have learned over the past 20 years is that many domestic murders are preventable.  Yes, preventable.

I have been utterly amazed over the past 20 years how long it has taken to get communities to adopt these proven strategies. I spent more than 10 years traveling worldwide sharing what we learned in Nashville AND how we reduced domestic violence murders.

When I joined the Nashville, TN Metropolitan Police Department in 1991:

• Nashville averaged 25 domestic violence murders annually
• Few states had domestic violence statutes (treated the same as an assault/battery)
• Domestic violence was considered a family problem not a community problem
• Women were mistreated by a criminal justice system that did not understand why they were not leaving the abuser

In 1994 I was selected to help develop and help implement the Nashville Domestic Violence Division which:

• Was the largest police-based domestic violence program in the U.S.
• Was honored as a model program by President Bill Clinton.
• Included 25 specially trained detectives
• Included 4 prosecutors and 4 social workers

The results of the Nashville PD Domestic Violence Division were immediate:

• Domestic murders dropped by 50%.  Catch that? 
• 12-14 people each year were NOT being killed by an intimate partner.

It became clear that domestic violence murders were NOT a “heat of the moment” crime.  There are indicators and escalations, often times over years. There are lethality indicators that were uncovered by studying domestic homicides that helped us when we would see this indicators before someone was killed.

This was a huge paradigm shift for the Nashville Police Department.  Policing at its core is reactive.  Even with all the changes over the past 20 years and community policing, data-driven policing etc, it is still a very reactive machine.

You get robbed, police show up.

You get shot, police show up.

Somebody steals your car, police show up.

The Nashville model was a shift and the result is that it saved lives!  How much more valuable can you get than saved lives?

By now you are asking what does this possibly have to do with the San Bernardino School Shooting?

I have made the following observations (read my words…observations NOT blame):

1. This was Classic Domestic Violence.  They had only been together for a few months but were already estranged and he had a criminal history for domestic violence, weapons and drugs. 
2. After Separation the Danger to the Victim Increased Substantially. I have always been shocked when people ask a victim of domestic violence why they stay in the relationship.  Honestly, it is a heck of a lot safer.  75% of women killed by a current or former partner are killed AFTER they leave.  Leaving is dangerous for victims and their kids.
3. Leaving a Violent Relationship is Dangerous for Your Employer.  Where is the one place a violent abuser can find an estranged partner?  WORK .  I was a member of the anti-stalking team in Nashville.  Stalking exists after there has been separation and is a huge indicator in increased lethality risk.

What are the Solutions to Prevent San Bernardino:

1.      Adopt Domestic Violence Policies and Make Sure All Employees Understand Them.

• Encourage employees to disclose if they are a victim of domestic violence.
• Make sure it is clear that employees understand they will not be held responsible for an abusers behaviors.
• Emphasize the importance of employees notifying employers about threats we so can help keep them, employees, students, visitors, and/or contractors safe.

2.      Control Access to Your Facility

• The first step in preventing a violent incident is securing your perimeter.
• Visitors should not be allowed unfettered access to your organization (not so easy if you are retail, I get that).

How do I Control Access?

• A visitor management system is the first step in securing a facility.  I am amazed that 90% of the organizations I visit each week rely upon visitor honesty to control access.  If a person is determined to hurt someone, telling a lie to the receptionist is not a stretch.
• Not all visitor management systems are created equal.  Many acquiesce to front office personnel and deploy self-service kiosks that defeats the whole purpose of security.
• Dottie Davis, Director of Security for Fort Wayne Community Schools and SafeVisitor Advisory Board Member, said that she employs retired police officers in high traffic buildings because she wants the first point of contact to be with a trained person who understands unusual behavior and would act upon it.  Dottie is an internationally recognized expert on domestic violence and school security.

What are the Key Components of a Quality Visitor Management System (VMS)?

• Excluded Parties List
  • Create lists of people who should be flagged and not allowed on your property.
  • VMS should have communications so a flagged person will kick off text/email notifications to security, administrators or e-911.
• Real Time Sex Offender Data. Some VMS will store local data and not update automatically.
• Cloud-Based.  Allows access anytime from any device in real-time.
• Comprehensive Background Checks.  SafeVisitor has a full integration with one of the fastest growing background screening firms in the U.S. which allows you to create unlimited registration types (visitor, volunteer, student teacher, etc) and tie it to a national background check.
• Use of Geo-Fence and Approved Lists.  Require all visitors, even temporary, to pre-register so that the background check and exclusion list are done before they enter the building.

Fatality reviews can be a bit uncomfortable for people outside of law enforcement or security because it feels like you are leveling blame.  The goal should never be to place blame, but to review policies and procedures to ensure it never happens again.   

The shootings in San Bernardino are not isolated and could have happened anywhere in the world.    Nearly 4,000 women are killed each year in the U.S. from domestic violence and 75% are killed after they leave which means many of them are killed at work or around work as they arrive or leave.

Join us for a webinar to discuss the Lessons from the San Bernardino School Shooting and How to Prevent this at your Organization.  Please register here as seating is limited to 100 participants.

Vendor Management Process

More companies are opting for using contractors which makes the vendor management process extremely critical.  I am surprised (horrified) how many companies do not apply the same risk management principles to vendors that they apply to their employees.

And how many vendors are allowed unfettered access to the organization, wandering the hallways and sensitive areas of the business without any identification or authorization.  A female partner in a large national law firm recently told me how often she is in the office after hours and encounters individuals and has no idea who they are and if the pose a physical risk to her.

The vendor management process does not have to be complicated.  SafeVisitor has a module specifically for vendor management called SafeVendor.

SafeVendor assumes the entire vendor management process by utilizing several industry leading processes:

1.      Cloud-Based.  Many vendor management systems run locally on your computer or server.  This increases your cost for database management, often costs more for updates and is not accessible via the internet.  SafeVendor is cloud-based so there is nothing to install locally AND you have access to your data in real time anywhere in the world 24 hours a day from a computer, smart phone or tablet.

2.      Comprehensive Background Checks.  SafeVendor is integrated with Safe Hiring Solutions, our parent company.  Safe Hiring Solutions is an Inc 5000 global provider of comprehensive background checks for organizations that have ranged from the NFL to Fortune 500 companies.

The custom background check integration allows you to:

a.     Define Level of Background Check.  Our custom integration allows you to select from more than 30 background screening solutions that range from SSN Verification and National Criminal Database to Federal Criminal Courts Search.

b.     Create Levels of Screening for Positions.  You can determine the depth of the background check by position.  Vendors who have access to sensitive information or sensitive areas can be screened at a higher level than vendors who do not.

c.      Automated Rechecks.  Each vendor position can be setup with a recheck requirement that is defined by you or by SafeVendor if we are providing the vetting of vendors.  If you set the recheck for 36 months then at month 35 SafeVisitor will begin emailing your vendor with a link to complete the recheck. If they don’t, then their status is moved to expired and access to your facility removed.

d.     Change Level of Screening for Recheck.  SafeVisitor allows you to conduct a comprehensive background check and then a lower level national background recheck since your vendors have been screened initially at a higher level.  This provides significant costs savings to organizations.

e.     National Sex Offender Check.  Run a national sex offender check each time a vendor enters your facility.  They might have a clear background check when they initially apply but are later convicted of a sexual offense.  This will flag them and deny them entry.

1.     Shared Vendors.  All of your vendors can undergo a comprehensive background check and become SafeVendor certified which allows them to enter any facility that is running SafeVisitor.  If a facility is not using SafeVisitor, the facility can still check the ID and certification of the vendor through a public access link.

2.     Mobile App.  We may not always have our purse or billfold but we will always have our mobile phones with us.  SafeVisitor provides a mobile app for approved volunteers and vendors.  We setup the GPS coordinates for each of your buildings and as approved vendors approach one of your buildings and cross the geo-fence, the app automatically displays the vendors information and photo on the front office computer so security or front office personnel can visually identify the visitor before allowing them access to the facility.

3.     Excluded Parties.  Do you have a list of individuals that are not allowed on your property?  Maybe they have trespassed in the past.  Or there are custody orders.  Or one of your employees is going through a divorce and a protective order is issued and you would like to put the estranged partner on an exclusion list that pops up if they try to enter your facility. Create an exclusion list that is specific to one building or global across your organization.

4.     Visible ID Badges.  Even if you are using the mobile app and geo-fencing, you can still print a temporary ID badge each time the vendor enters your facility with their photo, name, date/time stamp and a time expiring stop sign thatbleeds through after 6-7 hours so they cannot re-enter the facility with the same ID badge.

SafeVisitor is utilized by single building facilities as well as international companies.

Click here to setup an online demonstration or click here for pricing information.

5 Requirements of a Volunteer Management System

How do you manage your volunteers?  Clipboard?  Excel spreadsheet?  Or a server-based solution that does not provide access when you are away from your desk or office.

These labor-intensive methods work fine if you have a small volunteer pool and are only interested in maintaining a list of volunteers. A slight improvement over an Excel spreadsheet.   But if you have a large volunteer base, are committed to risk management which ensures your volunteers maintain acceptable criminal histories and also need accurate volunteer logs to determine when a volunteer has entered or exited your facility, then you need a robust volunteer management system.

Here are 5 requirements of a volunteer management system. 

1.  Cloud-Based.  There are many visitor or volunteer management systems that run locally on your desktop or server.  If you are using a system such as this, how up-to-date is your information?  We recently converted a large school district to our SafeVisitor system and learned in the process that their locally run database of sex offender data was more than 2 years out of date.  That is frightening.  Sex offenders who had been added to the national registry in the past two years were not in the database.  Not to mention they had additional costs of running and maintaining their own database.

There are many benefits of a cloud-based system.

a.     Always Up to Date.  Each time we update our SafeVisitor system you receive those updates immediately and at no cost.

b.     Real Time Sex Offender Data.  Using an API the sex offender data is always in real time.   

c.      Nothing To Install.  Cloud-based systems are accessed via the internet and your web-browser.  What happens if you need to evacuate a building for an emergency?  With SafeVisitor you can login via your phone, tablet, laptop or any computer and ensure all of your visitors are accounted for.

d.     World-Wide Access.  Administrators can access organizational locations and view who is logged in.  We work with a large international volunteer organization and they can login anywhere in the world and check volunteers or visitors in any country.

2.     Comprehensive Background Checks.  Many visitor or volunteer management systems advertise that they have integrated background checks.  Many offer only low-level national sex offender checks.  Or the background checks are a manual process that require you to manually update in the software.

SafeVisitor is unique because we have integrated comprehensive background checks available through our parent company Safe Hiring Solutions.  This custom volunteer background check integration allows you to:

a.     Define Level of Background Check.  Our custom integration allows you to select from more than 30 background screening solutions that range from SSN Verification and National Criminal Database to Federal Criminal Courts Search.

b.     Create Levels of Screening for Positions.  You can determine the depth of the background check by position.  Volunteers who do not have any contact with children or vulnerable populations might be screened at a different level than volunteers who are interacting with children.

c.      Automated Rechecks.  Each volunteer position can be setup with a recheck requirement that is defined by you.  If you set the recheck for 36 months then at month 35 SafeVisitor will begin emailing your volunteer with a link to complete the recheck. If they don’t, then their status is moved to expired and access removed.

d.     Change Level of Screening for Recheck.  SafeVisitor allows you to conduct a comprehensive background check and then a lower level national background recheck since your volunteers have been screened initially at a higher level.  This provides significant costs savings to volunteer organizations.

e.     National Sex Offender Check.  Run a national sex offender check each time a volunteer enters your facility.  They might have a clear background check when they initially apply but are later are convicted of a sexual offense.  This will flag them and deny them entry.

3.     Mobile App Geo-Fencing.  We are a mobile society.  We may not remember to bring an ID card, purse or billfold but we will always have our mobile phones with us.  SafeVisitor provides a mobile app for approved volunteers and vendors.  We setup the GPS coordinates for each of your buildings and as approved volunteers or vendors approach one of your buildings and cross the geo-fence, the app automatically displays the volunteer/vendors information and photo on the front office computer so security or front office personnel can visually identify the visitor before allowing them access to the facility.

4.     Excluded Parties.  Do you have a list of individuals that are not allowed on your property?  Maybe they have trespassed in the past.  Or there are custody orders.  Or one of your employees is going through a divorce and a protective order is issued and you would like to put the estranged partner on an exclusion list that pops up if they try to enter your facility.

5.     Pre-Registration. Do you routinely have large groups of volunteers coming to your facility for events?  Upload a spreadsheet of approved visitors with a date and then print their badge and log them with one mouse click as they enter your facility.

SafeVisitor was built by and for volunteer organizations.  Numerous large volunteer organizations such as Kiwanis International use SafeVisitor to manager their volunteers.

Click here to setup an online demonstration or click here for pricing information.