Lori is the Manager, Codes and Resources for Allegion, and the creator of iDigHardware. With more than 35 years of experience in the door and hardware industry, in her current role she focuses exclusively on the code requirements that apply to door openings.
I like the non-lethal alternative. But the ease of access and the fact that it will dispatch the police, fire department, and ems at once could also be a negative. In my high school some students got it in their head that pulling the fire alarm handle got us out of class for 30 minutes or more to wait for the fire department to search the whole school. They did this 3 time in a month. I wonder how often it would happen with something that looks like more fun than a fire alarm pull. To me where I think it is a great idea I also feel it to be a big temptation for students. But after a certain growing pain time I think it could be a good alternative.
Interesting idea, I wouldn’t want this within reach of children. As opposed to a heavy fire extinguisher this looks like it would be much more manageable for a child to get a hold of and set off the alarm as well as play with. If I’m not mistaken there’s been some facilities that have an alarm system like this that you push the button of, the button idea seems like a better idea then putting pepper spray out there for anyone to grab, ie. an intruder could grab this as easy as a victim..
This looks like a better alternative than most that I have seen. I guess there would need to be some kind of periodic test capability in the design to assure that it would be ready and not have cobwebs or wasp nests or any other type of obstruction, but it looks promising. There is a little too much hysteria going on with school safety when it is really a conduct issue. Laws and hardware are either ineffective or extremely expensive and easy to bypass, in my opinion
It’s pretty neat and useful if everyone around is mature about it. In a school environment, you’ll have curious kids that would want to yank it out and play with it.
OK. So this guy up-dated the box of rocks idea. This may be worse then the barricade devices. Notice he did the demo outdoors and not in an enclosed space, because if he did he knows he’ll be tasting that stuff for a week. And what about the kid that has to see if it really works or the kid that is angry and uses it on the teacher and classmates. This is just some guy trying to make money off a bad situation. he says it non lethal but pepper spray can be lethal to people with lung problems and children. Just lock the door with a code approved locking device.
Another scam, a device that notifies you of a shooter and all building residents but costs, starting at more than $5000 and that doesn;t mean it will work, like I’ve said in the past, I’ve been in EMS 40 years, the fire service 32, you have an emergency, that doesn’t means it’s going to help. I’ve been at multiple incidents, my own father, when all the skill in the world would not save you, even though this is a unnatural occurrence doesn’t mean anything. You can have a cop at every corner, if someone goes crazy, it doesn’t mean the cop would be able to stop him. Look at the Fla shooting, the shooter couldn’t gain entry, so he shot through the glass. Put bulletproof glass in every installation, than they’re get someone to buzz them in, all these fantastic devices don’t mean, it will put an end to shooting.
This looks like another well meaning generator of false alarms.
In school districts in our area the police response protocol involves them
calling the facility in alarm to confirm an actual incident before initiating
a response. This device just has too much potential of becoming another false alarm,
never mind being a convenient weapon for offenders.
I don’t remember the incident location but I’ve seen a university student in a recent situation use pepper spray to stop a shooter. The shooter had just shot a young woman nearly point blank. When he tried to reload the defender charged him spraying him in the face. He was blinded just long enough allowing the student defender to tackle, disarm and subdue the shooter. That kid almost certainly saved some lives that day.
It was Seattle University. The video speaks for itself. With out any disparaging remarks about anyone’s motivation I can make this observation.
That pepper spray in the students hand addressed what I see as one of two common failures of all of the efforts towards improving active shooter responses. Threat recognition and response time are enemy. In this case the response time was outstanding.
I don’t know about this device but I would give serious consideration to the use of pepper spray in some form.
It seems almost every day someone else cooks up another get rich scheme to profit off of school shooters. Thousands of school districts across America are being sucked into wasting precious education resources on products that have not been independently tested, certified, or approved. Not helping the situation are school districts who first turn to the local police department and many of us have seen those recommendations blatantly violate building and fire codes. Not helping are all of the “law enforecement officers” who have also helped confuse school administrators with their own cooked up products and consulting services on what to do during a shooting situation. Unfortunately, there is no national consensus on what school personnel and students should be taught and it is a bit of the wild west out there.
It is becoming more and more apparent that America needs one national code (time for NFPA to step up and quickly) that considers all aspects of both active shooter AND all of the other emergency situations that might arise within an education setting so that school districts can proceed confidently to work with competent designers, certified products, and reputable contractors to create a safer and more secure environment. Sadly, because of all the money that has been wasted on some of these schemes, it will probably take decades to get some of these really terrible products back out of some schools.
When working with my school district we took input from our (AHJ) fire department, the building code inspector and this website in fact for code insight. We also worked with our State and Local police SWAT teams as well as our Sheriff Department. For the record in my State the local police department is required to be involved and sign off on every school building EOP. Requirements aside the law enforcement community can tell you first hand where the weaknesses in fascility security exist from the criminals perspective. Our firemen, SWAT teams and State police practice building breaches for a living and the Sheriffs jails are full of individuals who know a great deal about fast building breeches. All of this input has been invaluable to us to better protect our children. Moving on.
NFPA 730 Guide for Premises Security has been around for a log time. Quoting the NFPA website: “Premises Security (PMM-AAA) Scope – This Committee shall have primary responsibility for documents on the overall security program for the protection of premises, people, property, and information specific to a particular occupancy. The Committee shall have responsibility for the installation of premises security systems.” I leave it to you all to decide why NFPA 730 has not risen to the level of standard rather then a informational guideline.
Given what a know today I’m quite certain any effort to reconcile safety vs. security at the National level isn’t likely to occur any time soon. Even if it could the people who commit these acts adapt to the measures once they are understood. I don’t believe the code development process would be able to keep pace. I’m not suggesting there be no effort in this area.
However I would keep in mind; the Department of Homeland Defense recommends that school security implementations must be made pursuant to building specific surveys and the final decisions made locally. An AEL containing components that do not counter what the bad guys are doing isn’t very helpful.
Martin Badke (aka lauxmyth)
April 10, 2018 at 11:03 am - Reply
I agree with all those who see this as mostly a false alarm generator.
The childhood story of the boy who called wolf grows up into this scenario.
Alarm fatigue clouds the response when needed. In fact, bad actors can intentionally generate false alarms to make an actual response later just a bit slower and smaller.
Interesting idea.
I could see it in some applications.
My biggest no, would be more possible false alarm calls to police or fire.
Because someone just decides to pick it up, knocks it over, child plays with it, etc
I like the non-lethal alternative. But the ease of access and the fact that it will dispatch the police, fire department, and ems at once could also be a negative. In my high school some students got it in their head that pulling the fire alarm handle got us out of class for 30 minutes or more to wait for the fire department to search the whole school. They did this 3 time in a month. I wonder how often it would happen with something that looks like more fun than a fire alarm pull. To me where I think it is a great idea I also feel it to be a big temptation for students. But after a certain growing pain time I think it could be a good alternative.
I like it.
Interesting idea, I wouldn’t want this within reach of children. As opposed to a heavy fire extinguisher this looks like it would be much more manageable for a child to get a hold of and set off the alarm as well as play with. If I’m not mistaken there’s been some facilities that have an alarm system like this that you push the button of, the button idea seems like a better idea then putting pepper spray out there for anyone to grab, ie. an intruder could grab this as easy as a victim..
Sounds like it might be a better solution for teachers than having them carry and operate guns.
This looks like a better alternative than most that I have seen. I guess there would need to be some kind of periodic test capability in the design to assure that it would be ready and not have cobwebs or wasp nests or any other type of obstruction, but it looks promising. There is a little too much hysteria going on with school safety when it is really a conduct issue. Laws and hardware are either ineffective or extremely expensive and easy to bypass, in my opinion
It’s pretty neat and useful if everyone around is mature about it. In a school environment, you’ll have curious kids that would want to yank it out and play with it.
And when you miss the attacker with the pepper spray?
I guess you can throw the canister at the attacker.
Makes a lot more sense than giving teachers guns and door barricades
OK. So this guy up-dated the box of rocks idea. This may be worse then the barricade devices. Notice he did the demo outdoors and not in an enclosed space, because if he did he knows he’ll be tasting that stuff for a week. And what about the kid that has to see if it really works or the kid that is angry and uses it on the teacher and classmates. This is just some guy trying to make money off a bad situation. he says it non lethal but pepper spray can be lethal to people with lung problems and children. Just lock the door with a code approved locking device.
Just another new mouse trap, per say……Company thinks they have something, and out promoting it while the “topic” is hot.
Like the “door blockers” lock-outs, you’ve discussed many time on this bog.
Could not be used in New York State, as pepper spray is illegal to own/possess by individuals/businesses, only law enforcement.
Another scam, a device that notifies you of a shooter and all building residents but costs, starting at more than $5000 and that doesn;t mean it will work, like I’ve said in the past, I’ve been in EMS 40 years, the fire service 32, you have an emergency, that doesn’t means it’s going to help. I’ve been at multiple incidents, my own father, when all the skill in the world would not save you, even though this is a unnatural occurrence doesn’t mean anything. You can have a cop at every corner, if someone goes crazy, it doesn’t mean the cop would be able to stop him. Look at the Fla shooting, the shooter couldn’t gain entry, so he shot through the glass. Put bulletproof glass in every installation, than they’re get someone to buzz them in, all these fantastic devices don’t mean, it will put an end to shooting.
This looks like another well meaning generator of false alarms.
In school districts in our area the police response protocol involves them
calling the facility in alarm to confirm an actual incident before initiating
a response. This device just has too much potential of becoming another false alarm,
never mind being a convenient weapon for offenders.
Seems like a reasonable system for a reception desk open to the public.
I don’t remember the incident location but I’ve seen a university student in a recent situation use pepper spray to stop a shooter. The shooter had just shot a young woman nearly point blank. When he tried to reload the defender charged him spraying him in the face. He was blinded just long enough allowing the student defender to tackle, disarm and subdue the shooter. That kid almost certainly saved some lives that day.
Lori,
Here is a link to the incident I referred to.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kc9ZeHIGphk
It was Seattle University. The video speaks for itself. With out any disparaging remarks about anyone’s motivation I can make this observation.
That pepper spray in the students hand addressed what I see as one of two common failures of all of the efforts towards improving active shooter responses. Threat recognition and response time are enemy. In this case the response time was outstanding.
I don’t know about this device but I would give serious consideration to the use of pepper spray in some form.
Thank for the link, Jon!
– Lori
Good Lord, Please NO! What a terribly BAD idea!
It seems almost every day someone else cooks up another get rich scheme to profit off of school shooters. Thousands of school districts across America are being sucked into wasting precious education resources on products that have not been independently tested, certified, or approved. Not helping the situation are school districts who first turn to the local police department and many of us have seen those recommendations blatantly violate building and fire codes. Not helping are all of the “law enforecement officers” who have also helped confuse school administrators with their own cooked up products and consulting services on what to do during a shooting situation. Unfortunately, there is no national consensus on what school personnel and students should be taught and it is a bit of the wild west out there.
It is becoming more and more apparent that America needs one national code (time for NFPA to step up and quickly) that considers all aspects of both active shooter AND all of the other emergency situations that might arise within an education setting so that school districts can proceed confidently to work with competent designers, certified products, and reputable contractors to create a safer and more secure environment. Sadly, because of all the money that has been wasted on some of these schemes, it will probably take decades to get some of these really terrible products back out of some schools.
When working with my school district we took input from our (AHJ) fire department, the building code inspector and this website in fact for code insight. We also worked with our State and Local police SWAT teams as well as our Sheriff Department. For the record in my State the local police department is required to be involved and sign off on every school building EOP. Requirements aside the law enforcement community can tell you first hand where the weaknesses in fascility security exist from the criminals perspective. Our firemen, SWAT teams and State police practice building breaches for a living and the Sheriffs jails are full of individuals who know a great deal about fast building breeches. All of this input has been invaluable to us to better protect our children. Moving on.
NFPA 730 Guide for Premises Security has been around for a log time. Quoting the NFPA website: “Premises Security (PMM-AAA) Scope – This Committee shall have primary responsibility for documents on the overall security program for the protection of premises, people, property, and information specific to a particular occupancy. The Committee shall have responsibility for the installation of premises security systems.” I leave it to you all to decide why NFPA 730 has not risen to the level of standard rather then a informational guideline.
Given what a know today I’m quite certain any effort to reconcile safety vs. security at the National level isn’t likely to occur any time soon. Even if it could the people who commit these acts adapt to the measures once they are understood. I don’t believe the code development process would be able to keep pace. I’m not suggesting there be no effort in this area.
However I would keep in mind; the Department of Homeland Defense recommends that school security implementations must be made pursuant to building specific surveys and the final decisions made locally. An AEL containing components that do not counter what the bad guys are doing isn’t very helpful.
I agree with all those who see this as mostly a false alarm generator.
The childhood story of the boy who called wolf grows up into this scenario.
Alarm fatigue clouds the response when needed. In fact, bad actors can intentionally generate false alarms to make an actual response later just a bit slower and smaller.
FYI over 1000 units are installed in schools with no false alarms.