Daniel Dluzneski

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Thank you everyone, and welcome back to the Tron podcast. This is your host, Rashad Woods. Today I have a very special guest that in many ways is very personal to millions of people across the country because of his experience and what he does for a living. I'm very proud to have on the show, Mr. Daniel Dluzniewski. Thank you very much, sir. [00:00:22] Speaker B: Thank you for having me on, Rashad. Appreciate it. I always like going on these podcasts and trying to explain to people about school safety. And there is sometimes you need an explanation. [00:00:33] Speaker A: Yes. [00:00:33] Speaker B: Because parents today have a lot on their minds, a lot. I'm a parent, you're a parent, you've got a lot of things to do. And especially if you've got more than one child, you're dealing with not only school, after school activities, home life, social media is just on and on and on. And as you know, since the pandemic, it's only gotten worse. And I'm sure you've seen the, the scores, the average scores for kids in math and English, it's only gotten worse. So here we are talking, we have to add another layer and talk about school safety and not particularly school shootings, but just the violence and weapons that are showing up in schools. [00:01:10] Speaker A: Right. So, you know, obviously, you know, for your background, you're retired lieutenant from the Secret Service. [00:01:16] Speaker B: Did you. [00:01:17] Speaker A: I didn't see any military. Did you come from the military to get really? Really? [00:01:21] Speaker B: No, I, it's kind of a long story. I started later in life. I knocked around at different jobs after I gotta college and I just always could always make money, could always find a job, but I never pinned down a career, however. And again, I don't want to take too long with this. I did try with the Secret Service back in 1980. [00:01:39] Speaker A: Okay. [00:01:40] Speaker B: And okay, believe it or not, they didn't hire me because I was underweight. So this was something that was really weird because I'm like, are you kidding me? Just hire me. I'll eat bananas and drink milkshakes. What are you doing? Oh, no, no, you have to make the weight. Well, me, dummy, right? I could have gone back to my doctor and said, hey, get some white out, add 10 pounds and I'm good to go, right? Well, maybe not because I found out when I talked to some of the older guys when I got on the job, they said, oh yeah, we'd have weigh ins and guys would put, you know, quarters and half dollars in their hands so they could make the weight. I'm like, oh my God. So anyways, I waited, I Said, all right, you don't want me. Forget it. And I knocked around a few more jobs, and now I'm in my 30s. I kind of found out that the maximum age, it might have risen by now, maximum age at the time was 34, and I was 32. I said, let me try again. And I got in. And it actually was a very good move because that the time, once I got in, my supervisors, they were my age, so I got along with them very well. Right at that time, again, Rashad, you didn't have many police officers that had graduated college. Now it's basically rite of passion, right? But back then, very few, maybe 25, 30%. So it actually worked out for me. I got better positions. I was not promoted faster, but there were specialized positions that I get into, like canine, where I wouldn't have had that chance if I was 10 years younger when I first got on. So it worked out. [00:03:10] Speaker A: Life works out in mysterious ways. So you also were head of school safety in Florida. Over 104,000 students at 140 schools. That's incredible. That's. That's absolutely amazing. How did you gravitate, obviously, how did that even come to fruition that you decided to. [00:03:26] Speaker B: That, you know, when I put my 24 years into the Secret Service and we, you know, you talk to your peers and stuff, what are you going to do after? I'm just sitting on a beach, I'm done. This is it. Get my pension, I'm done. I lasted about three months, you know, an alpha personality. It's like I'm sitting around going, this is boring. What am I doing right? And my. Well, my ex wife at the time, she goes, and this, this isn't the reason we got divorced. But she said, look, you got, you got to get a job. You got to do something. And she was the one who found. She says, hey, I saw this online at our local county schools, and I think it'll fit your resume. And it did. I went through the process, really didn't know what I was getting into, you know, because I thought, here is this position. I'm going to have a staff, I'm going to have all these people. No newly created position. And I was totally alone. Totally alone. They said, here you go, you're on your own. Here's your desk, is your chair. Go for it. And I find out I've got to be in charge of 104,000 kids and 140 schools in a very dense county. And I'm like, wait a minute, kids, we're in Florida. But this is where people go to retire. No kids down here. I was completely wrong. [00:04:34] Speaker A: Right, right, right. [00:04:35] Speaker B: I said, all right, all right. And I worked, and I was allowed. Luckily, I was allowed to do the job I thought I could do. I just took my experience. I said, look, I'm not a desk guy. I hate sitting at a desk. I said, I want to go out and meet these people. I want to see these schools. So I made it my goal to visit every one of those 140 schools and every one of those principals. It took me a year, but I wanted to see them face to face. I said, here it is. I am the face of school security. It's a customer service friendly place. I want feedback, this and that and, and I don't know if, you know, but educators in law enforcement, it's like oil and water. Really, really don't get along. [00:05:10] Speaker A: Yeah, you would speak better on that than I would, to be quite honest. [00:05:13] Speaker B: You know, it's, it's weird. But anyways, I, I just went and I didn't. Yes, there were things out there about school safety on the Internet. Some books, this and that, that I got some knowledge from. But mostly it's common sense because you'd go into these schools and they would use codes for emergencies. I'm like, okay, I know code red is, is something's wrong, but what exactly does it. What are the other codes mean? [00:05:39] Speaker A: Correct. [00:05:40] Speaker B: So thank God I got them out of codes. And that took a while because they, they pushed back. Wait a minute. Right? If you've got a visitor, if you've got maintenance workers, somebody who doesn't know what that is, they're not going to know. I said, just use plain language. Plain language. We have a, you know, we have a school shooter. We have a fire, we have a bomb. Throw whatever it is. Use plain language. You're not going to scare anybody. Even with elementary schools. And I got, I'll tell you one story. I'm at an elementary school and, you know, probably, I don't know, maybe 3, 400 kids. Not that, not that many. 3, 400 is a good size. And what they would do when they announced their active shooter training or when they went into a drill loudspeaker and they would use a code of the pony is being delivered today. And, and it's. It was like, what? And I said, you know, some visitors, they're like, they're delivering a pony today. Oh, my God. Exactly. Of course I want to see this. [00:06:37] Speaker A: Get the kids, Come on. [00:06:39] Speaker B: I said to them, I said, why are You. Oh, we don't want to scare the kids. I said, let me tell you, these kids are not naive. No. Now, you don't tell them the dangerous stuff, but, you know, you start at that level. Look, elementary school, we're hiding from the bad guy, whatever it is that the teachers know what's going on. You don't know. Use plain language. It's okay. You can use plain language. So that took a while. Amanda took a long time as I went on it. Well, the crazy part for me and, you know, being brand new, I wanted to put on a good impression. I wanted to make sure that everybody was safe. They all had to do. And we didn't have Rashad. They didn't do safety plans. They kind of did it. They take a few pages, say, okay. It wasn't until the state said, hey, Department of Education said, you have to have a safety plan for every school. So what they did was they would copy off each other, right? Someone would have a safety plan as, hey, did you do a safety. Yeah, let me see it so I can copy. And that's when I would. [00:07:34] Speaker A: Yeah, they would just take their name. That was on the previous one flat. [00:07:37] Speaker B: The other school. Yeah, it. It was. It was. I said, look, as long as you fill in all the blanks, I sent them a copy. I said, I understand. You don't want 50 pages, right? But as long as you fill in the blanks, we're okay. But I need everyone to send it. Don't delay this. Because Education department was like, hey, you better make sure all your 140 schools got a plan or you're in trouble. So that became something that was a little bit anxiety causing. The other thing was I didn't have full autonomy. [00:08:03] Speaker A: I didn't really. [00:08:05] Speaker B: I could not go into a school and say, fix that lock, change that door, put a fan. I couldn't do that. And that bothered me because I had to go through a process. Just like with the government. I said, this is. This is bs. I said, I should be able to tell them, get the maintenance guy up here now. Fix this. [00:08:21] Speaker A: Right? [00:08:22] Speaker B: It didn't work that way. [00:08:23] Speaker A: Right. [00:08:24] Speaker B: And that bothered me. I had to go through a process. Did. I did have good people that I could go to and they would have the budget. And because I didn't have a budget that I had to go through to all this stuff. It was a process. And one process I would tell you, that did work that I did enjoy. And usually with these things, Rashad, just like with the Secret Service, when something would happen, you Just fix it. I'm not going to blame game. I'm not going to do that. Look, if something happens, we fix it. Well, what happened at what I think it was a middle school. This is. Look, these are schools built in the 60s and the 1950s. So you had a countertop that maybe I'm 6 foot 4, that maybe was waist high. [00:09:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:09:02] Speaker B: And they had half swinging doors to get in. I'm like, okay, but. All right. So what happened was a dad came to pick up his son. Well, of course they were separated. He was not on the list, meaning they didn't have the card for his name. He was not allowed to pick up his son. So he gets angry, and they're like, no, sir, you're not. You can't. So he jumps the counter. Easy. Jumps the counter, pushes the staffer away. Thank God he didn't have a weapon on him. [00:09:29] Speaker A: It's over. [00:09:29] Speaker B: They caught him, brought him back, called the police. No problem. Everything was fine. Nobody got hurt. But from that point on, you're like, all right, we can't have these counters anymore. [00:09:38] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:09:38] Speaker B: We had to bring the counters up. We had to bring tempered glass all the way. Just like at a bank. [00:09:43] Speaker A: Right. [00:09:44] Speaker B: So you're dealing with this little slot on the bottom where you can slide paper through, but not a staff can't hear you. You're screaming at them behind this glass. I can't hear you. Like, oh, my God. And it just felt. And I tell you, when you walked into the school, I understood parents. They said, oh, my God. It felt claustrophobic. Right. Because now you got the counter and the glass. I said, okay, I get it. I don't. I didn't. It was a fine line. I'm sorry, Rashad. I. Talk fast. [00:10:07] Speaker A: No, I'm listening. Because these are all the things that I just, you know, I. You see it now, but you didn't know what it must have been like when it was implemented. [00:10:14] Speaker B: No, exactly. And I try to tell parents, look, there's a fine line between turning to schools into prisons and yet keep them welcoming for the kids and for the parents and staff to come in. I said, I don't want the schools to be prisons. So we. But we do have to make it secure so the staff and the students are safe. And once they explain that, the parents. Because I understood, I'm a parent, he'd walk in, go, whoa, what happened? Oh, my God. I felt so. Of course it closed up. I said, I have to keep them safe. I have to keep them so no one jumps the counter. So this and that, you can still get in. And once you got used to it, it was okay. But at first, like, oh, my gosh. So those kind of things did work. I did get some, I would say, things done that I wanted to get done before I left. And I'll tell you the story about how, why I left, what I wanted was all, all the, all my schools, I would say, even when I'm on LinkedIn and stuff, I tell everybody and most of them agree, keep the doors locked during class time because you're already one step ahead if you have to go into a lockdown. Now, the pushback was, oh, my gosh, this one wants to go to the bathroom, this one wants to go here, this one wants tough, let them out, get up, let them back in, keep the door locked, and make sure if that room is empty and you leave it, it's locked. Of course, I don't want somebody coming in, diving in there, waiting for the opportunity, and then they go. So that again, more pushback. But again, it worked and it's continuing to work. Now. The main focus of what I want to do on all these podcasts is there are marketing companies out there, private companies that are pushing agendas on these drilling of how you would drill for an active shooter. And I know right now we're going to concentrate a little bit on active shooter, but that's. I tell you what, Rashad, really, it's being like being struck by lightning. It does not happen as often as the media pushes it happening. It does not happen that often. Anyway, for my purpose and what I believe in and what has been a standard for a number of years is a lockdown. The door is locked. You turn the lights off, pull the blinds down, sit the children on the floor away from the doors and windows. You silence your phone. You don't listen to any announcements, and you just, you don't open that door. You don't open that door. [00:12:28] Speaker A: Well, you're right, right. [00:12:29] Speaker B: Until the administration or police show up with a key. [00:12:32] Speaker A: Right? [00:12:33] Speaker B: Not knocking, let me in with a key to get into that door. That's it. You don't listen to any announcements. And I've had it happen. I've had teachers, I'm sorry, principals say, hey, drills over. We're good to go back to class. Because I gotta. I got a high school with 1500 kids and they don't want to wait an hour and a half to do the drill properly. So they're, oh, it drills over. Okay, ready to go. [00:12:55] Speaker A: Okay, now it's drilling their mind to wait for an announcement when it could actually happen. [00:12:59] Speaker B: Exactly. And you're going to have somebody taken hostage, get on the microphone, tell them, so I can shoot everybody. Anyway, that's what I believe in. It's been around for a number of years. All the organizations, Department of Education, believe it. However, I say recently, within the past five, six years, they've come out with other methods because everyone wants to change things. You get a knee jerk reaction, let's try this, let's try this. Because we don't want to do the same old thing. Because to play devil's advocate, what I'm getting is, oh, when you go into a lockdown, those kids are sitting ducks. No, they're not sitting ducks. And the reason for that is, and a very important point, no shooter has ever breached a locked door. They won't do it. It takes too long. Yes, it takes too long. They're not going to do it. I'll give you one example, probably the only example. There was a shooting up in Red Lake, Minnesota, back in 2005. The kid, I think he was 17, 18 years old. Anyways, it's on a Native American reservation. He's upset with his grandfather. So I don't know if he took his grandfather's gun, where he got the gun. He shoots the grandfather, kills him, shoots the grandfather. His girlfriend kills her, goes to his school, which was a middle school, shoots the security guard, gets into the school and sees a teacher and she starts running away from him. He chases after her, gets into the classroom, locks the door. He shoots that door with a shotgun three times. That lock didn't bust, didn't move. Nothing. Nothing. He went around the corner, bashed in a window and got in that way. They captured him, but not only after he killed a couple of people. Anyway, that was one example. But the door never breached. Yeah, no, door was never breached. No, they won't do it. Because if you've seen any of these videos, and the classic one is the Nashville shooter, when they came to that glass doors, they shot out the glass doors. They're walking down the hallway and you see them checking the doors. Locked and move on. Locked, move on, open. They go in because it's so instinctive. [00:14:57] Speaker A: That they're just looking for an entry point and any resistance, they just proceed. [00:15:02] Speaker B: Exactly. Yeah. It doesn't. They're not going to waste their time because Rashad, as crazy as they are, they have a clock in their head. They know the police are coming. They either got a plan at the end, they're going to die by Cop, they're going to kill themselves. They might give up, but who knows? But no, they're not going to breach a locked door. So that's one of the devil's advocate things, that they're sitting ducks. They're not. They're not coming in anyway. These marketing companies have two other drills that they like. One is called Run, Hide, Fight. Run, Hide, Fight. Has been in the corporate world for a number of years. Department of Homeland Security, and I think it was Houston Police Department, did a video. They've got the guy all dressed in black, and they got the movie narrator, you know, with the voice coming over. You know, you see a bad guy coming in. It's a good video. It's old, but it's a good video. It says if you have to run, if you can't just run, run away. If you cannot do that, hide under a desk, in a building, in the bathroom, wherever, if it comes to it. And as a last resort, you fight. Okay, Right. And they see people with chairs and a fire extinguisher, all this stuff. All right? Somehow this got transferred over to schools. I don't know why, I don't know where. Who thought of this for children. I am not going to have a. I don't even care if it's high school. I'm not having them fighting anybody. And I don't care if you modify it, because where are you running to? You're talking about classroom sizes. And if everybody's running, where are they going? Rashad? They're all going to the exit, and they're going to pile up there like a funnel, and they're going to step it all over each other. And it bothers me because when they do these drills for this kind of thing. Okay, we're going to do a drill and we're going to run. Come on. Not run. We're going to walk out of our classroom and go out the exit and go to our designated area. Basically. Just like a fire drill. [00:16:45] Speaker A: Correct. [00:16:45] Speaker B: Well, here we go. We're going to do our drill. We're going to walk out. We go here and we go there. Okay. Do you think during the most traumatic event not happening, we're going to have these children? You're going to walk, you're going to run in a panic situation and pile up at that door screaming and yelling. And I tell you what, Rashad, you're going to hear bad stuff. You are going to see bad stuff. I don't want to put a child through that. I'm not going to put a child through that. So what these schools do is, okay, we're going to tell the teachers, you have an option teacher. You can either stay in your classroom or make a decision to run out of your classroom. Now, can you imagine, put yourself in the place of a teacher. Wait, you're putting the liability on me, right? I have to make a last second, split second decision. I'm not a cop, I'm not military, I'm not nothing. I'm a teacher. I have to make a split second decision to keep these kids safe, whether I run out of here or stay in the classroom. That's ridiculous. Even if I was a teacher with a gun, I'm not going anywhere. No, I don't care if somebody says, I know where the gunman is. He's on room 202 on a set. I'm not going anywhere. There's no reason for me to leave that classroom. Now what you hear in the media is, oh, well, what happened in Uvalde? Well, what happened in Marjory Stoneman Douglas? Completely different situations. Uvalde was a screw up from day one. There were busted locks, the security guard left, doors were left open. The cops screwed up. That was just a totally bizarre situation. Marjory Stoneman Douglas, which was here in Florida, that was again, a totally messed up thing. This guy takes an Uber with that gun and do you think the Uber driver would have said, what? That's not an instrument. Looks to me like a long rifle. [00:18:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:18:36] Speaker B: He goes into the gate that he knows is open, knows which doors are open, and it's a three floor school. He just starts shooting everybody. And I don't think he pulled the fire alarm. I think a rickshaw set off the fire alarm. [00:18:48] Speaker A: Okay. [00:18:48] Speaker B: They had never trained for that. So now they're like, wait, fire alarm, we have to leave. Wait, no active shooter. We gotta stay. So there's this chaotic moment. So they didn't train for that. So that was messed up. So this idea that you're going to give teachers that option, I completely disagree because the school just, Bailey dropped, dropped the ball going, yeah, you've got the liability, go ahead. You're the one that's going to get sued if something happens. [00:19:10] Speaker A: Well, it's crazy because, you know, even when you take your CPL training course, they'll tell you, find a corner and sit in in case there's an intruder in your house. Like, you know, that's not some, it's not a hero moment when if something bad is happening in your home, like you're literally, if you're in Your bedroom. The best place is to get your kids in your bedroom, put them in a corner, and you sit in a closet and don't move and keep, you know, movement is not your friend, so to speak, when it comes to stuff like that. [00:19:35] Speaker B: Exactly. And I'm glad, I'm glad you brought that up because there's another training out there, and it's called alice. It's an acronym, A, L, I, C, E. And as you've seen, there have been people, teachers, principals, that think they're heroes. We've had it happen in Sandy Hook. The teacher comes out or principal comes out, challenges the shooter, she's dead. Marjorie Silman, Douglas gym teacher, comes out, challenges shooter dead. Nashville, Idaho, Iowa. It goes on and on where these people think, I can talk them down and I'm going to save everybody. No, what are you doing? Where's common sense in any of this stuff? You were supposed to go into a lockdown. The good guys are on their way and you're going to be okay. Unless you're some kind of training, some military or something with a gun. That's the only way you're going to stop this individual. This should have happened months ago. It's too late now once that decision's been made, you know, at this point. [00:20:28] Speaker A: So anyway, okay, no, no, I was just going to say because, you know, I was in high school when Columbine happened. [00:20:34] Speaker B: Right. [00:20:35] Speaker A: That was the crescendo of if you didn't invest in safety or there were not laws from a state or government, federal level, whatever it may be, that was the kind of moment where everybody kind of paused and said, we need to start investing in these resources in schools and doing these drills and having these things taking place. Because I was in 10th grade. It happened in 99, so I think I was in 10th or 11th grade one of those two years when that happened. And that quote, unquote changed the game, so to speak. How big was your staff at those 104 schools that you had take looking amount of those students and what are the perimeters? Like, what are the details and nuances of covering a school, so to speak, the technicalities of it. [00:21:17] Speaker B: Well, I don't mean to laugh. I didn't have a staff. [00:21:19] Speaker A: Yeah. When you first started, like, you know, like. But that's. It's crazy. Like you're in charge of safety, but at some point did. When they did it. [00:21:25] Speaker B: Never. Never. [00:21:27] Speaker A: Oh, my God. [00:21:28] Speaker B: As far as I know, they still don't. And it's funny. I'll tell you one story. I Went up to North Carolina at one of these conferences, one of these school safety conferences. And I'm talking to people that got like 30,000 students, and they're like, oh, yeah, I got a secretary, I got an assistant, I got a vice president. I got this, that. And I'm like, oh, my God, I got 104,000 with just me. That's it. Just me. So it was like, oh, my God, it was. That was a mom there. Anyway, no, it was just me. So I just would. I guess I just assumed, Right. [00:21:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:21:55] Speaker B: And I told these schools, look, if you're going to have an active shooter drill, I want to be there. [00:21:59] Speaker A: Right? [00:22:00] Speaker B: And that's what I would do. I would attend all these active shooter drills, and you would see, obviously from elementary, middle, and high school, how they would run these different drills and run them correctly. Because a lot of times, again, coming down from the Department of Education, hey, did you run a quarterly? I want. At the time, I wanted it monthly. That was too much. Quarterly is. Okay, 1. A quarterly active shooter drill. And they would say, oh, yeah, we ran the drill. Yeah, sure. And I'm supposed to believe them? No, you know what they do? Yeah, we ran the drill today. Okay. Click drills over. Boom. Because I tell you, right, here's the deal. People are human. They're human. Now, I would want drills to be unannounced because I want to see how you react. [00:22:38] Speaker A: Normal human reaction announced. [00:22:40] Speaker B: Rashad, people are. Look, teachers have the toughest. The toughest job now in the country. The toughest job, I tell you, because not only the grades down the pandemic, their pay, student discipline, it just. The list goes on and on. [00:22:55] Speaker A: You're the de facto parent now, right, too. And God forbid if the kid goes home hungry. [00:22:59] Speaker B: Pressure from parents and principals. Got to get the grade up. Got to get my kids grade up. So now you're going to tell them, oh, by the way, we got to run a quarterly drill. It's going to take an hour and a half. And you're like, oh, my God, I got testing, I got homework. Let's get this over with. Right? So what they do is I would do the same thing as a human. I'd already have the doors locked, lights out, kids, we sit on the floor. Let's get this thing over with. [00:23:21] Speaker A: Get this over with. [00:23:22] Speaker B: So it doesn't. It just doesn't work that way. If you're going to train, you want to train correctly, and you want to train where somebody's taking it seriously. Not like, come on, let's go I want to get this over with. [00:23:33] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:23:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:34] Speaker A: Because then they're going to start going to the vending machine and they're going to. You know, I got to go to the bathroom real quick before we get this. [00:23:40] Speaker B: Like. [00:23:40] Speaker A: Like you got seconds you got to deal with. [00:23:43] Speaker B: Exactly. You know. [00:23:47] Speaker A: No, I was just going to tell. You know, this is just so fast. It's so personal and I apologize for cutting you off. [00:23:51] Speaker B: No, no, it's okay. It's all right. I want. Did want to talk about this Alice training. Because there are schools out there and parents probably that hear this from the school and like, what the heck is that? Well, it stands for alert, lockdown, inform, confront and evacuate. Okay. And it was created by apparently a former law enforcement individual. All right, Alert. I get it. That's. You should make the announcement. And I always tell them make it twice because you and I know, Rashad, the first announcement comes over. It happened. [00:24:23] Speaker A: Wait, Right. [00:24:24] Speaker B: Wait, what did they just say? [00:24:26] Speaker A: Processed it. [00:24:27] Speaker B: No, you're not. You're not. You're listening for somebody to lights on or in the parking lot or something. Exactly it twice. Okay, got it. Got the alert. Lockdown. Absolutely. Everything's locked down. Inform was where it gets kind of weird. They want an individual who's. I guess if schools have cameras to follow the shooter all through the school, wherever they go, that technology is not here. It's not going to be here for a long time. You've got cameras in schools, but they're not be able to follow somebody. I don't. You know where. Where they're going? [00:24:56] Speaker A: No. [00:24:57] Speaker B: And also ways this individual follow. Are they locked down? What are they doing? Look at a screen. So no, that doesn't work. The C is confront. I don't know if it's exactly confront. It might be another C, but it's something like that. Meaning or counter? I think it's counter. [00:25:12] Speaker A: Okay. [00:25:13] Speaker B: Meaning if you see the individual, you're supposed to challenge them, talk them down. Where it gets. No, where it gets very strange for your own kids is if. And that's a big if that shooter gets into the classroom. They want children. Children and the teacher to throw something at the shooter all at the same time, precisely at the same moment. They're going to throw some. An iPad, a thermos, a pen, pencil, iPhone, something. Why. Not only are these kids traumatized already, if a shooter gets into that classroom, they're just going to piss them off. What are you doing? So, and this training is out there now, they'll say, well, we've modified it so little children don't have to throw things. But we still want them to distract the shooter if they get into the classroom. My question, Rashad, is how the heck did they get in the classroom in the first place? [00:26:05] Speaker A: If the door. [00:26:05] Speaker B: Did you lock the door, right? How'd they get in? How? I mean, even if you're targeted. Look, if you're targeted, whole different situation. Let's say somebody's out there and they got it out for Rashad and you're inside that classroom. Here they come. And you know they're coming for you. You're going to take file cabinets, desks, you're going to blockade that door so they're not coming in anywhere. So this is completely, I'm sorry, BS that a shooter would get in there in the first place. And you're going to have children. Precisely. [00:26:34] Speaker A: Throw something in that position. [00:26:36] Speaker B: I hear something about that with my child, I'm going to go ballistic and say, what are you doing? I'm pulling. I'm. No, I don't want my kids doing that. Are you out of your mind? [00:26:47] Speaker A: How long does the average. You know, I know there's statistics and numbers and I don't know this off the top of my head. How long does the average school shooting last for? Is it three minutes? [00:26:57] Speaker B: And. Yep, I'm glad you brought that up because the name of my book, and I'm not on here to push the book, my book is called the First Five Minutes. [00:27:05] Speaker A: Yep, I saw that. [00:27:06] Speaker B: And the reason for that is FBI data. And remember, FBI data goes back like three, four or five years. By the time they get all the data together, average shooter is shooting. Excuse me, between three and five minutes. Right? Three and five minutes. That's it. It feels like a lifetime when you're going through it, but that's why I named the book the First Five Minutes. That's why I said, look, you're on your own. The police are coming, unless you've got a school resource officer that's armed. But you're on your own. So you do the right thing, get in your head. This is what I have to do. And I'm going to excuse myself for just a minute. And again, again, I'm not selling the book. It's just something I want to mention. [00:27:41] Speaker A: This is, this is why we're here. I want you to talk about your book. [00:27:45] Speaker B: In the book, I've got to download this credit card size card. It's a quick reference card and you can attach it to your lanyard because most teachers either have a lanyard with their ID or their copier card, of course, and on here. Because, Rashad, no one knows how they're going to react in an emergency. [00:28:02] Speaker A: No, you don't. [00:28:03] Speaker B: I'm trained and even myself, I'm going to reach for a gun that's not there. It's just, you know, your training is going to kick in. Well, I'm sorry, these teachers, they're not trained military or police officers. They're not going through this. So you're going to forget stuff, you're going to forget your name. And I tell you, Rashad, I've had it where a third of teachers in schools just freeze. It could happen. You could just completely freeze. So on this card you'll go through lockdown. Okay, I did the doors, I did the, I did the car. Oh geez, I forgot to turn the lights off. It's just something that you can quickly reference and you're in a panic situation. And the reason I brought these up is I have a friend who's in the emergency room with a doctor and she goes, oh yeah, we use those all the time. I'm like, what are you talking about? She says, well, they had like a Code Purple last week. I haven't heard that in months. Exactly. Just something simple to use and it's, and it utilized, that's all just something I, I wanted to keep it simple. None of this stuff, we have to think about anything. You just go through the process, your door is already locked, get the kids on the floor and help is on the way. [00:29:04] Speaker A: Now a couple of the questions I did have was now that the Internet is obviously a lot utilized the ways to make threats to school students, staff, some of them are false, some of them very credible. I've seen them myself as a parent and I hate to say like, I've even sometimes said like, yeah, that's B.S. these kids are just talking online because it seems. So how does that, that wasn't prevalent when you were actually doing these schools. How does that impact day to day operations of school safety? That now you have to look at TikTok, Facebook, whatever other social media platform could be doing school threats. [00:29:40] Speaker B: I was, I was very fortunate because in my county I had a school's police staff. They didn't work. I worked with them. They weren't under me or I wasn't under them. They worked with me. They were the ones who were on the Internet who look at all these threats, okay, for this kind of stuff. So that, thank God that worked out for them and each school at what? Well, it wasn't after Marjorie Stoneman Douglas. But most of the schools that were the biggest ones we had would have either a school resource officer or a county or local police officer there that was inside the school. And they were the ones who monitored all this kind of stuff. And I'm glad you brought that up too, because obviously with social media, it's just things have gone crazy with this idea of having phones in schools. But I'll tell you, I'll give you a couple examples and not so much active shooter wise. I want to transfer a little bit to what really is happening in schools nowadays. Because you're seeing more weapons in schools, whether it's guns, knives, bats, any kind of weapon. [00:30:38] Speaker A: Correct. [00:30:38] Speaker B: And the reason for that, obviously is number, number one would be cyber bullying. That, that's the number one thing. When we were kids, I don't know if you had so much when you were in school, but when I, you know, there was no Internet. [00:30:48] Speaker A: There was no, like, if you had a computer. When I, you were like, for lack of a better term, like, that was an anomaly, like, you know. [00:30:55] Speaker B: Yeah, I bet. So you would be bullied in school. [00:30:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:30:58] Speaker B: But when you left at home, you're at home, you're fine right now, 24 hours a day because it's all over social media. You're being bullied constantly. That was a killer. The other thing is that the phones themselves. Now I'll give you an example. I had a bomb threat and it was at a school, a big high school, like 1500 kids. And of course, next door was a middle school with another 800 kids. So a bomb threat gets called in my philosophy. Is, is it just a threat? Is there a device? Did they call and say, I've got a backpack on floor two at room so and so in front of so and so's office? Yeah. Okay, that's credible. If you just call up, there's a bomb at the school, click. I'm not going to evacuate the school. I'm not. I would argue with them all the time. I said, it's just a threat. I said what you could do is have teachers or someone in this just make what they call a cursory search. Do you see something weird out in the hallway or any. If everything looks fine, go back to school. This is just something fake. However, what they were so afraid of was the media picking up on this because in their mind was, oh, if one student gets killed, oh my God, this is going to be horrible. So we have to evacuate. So here we go. Rashad, we're taking 1500 kids out of the school, making sure that, like, a thousand feet away, in case something happens. And we have to do it also for the middle school. Here come the cops. Here come the fire engines. Well, guess what? Now here come the text, because all these kids are texting their parents, hey, there's a bomb threat at the school. So they're coming. Here come the parents. Oh, my God. It was so horrible. What I would do is I finally. It got so bad, I told the ladder truck. I said, look, block the road. I don't need parents coming in here. There's no reason to. There's nothing going on. However, it would take a good two, three hours, sometimes longer, to clear the school because you got the dogs coming in, you got the police, the fire. Like, oh, my God. So the next thing that would happen is now you're getting fake texts. Hey, I saw a package on the third floor, and there was wires sticking out of it. Hey, no, I saw a package on the first floor. [00:33:09] Speaker A: It just becomes a complete chaos situation. [00:33:13] Speaker B: And basically, it's like the old days. Maybe with you, you'd pull a fire alarm or a bomb threat. We called them because there's a math test where there's a history, whatever test is what that somebody doesn't want to take. So we can cancel the school for the rest of the day. And usually that's what would happen. I had a high school, Clearwater High School, again, about a thousand twelve hundred students. And a kid comes up to one of the teachers and says, I saw a gun in the bathroom. Okay? Got to take it seriously. Go into a lockdown, bring the police in with the dogs. We got to find his guns in the bathroom. Okay? They come in the whole school. Well, we don't see a gun in the bathroom, but, oh, we better check the whole school. Same thing going through. Here come the text. I saw Johnny. He had a gun. No, no, no, Billy, no. Susie had it. And this went on and on and on. So not only you wasting the time of the police with this BS stuff. You got to check every kid. You got to check all the backpacks. The day is gone. It's done. The gun was never found. It was just. It was a fake because this kid got in trouble because he had bought drugs outside the school, and there was somebody after him. So he just want it just. [00:34:26] Speaker A: It just. [00:34:26] Speaker B: So to me, this idea of having phones in schools is just absolutely ridiculous. And what's pushing this are parents. And I'm not on here. To me, it is a school safety issue. Because the phone itself. Parents say, my child needs a phone in case there's an emergency. I need to contact with my child. No, you don't. Your child needs to listen to the adults in an emergency, whether it's teacher, the sro, whoever it is, they don't need to be on their phone texting about this. They need to listen to directions from the adults. So there's absolutely no reason to have this phone now. Parents will go, well, I need to be in touch with my kid 24 hours a day. Why? Why? Are. Are they. Is there something wrong with them? Are they like, you know, is there something weird that they. What? I. Come on. If you need a kid, call the school. There's something called the landline. You would call the school. I need Johnny to come to the front desk. He forgot his lunch. Fine, I'll bring his lunch and we're done. Why do you need to be in touch with your children? And I've had parents, you see it in stories, 8 year olds. I need to be in touch with my eight year old child. All. What. Why wrong with you? [00:35:41] Speaker A: I got dropped off at school for years and I didn't have a phone, you know? [00:35:45] Speaker B: No, if my parents, if I forgot something, I'd get called up to the front desk. Hey, come up. Your parents here. I'm like, holy crap, I'm in trouble. Oh, you forgot this. You forgot that. It's like, no, there's no reason. And you're getting pushback now. And I tell you what, Rashad. And again, I still think it. Not totally, but it's something to do with school safety. All the European schools now, France, Italy, Germany and England's going to do it. No phones. Do you think the Asian schools allow any of these kids anywhere close to these phones during school time? Absolutely not. So why are tests down? They've already done the study. When they stopped it in these European schools, grades went up, kids were happier. You know what? They started talking to each other instead of constantly looking down at the phone. It just. It really is a pet peeve of mine that these phones are still allowed in schools because it drives teachers crazy. [00:36:37] Speaker A: You can't teach, you can't do anything. [00:36:39] Speaker B: No. Anyway, I didn't want to harp just on that. [00:36:41] Speaker A: This is what the podcast is all about. I did have a really. Like a lot of schools. And I know, obviously I want to be cognizant of your time, too. Some schools are very. You spoke earlier when you said a lot of schools are dated with their infrastructure, doors and locks and things of that nature that has to play a big factor when it comes to what resources they can deploy when it comes to safety. But what are some basic guardrails that even XYZ school with XYZ budget doesn't have that they can still implement to protect themselves from a situation like this? [00:37:11] Speaker B: That's very good question. And I get that a lot because a lot of times what you'll hear is principals will say, hey, we got a grant and we're going to use the money to get metal detectors. [00:37:22] Speaker A: Right? [00:37:23] Speaker B: We're going to use the money to get cameras. We're going to use the money for this. Okay? I agree with cameras. I do not agree with metal detectors. [00:37:30] Speaker A: Really? [00:37:31] Speaker B: No. Metal detectors are what they call Rashad security theater. They look good. They're not going to stop anybody from coming in with a weapon or stop anyone from coming in and shooting up people. They're just there to look good. And probably you got to train your staff. You talk about maintenance, the cost, all this stuff. If I'm, if I'm a student and I want to get a gun into the school, what do you think you're going to get it in anyways? Because guess what? Especially at high school, there are going to be doors open. I can go today and find doors wedged open all the time because they're wedged open because somebody's taking a smoke, they ordered a pizza, their buddy's late, whatever it is. And to tell you the truth, it could be done after school, it could be done on weekends during sporting events. Hey, take this backpack for me and just throw it in my locker. What's in it? You don't need to know. You're going to get a weapon in anyways. Metal detectors are a complete waste. The best process is training your adults, training the staff in your school. Now, it starts obviously from the outside. You want six foot fencing? Because I tell you, when I started it was like three feet. But anybody can hop over that six feet. You need a little bit of an effort. [00:38:39] Speaker A: Right? Right, right. [00:38:41] Speaker B: Once school time starts, you have one entrance, one entrance only. They have to come into a lobby area that's secure, meaning they come in, they check in. If they are not allowed in, they go right back out. If they are allowed in, they're either allowed in by key, by card swipe, by buzzer, or someone actually escorts them into the school. So they have to come in and be checked out. And I got that a lot because you would have parents, PTA members would just go traipsing into the School, I'm going in. Look, I don't trust anybody, right? I would. I had a four hour meeting at a middle school in an area, a very rich area. The reason they moved there, because they wanted to go to the school. It wasn't a private school, but it went by region, right? So I've got, you know, probably 2, 300 people in the audience because I told them, I said the. I'm sorry, middle, elementary, elementary school. Elementary school. I said, look, first three days you can bring your child into the school, all the way to the classroom and drop them off. After the third day, no more, you drop them off at the front entrance. And they went, they went ballistic. What do you mean? I can't. That's my school. I'm allowed to go in there. No, it's your child's school. It's not your school. I said, and I had two people. This one, I mean, they're yelling, cursing, sending me emails. I moved here for that reason. I need to take my child all the way to that classroom every day. Because they got used to that, correct? And I said, look, there were two people sitting in front. I said, sir, madam, do you know each other? Well, yeah, I know you know her son, blah, blah, blah. And I see her every now and then. I said, do you know what, have you seen them outside of school? Like, no. I said, all right, would you then trust that person to walk into the classroom and reprimand your son or your daughter? [00:40:37] Speaker A: Right. [00:40:37] Speaker B: Well, no, I wouldn't. Well, that's what could happen. I said, I don't know anyone's background. I have no idea what they're doing and what happens, Rashad. And it happens a lot. We're in Florida and I'm not saying there's something wrong with Florida, but there's odd people in Florida. There's odd people everywhere. [00:40:54] Speaker A: Everywhere. [00:40:55] Speaker B: Here I, you could have neighbor Bill, Uncle Joe, anybody, grandpa bringing that kid in and maybe they're dropping off. I'm going to head into the bathroom now. I'm going to start taking pictures like a freaking pedophile. You have no idea. And to try to get these into these people's heads. A lot of them didn't want to believe it. No, no, no, no, no. I said, look, I don't trust anyone. Would you want them wandering around the school? And the principal was going nuts. She's like, look, I can't have people wandering around. What if I have an emergency? [00:41:23] Speaker A: I can't. [00:41:23] Speaker B: I have no idea who's in the school. [00:41:25] Speaker A: Right? [00:41:26] Speaker B: So it just oh, my God. This one finally, like half the audience, I finally turned them over. But the rest, I said arrest. Maybe about 10% were like, no, I'm pulling my kid out, I'm taking them somewhere else. Fine, go. [00:41:38] Speaker A: But if that's that standard of safety that you have to have in the school, because, you know, if you go to a hockey game, a basketball game, a sporting event, there's no, like, you're there. You go through one. It's funny you mentioned it, because now I think about all the places I go. It's like, here's the entranceway. Door lock, door lock, door lock, door lock. This is the exit way back out of it. [00:41:59] Speaker B: Right. [00:41:59] Speaker A: So you can go to a museum and be safe and they can actually know who's walking through those doors. [00:42:05] Speaker B: Yep. Yeah. So that's. That's the idea. The lobby area, it's. It's basically what they call a multi layered approach. You got the fencing, the one entrance. They have to get through the lobby and be checked in. The classroom doors are already locked. So you try to slow them down if they have bad intentions. Now the other thing, which I'm glad is happening, and again, it's about recent, within the past two or three years, each school should have what they call a threat assessment team. You'll get the principal, assistant principal, a designated teacher that's a school resource officer, the head plan operator, and either a psychiatrist or school nurse in these meetings. And they will have files, and I'm sorry, they have to have files because there are kids who will make threats. There are kids who will do weird stuff on the Internet, even, like you said, even fake, just laughing about it, joking. Like, you know, we can't even joke about it nowadays. Or you'll have a kid that, thank God, will go to a mentor and say, hey, yeah, Johnny over here is acting really weird. He's talking about guns. He's got these weird writings. He changed his clothes. You have to. Nowadays, like they say, the old cliche, say something, you know, you see something, say something. So these threat assessment teams will have a file. They will meet weekly. Okay, what's going on with Johnny? Great. And you'll have someone there represents him or knows him or mentors him or a teacher and say, he's doing great, grades are up, he's doing better, or I don't know what's going on. We got to start talking to him. And the parents. Bring the parents in. There's something weird with that person or man or woman. So these teams have to be at each School. I don't care if it's elementary all the way up to high school. [00:43:41] Speaker A: Because Rashad, behavior and seeing trends and patterns in behavior. [00:43:44] Speaker B: Absolutely. Because Rashad, I would say at least 90% of these school shootings are done by current students or former students. So they're watching. This is not something. They woke up one day, grabbed a gun, I'm going to go shoot up a school. This is planned months, sometimes years in advance with Internet writing, social media. They're watching the school. They know the entrances, which gates are open, all this. They know everything. They know when they run the drills, all this stuff. And that's a question I get like, hey, these shooters know that they're going into these drills with lockdowns and stuff. How do you prevent them from, you know, knowing about the school? Well, you can't. Really. You can't. Because even if you change things up, they're going to know because they watch this over and over again. They don't. Again, they watch and observe what's going on and take it all in, okay, at this time they did this. At this time they did that. It's like it's a game to them. A lot of them still go back to Columbine. Some will go back to Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, all these shootings because they consider them heroes. [00:44:50] Speaker A: Well, it's crazy, too, because even after Columbine, we had an evacuation at the school I went to, you know, high school, because then you started seeing the copycat people, right? Where you weren't necessarily every, you know, you have to be prevalent for danger. But let's. Even if they weren't going to shoot, they knew they could get on a payphone. They had payphones at the time. [00:45:07] Speaker B: Right. [00:45:07] Speaker A: And they wouldn't do it in their house phone and they would call on a payphone, disgruntled students, somebody who's out for a laugh or whatever. And to your point, the schools didn't deploy the methods that you had because all they knew is call the fire department, call the police, evacuate kids all out of the building. [00:45:22] Speaker B: Right. [00:45:22] Speaker A: You know, then call the parents at school, which is, you know, they didn't want to, you know, the, the quote, unquote, bad publicity of not doing anything. So they're. [00:45:30] Speaker B: Right. Exactly. [00:45:31] Speaker A: A lot of experts then that were specializing in what to do in these situations. Right. You're leaving it on a principal who maybe broke up the occasional fight. But that's another level of, you know. [00:45:42] Speaker B: Yes. [00:45:42] Speaker A: That's not really in my classification of my job on a day by day Basis threat. Exactly. [00:45:48] Speaker B: The biggest thing now is try to stay away from technology. Some is gaining some of this AI stuff maybe down the road. I think after we're long gone will maybe work. There is one company out there now that supposedly can detect a weapon on a person. However, privacy. It has to be visible. Has to be visible. If it's in their clothing or whatever, they can't do it. So it has to be visible. So it's just not there yet. I wouldn't trust it just yet. The only good thing is it can use existing camera systems. But at that point, it's like, you know, unless they just get to the door, they'll take the weapon. I was too late at that point. But the main thing is two things. One is you keep yourself safe so then you can help others. This idea of leaving and I'm going to go save these kids by confronting the individual or whatever it is. No, that you're not going to go home. You're not tell your wife goodbye, you're done. The other, the second thing is school resource officers. And I know back when we had the Black Lives Matter and we had to defund police movement, that was a big pushback from kids saying, oh, no, I don't want to see that uniform because my cousin got arrested or this one got arrested. It's starting to come back because parents are pushing for it. School resource officers, armed, obviously, they go through a lot of training. They're not your McDonald's or, excuse me, even TSA workers. They go through intense training, at least here in Florida. I hope they do this across the nation. Each state is different. I understand. But I know here in Florida, look, these people like kids. They like what they're doing. It's not something that's just an overtime gig. Yes, there are some local police that will do it on their downtime, but the majority of our school resource officers have gone through intense training. They love the kids, they love the schools. They want to keep them safe. They are not there to arrest them. They are not there to break up fights. They're not there for teachers to say, hey, come over and help me with this kid. [00:47:41] Speaker A: Yeah, the kid's acting up in the corner here. Let's. Yeah. You know, and I think sometimes all. Every incident is tragic. Right. And sometimes when one incident happens, there's an overcorrection of things that can take place because. And it's not minimizing somebody's disaster. But then sometimes, unfortunately, there can be human error that was taking place during certain incidents that could have Mitigated or, you know, plain and simple. There was this kid who was, you know, in Michigan here who was making drawings of. And they kicked him out of the school. And everybody and their mother was like, this kid you have. They didn't check his backpack, even though there was clear signs that he was going to do something. Right? [00:48:22] Speaker B: Yes. [00:48:23] Speaker A: Teacher didn't want him in the room. He's drawing pictures of violent imagery. And it's like that's a ball dropping moment where like literally this kid's a powder keg. [00:48:32] Speaker B: Right, right. [00:48:33] Speaker A: And unfortunately, there's terrible ramifications from people not seeing the obvious behavior of what's about to come. Right. [00:48:42] Speaker B: Well, you know, everything, like everything else when I was a supervisor with the Secret Service and I think every corporation or every business is like this. It's very uncomfortable to discipline people. No, you don't want to do it because you just feel, you just feel funny. You just, you know, unless it's something really blatant. But mostly you just don't, you don't want to discipline somebody. You just. Because it's like, I got to call them in. You don't look forward to it, obviously. You know, you got to do their evaluation or whatever it is. So I think it's the same kind of thing with teachers or principals and stuff. They just. [00:49:10] Speaker A: Bit of the doubt. [00:49:11] Speaker B: Exactly. We'll let it go this time. We'll let it go this time. Well, then the next time maybe it's a different teacher. [00:49:17] Speaker A: Right? [00:49:17] Speaker B: Yeah. He did this. Well. Oh, yeah. I don't remember. We'll let it go. This. No. And then eventually, like you said, they're like, well, they're not doing anything. They're not doing anything. I'll just keep going. [00:49:26] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:49:27] Speaker B: So it's a hard process and it's hard for human nature. I'll tell you another story. Another couple stories. I had an elementary school in a. Well, it's in a suburban area, I would call it. And I went there one day and I just, I just sat there and observed what was going on. And I, I saw the delivery person come to the back gate and they just opened the gate and went in and like, wait a minute, isn't someone supposed to come out and escort them or talk to them? A small school. Anyways, I sat and I see he leaves and he. And it looked like he latched the gate. What the hell? So I walked up and what they did was. I found out later the head plan operator said, I'm too busy. I'm only one person. Go ahead and put the lock on, but don't latch it. So the lock was on there, unlatched. And he left it that way for God knows how many years till I come along. So I said, okay, time for a lesson. So I come up, open the gate, walk in, and there's a whole bunch of picnic tables in this open area with this clouds, an open area school. I went over the picnic table. Now I got a baseball cap on. I hid. I have to wear a. Everybody has to wear an id. I put that under my shirt. And I'm just. I don't know. It's about, I don't know, 10, 30, 11 o'clock. And there was a what I assumed a mother with her son over here having a snack. As the school day goes on, everybody is smiling and laughing and pointing and waving at me. How you doing? How's everybody? Hi. And I was very friendly. Hi, everybody. Teachers are waving. Hi, how you doing? How's every? Oh, how's every. And I'm just sitting there alone, and I'm. I'm looking at my watch going, okay, somebody's gonna come up and say something. What are you doing? I got nothing. So finally, after 20 minutes, I'm like, this is ridiculous. So I get up and I walk in from the inside of the school, and I said, where's the principal? Principal comes out and I said, I just sat out there for 20 minutes. I clocked it. No one came up to me and challenged me and said, what the hell is going on? This anything? And she goes, oh, no, here comes the blame game. We tell our teachers, if you see a stranger, to always tell them they need a pass. I'm like, well, that didn't happen. [00:51:39] Speaker A: No, it didn't know. [00:51:40] Speaker B: So we go back in the cafeteria. Now she's trying to backtrack. What's going on? I said, look, I understand human nature. No one likes to go up to some strange. Look, you're not confronting them. You're coming up and asking them, can I help you? Are you here to see someone? You need a pass? I can gladly escort you to the front office to get yourself a pass. Or if they become belligerent. Okay, now, hey, gym teacher, whatever the strongest guy is there, take care of this. Correct or point it out. Hey, there's a guy sitting out there. Something's up. You need to go talk to him, right? They won't do it. I'll tell you one other one. It's kind of funny. But I'll tell you another one that was very serious. I had a School in North County, Eastlake, again, about 1800 students. Big school. And I hear from my supervisor, he was assistant superintendent, says, hey, you got to go up there and find out what's going on. He says, I'm hearing from the school board that they're getting complaints that they're strangers on the campus. I'm like, what the hell? So I go up there again, hide my pass, put a baseball cap on, put a jacket on. It's easy to walk into high schools nowadays. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. You could just walk right in. So I park away from the school. I walk in, and Rashad again, I was there for a good 25, 30 minutes. Now I'm walking with purpose. I'm not lounging around, hitting in shadows, looking for stuff. I had a piece of paper in my. Rolled up in my hand, and I'm walking. I'm going from here, and I go from there, turn, go. I'm walking with purpose. I got something to do. Like I belong there, right? Again. How you doing? Everybody's waving. Hey, how's it going? All right. How are you? Teachers, students, didn't matter. I get to the back of the school, and I'm like, this is. This is ridiculous. No one's. No one's challenged me. Nothing. I got nothing, right? So I said, all right. So I. There's a big glass workout room, and I see these girls in there doing these twirls with these ribbons and stuff. So I'm pretending that I'm taking pictures of them. I still. Nobody, No, I got nobody, nothing. So I'm like this unbelievable. So I said, I'm get. I'm going up to the office. I got. I gotta get hold of the principal. So I start walking back across campus towards the parking lot. And it's right around lunchtime. So the inside of this pavilion, it's all. There's kids, there's tea. Everybody's, you know, going here and there. There's a guy who I had met once before. He was assistant principal. He's about, maybe, maybe 25, 30 yards away from me. And he picks me out, right? Like, all right. No, I, I, I, I glanced, but then I came right back, and I'm going right towards the parking lot. I just ignored him. Well, he makes a beeline over to me, right? And he says, can I help you? And I was ready for this. I said, yeah. I said, I misplaced my car. I don't know where I parked. He goes. And it took him a back. He's like your car. I said, yeah, it's out here somewhere. I don't know. I parked out. He goes, what are you doing here? I said, I really like your high school. I said, I try to visit all the high schools I can and look around. He says, you got a really nice school here. I said, I was in the back over there, and there were these girls doing these ribbon things. I said, I took some photos of them. Wham. Yeah. He grabbed on my arm, right? And he goes, you're coming with me. Yeah. And I was like, all right, you met the walking. We walk out to the gate, the entrance. I pull out my pass and I'm telling him who I am, who I work for, which is his boss. And on and on. He's still. He's still like, what? Who? I mean, he was completely like, yeah. [00:55:07] Speaker A: No, no, no. He's not even processing the words that are being said, right. [00:55:09] Speaker B: He had to process it. Finally, we get out to the front gate, and he's like, okay, yes. He says, I recognize who you are, who you work for, the superintendent, this and that. He goes, it normally is not like this. Okay, yeah. He says, now, most high schools, Rashad, you've got four assistant principals. He, of course, passes the buck and says, I'm not the one in charge of school safety or the school safety plan. So. And so's in charge. I said, well, you're an assistant principal. That. You did come over, and you were only one who came over. While we're standing there, we have like a five, six minute conversation. Now we're at a. One of these gates. One of these, you know, metal gates. [00:55:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:55:50] Speaker B: Where it's only an exit gate. It's just to exit. It is not to enter because obviously you want everybody to enter at the front, people accordingly. [00:55:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:55:58] Speaker B: While we're standing there, there's a kid with a backpack. He walks up, throws the backpack over the fence, hits the buzzer, gate opens up, and he walks in. [00:56:08] Speaker A: Oh, no. [00:56:08] Speaker B: And I look at this guy go, really? Really? And he just like, no. He's like. [00:56:15] Speaker A: While you standing there and saw it real time. [00:56:17] Speaker B: I was standing there and I told him, I said, that can never. You guys. I said, I got to write a report. I got to send it all the way up the ladder. I said, you got to fix this, like, immediately, of course. And he was really embarrassed. But that was one school, and I. Who knows if they fixed it or not. I was never sent back because I had, you know, one person. I had other shit to do. Excuse me. [00:56:39] Speaker A: Well, the other thing that happens, I think, too, is, you know, the person in the office sees Tom all the time, and Tom doesn't go through the property no time. I don't care if I see you every single day. I'm not just opening the door for you. You have to follow the security code, process at the door buzzer, check into the office. And that's where problems can lead to, unfortunately, where people become comfortable with the person that they're checking in the door or the delivery driver. I'm not placing blame on anybody in particular. [00:57:09] Speaker B: No, I get it. No, look, in the Secret Service, there was a fine line there. You would have top staff that would come through and skip the metal detector. And we're like, you know, your hands are. You're kind of tired. Look at. This is somebody who's a top member of the president's staff. I'm gonna stop them and say, I gotta check your bag. [00:57:27] Speaker A: Right? [00:57:28] Speaker B: It was really. Oh, it was. [00:57:31] Speaker A: I don't have that. I don't have. [00:57:34] Speaker B: Because you're gonna have people also that would get indignant. Don't you know who I am? I'm the president. So. And so I'm going to. [00:57:41] Speaker A: My face is exactly. [00:57:44] Speaker B: Yeah. And I. I had it. I had one. I'm at the Oval Office. I talk about Secret Service. I'm at the Oval Office. Here comes this guy. No pass, no nothing. Never seen the guy before. And he walks right up like he's gonna walk in the Oval Office. Said, where did you come from? [00:57:57] Speaker A: Right over there. [00:57:58] Speaker B: I said, where's your pass? He says, I don't need a pass. Yeah, I have no idea who you are, why you're here, to get to this level. [00:58:06] Speaker A: Right. [00:58:06] Speaker B: You talk about a breakdown. I was like, I have no. He could have jumped the fence and just walked in. I have no idea. He goes, I gotta go in and do, blah, blah, blah, this and that. I have a work order. I said, I don't care. [00:58:16] Speaker A: It doesn't matter. [00:58:16] Speaker B: Well, it became a real issue because then they start challenging you. You know, who are you? What does your badge say? You know, this and that. I said, well, I'm the one with the gun, so you better. You know, right now, anyway, it's. Oh, yeah, you talk about politics. I don't care what it. Whatever administration. You would have different people who thought they were God's gift and they're going to do whatever they want. I don't care what you say. You're nobody. I'm coming through. And that happened all the way. Even Congressmen and senators, same thing. [00:58:48] Speaker A: They're treating you like wall cop, right? They're basically. And I'm not dismissing it. They're like, yo, do whatever I want. [00:58:53] Speaker B: To do, you know, get away from me, you stinking security guy. So it just, you know, after a while, you get used to it. You just got to blow it off. But, you know, even in the school system, like I said, you'd have PTA members, people who think they're important. I don't need to be checked in right in here every day. I'm going in. [00:59:09] Speaker A: Right. [00:59:09] Speaker B: I have no idea. If you just, you know, shot somebody or if you were at home and, you know, did some weird. I have no idea. [00:59:17] Speaker A: You don't. [00:59:18] Speaker B: You need to be checked. So anyways, that's. That's a big issue. That's not something. Again, I'm on here for. Because mostly I'm on here to talk to parents about speaking to their children, because you have to ask them. I don't care what age they're at. Of course, you get very little time with kids nowadays because immediately they're coming home, they're on their phones or they're talking to their friends or going somewhere with their friends. You rarely see families sit down at the table anymore because parents are working two jobs. The kids got sports or whatever they're doing or they got games. Look, I dealt with it, my son. That was it. It was just the. Like this in front of the phone constantly. Constantly. To take them away from that. It is. And it's been studied. It's like an alcoholic. They won't give it up. They're pulling the phone away from you. No, that's a complete addiction when you can't even take the phone away from them because they have some kind of freaking hissy fit. So I asked parents, look, just talk to your children. Just say, have you run emergency drills at your school. You know, fire drill, bomb drill, active shooter drill. What are they doing? Okay, if you hear from them during the active shooter drill, we ran out of the classroom over this area here, like, you what? Okay, all right, all right. Well, no, during the active shooter drill, they all gave us, like, you know, soup cans, and we're supposed to throw them at the shooter. As soon as you hear red flags like that, you're like, holy crap. [01:00:43] Speaker A: No, I'm not even trained like that. And even I would know, don't agitate. You know, anybody that has a firearm you don't like. [01:00:49] Speaker B: So I tell coordinator, look, if you don't agree with what they're doing there, obviously, first call the school now, they're going to circle the wagons. They don't want to hear from parents. As you know, Rashad, we've had issues with that, with these school board meetings. If that doesn't work, you can go in front of the school board. They'll give you the schedule. You get a three minutes. You can get a page and a half in three minutes. You can do it. I've done it. If that doesn't work now, you got to go to your state legislature and say, I don't agree. What's going on at my school. I feel my child is unsafe. I do not agree with this type of drilling that they're doing. Throw an object. They won't tell me when they're doing it, you know, on and on. And I hate the fact that sometimes they have to pull the kids out because they just don't agree with what they're doing because it's unsafe. And a lot of these. And I'll tell you, I didn't tell you this. Both run, hide, fight and this Alice training. The lawsuits have gone through the roof, I think, at the last time. The data, and it's from a gentleman named Michael Dorn. He's with Safe Havens International. Been in the business for like 40 years. It's in the, it's in the 100, $200 million in liability lawsuits against this type of training. So they're dangerous, they're unsound, stick with lockdowns. They've worked for years. [01:02:04] Speaker A: Well, it's funny you mentioned that, you know, I mean, I, you know, I'm, I have a black belt in martial arts. I take various different. In karate and I take various different martial arts. And that's irrelevant when your life's in danger, right? Yeah, you know, it really is like, you know, because the first thing you do is like, you know, even the most trained of martial artists, you know, if they end up getting in a, a life or death situation can freeze. Right, because you're conditioned to. For training, but you may not be conditioned for when your life's in jeopardy. And you know, what could be your mechanism for training? Like, I don't want to fight an active shooter. I have no, like, I'm, I'm grown and I have no, I have no bone in my body to want to be a situation, to try to confront, confront somebody with a weapon. [01:02:43] Speaker B: No, let the good guys take care of it. Let them take care of it now. You didn't bring it up. It's been brought up in some of these things about arming teachers, I don't want to talk about it too much. At first. I really disagreed with it. I'm still on the fence about it. There are some states, I think Utah, Texas are two that I can think off top of my head that allow it. I would love to see the data after a year, two years after this is in place right now. I don't agree with it. Only the main reason is as a law enforcement person, if I go to respond to that, how do I know who's the good guy and who's the bad guy? I have no idea. I see someone with a gun, I'm going to shoot them, I don't care. And how. How could they possibly do. Is he supposed to put on an orange vest or who thinks of that? So that's an issue that I. It's not time for that. [01:03:31] Speaker A: It's concerning. It's concerning. [01:03:33] Speaker B: Yeah. I just don't agree with it right now. It's still the human factor. Training works. There is nothing new or special out there that's going to work better. I hate to say it, but this type, these type of things are going to continue. As you know, the biggest issue now is mental health issues with children, both boys and girls. And until that is somehow alleviated, this is going to continue. And it's just something that I ask schools to be prepared. [01:03:59] Speaker A: You have to put the proper protocols and training in place and qualify people such as yourself to make sure that you have all the resources available. A terrible situation occur. [01:04:09] Speaker B: So I agree. [01:04:09] Speaker A: I think this is one of the most important podcast topics that I've had the honor and pleasure of being and having and get a chance to speak with. And more importantly, it resonates so deeply because there's nothing worse than hearing something happen at a school. You know. [01:04:24] Speaker B: Yes. [01:04:25] Speaker A: It's a little bit different when you and I'm. And nobody. Everybody's tragedy is valid. You know, you hear domestic dispute and people can sit back and say, okay, adults, whatever, it's bad, it's bad, it's bad. But when you hear a school, you know, yes. The utopia that a school is supposed to be. [01:04:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:04:43] Speaker A: It rings a lot differently for people. So I thank you. [01:04:46] Speaker B: Absolutely. As you know. Yeah. Parents. Worst nightmare against the most vulnerable of our society. [01:04:53] Speaker A: Right. [01:04:54] Speaker B: And it's just a horrible, horrible thing that happens. And I'm sorry that the media feeds off of this. If it's one or two kids and it's like, you know, we'll give it a couple hours, you know, if it's numbers, that's where, you know, it becomes such an immense tragedy to them. It's a tragedy no matter where. I don't care if it's 1 or 100. So it's something again that, you know, you always get so called experts on there, on these, on these shows and stuff that will talk about things which, you know, a lot of this stuff, even Uvalde, they've been talking, they, it took them months to figure out exactly what happened there. So you can't make speculations on something. You don't know all the facts in front of it. So. And again, it's just something, I'm sorry to say it's not going to stop. You can't, it's not going to just say, okay, how do we stop this? There is no way to stop it. There's a way, like you said, to mitigate it. The threat assessment teams, having your school trained, people that are trained correctly stay in the lockdown. The good guys are coming and they're going to, they're going to keep you safe. [01:05:51] Speaker A: Well, Daniel Dulaszensky, I want to thank you so much for the opportunity to talk about such an important topic. The work you do is great. The people you've kept safe, you know, and the consulting that you continue to do, you know, it's, this is one of the more compelling stories that I've heard and this is what the Tron podcast is all about. Before we leave, how can people find you? [01:06:12] Speaker B: You can find me on LinkedIn. Obviously it's my, my, my name. I've got my podcasts on there. I'm also on Facebook. The first five minutes is on Facebook. The podcasts are on there if you want to listen to them. Some of them, you know, if you get into an hour, okay, you can obviously skip ahead to subjects. I have some of them where they'll have chapters. I know it's more work to do on the podcast to break it into chapters of certain subjects along the way. But an hour, okay, maybe listen to it in your car and stuff. I mean, it's a, it's a tough subject to listen to that, that amount of time. It's hard to break it down any shorter than, than, you know, 30, 45 minutes. It's hard to do that. But because you want to get everything that, you know, parents need, the knowledge that they need. But yeah, on LinkedIn, Facebook and obviously my books on Amazon, the first five minutes you could find if you just click in the search button. But again, before we leave again, keep yourself safe so you can help others and make sure in your school system, if you don't have armed school resource officers, try to advocate for that. I believe. [01:07:08] Speaker A: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I appreciate that. And you know, at the end of the day, sometimes we just go through the motions, dropping our kids off at school and we don't ask the proper questions. And that's the place they're at the most time of the day. So I want to thank you for that. You have a wonderful day and creep up the great work. [01:07:23] Speaker B: You too, Rashad. Thank you so much for having me on. Take care. All right.