Department Homepage
Core Statement
Emergency Preparedness

Parking Information

Contest Your Citation
Pay Your Citation Online
Parking FAQ's

Safety Information Videos

Flashpoint [Staff] [Student]
Shots Fired! [Staff] [Student]

Location: Lower Campus [map]
Phone: (949) 582-4585
Fax: (949) 582-4925

Emergency 582-4444

scpolice@saddleback.edu

Office Hours:

Campus Police
Monday - Thursday
7am to 11:00pm
Friday 7am-4pm

Parking Office
Monday - Thursday
7am to 7:00pm
Friday 7am-4pm

Safety Bulletin Saddleback College

Greetings to Everyone from Harry Parmer, Chief of Police

This is a difficult message to write.  On the one hand, I don’t want to unnecessarily create anxiety over our safety on this campus.  On the other hand, I wouldn’t insult your intelligence with a lot of overly reassuring fluff.  The Big Picture on this problem is readily available.  Talking heads have been all over the television channels recently and for some months ahead will be giving their expert opinions on causes and mistakes, etc. with respect to the Virginia Tech shootings.  My goal here is to offer some perspective and a few tips that we can use here on the campus and in this area.  So here is my best effort.

PERSPECTIVE

As we all know, random deadly assaults in schools and other public places have increased in the last 20 years nationwide.  All of these shooting incidents have been carried out by psychopathic or otherwise disturbed individuals.  There will always be a small percentage of any community who are mentally off-balance to various extents.    Fortunately, the odds are still very high that we will not experience one of these people coming on campus to commit spree killings.  Secondly, random is the operative term here because predicting where or when this will happen is simply impossible.  Moreover, there is no location that can be guaranteed as being safe from such shootings.  Sadly, you could find yourself trapped by an active shooter in church next Sunday or anywhere for that matter.  But hopefully that won’t happen.  So my belief is that Saddleback College is neither safer, nor more dangerous than any other public place.  But I definitely don’t believe we should allow terrorists or any other criminals to scare us to the point of no longer enjoying our own lives.  We must not become running scared.  Nevertheless, there are some precautions we can take in our lives to reduce our exposure.

WHAT WE CAN DO

First of all, be alert for potentially dangerous situations.  Large and especially unruly crowds always present risks.  Just the numbers and the crowding themselves can generate emotional and unruly behaviors.  Also, large events tend to attract some disturbed and unstable people.  That is why we assign more of our officers to patrol large on-campus events.  That is also why you see right-thinking parents striving to prevent their young adult children from attending large parties with questionable supervision.  Factoring-in alcohol and other drugs compounds the risk even more. 

Secondly, be alert for questionable and ominous behaviors going on around us.  It doesn’t require a psychiatrist to notice and react to bizarre behaviors, statements and physical appearance; and conclude with some accuracy that someone is a bit off-kilter.  And if your common sense raises a danger flag, make the proper authorities aware of this.  Notify Campus Police immediately at extension 4444.  At the very least, the person can be contacted, interviewed and preliminarily evaluated.  Your Campus Police Department and Student Services’ College Mental Health Program have a viable team approach to dealing with troubling behaviors not yet rising to the level of a crime on the part of students and others.

Third of all, plan ahead and think in terms of tactics.  Simple things.  When you enter a restaurant or other public building, for example, locate the exits and identify the best route(s) to them.  If you have a choice of where to sit, pick a place that is handy to an exit.  A quick and streamlined departure from a room could be your life saver.  And check-out the surrounding crowd! Avoid places where dangerous persons are more likely to be.  In such places, trouble can find you; and why inflate the odds of running into it?  Nowadays, it doesn’t hurt to be a little elitist in that respect.  One more point:  Always report any sightings of weapons in your vicinity. 

WHAT TO DO IF YOU HEAR GUNSHOTS IN THE AREA  

First of all, drop to the ground or floor.  This makes you a smaller target.   Next, place a phone call to the Campus Police (582.4444) and report your situation.  The rest is a judgment call on your part.  As humans, our basic options when under a dire threat are:  Freeze, Flight, or Fight.  If you are in a classroom or office and hear gunshots coming from quite a distance away, you (and your class) might choose to flee from the area.  A possible downside of this would be if there is a sniper outdoors and by evacuating you now come into view.  On the other hand, if the noise is close-by, you (and your class) might opt to Freeze by staying put, turning out the lights, and hiding inside the locked room, if you can lock the room.  Here at Saddleback, most doors lock with a key from the outside and open to the outside.  And many of the doors are fairly stout and resistant to being forced inward.  As part of your advance planning, evaluate the perimeter strength and exit routes of those spaces within which you work.  Then plan your tactics accordingly. 

We have discussed the Freeze and Flight options.  What about the Fight option?  I am not advocating that you confront and fight an armed suspect.  In many cases, it would be suicidal.  But on the other hand, consider this hypothetical situation:  You are in a classroom with a number of students and an armed person enters and commences to methodically kill people.  If the options of Freeze and Flight are out of the question at that point, what are your choices?  You can stand there and await your turn to take a bullet or two.  You can beg for mercy which will most likely not be forthcoming.  You can hope he doesn’t notice you or doesn’t select you to kill.  Or you can choose the Fight option by suddenly and unexpectedly causing the survivors in the room to join you and at least try to rush and overpower the assailant.   True, several more people can and probably will be shot in the effort.  But it is a proved fact that people in motion are more difficult to shoot than are stationary people.  It might work.  If it does work, others will be saved.  It is another proved fact that four or five individuals can overpower even the strongest and most determined person.  But again, this would not be easy.  And again, I am not telling you to take these people on.  I am simply presenting your options.  Freeze, Flight or Fight. It is your choice based upon your appraisal of the circumstances.  

WHERE ARE THE POLICE?

We will be enroute to your location as soon as we are alerted to the problem.  Your campus police officers undergo firearms training every 30-days.  Their courses of fire are not static bulls-eye shooting.  Rather, it is realistic and combat-oriented.  All of our officers have participated in specialized training tactics and firearms training, such as covert crisis entry into buildings and rapid deployment in response to an active shooter. All of our officers regularly attend perishable skills in-service training which includes four hours of Use of Force and performance training in the Force Option Simulator.  This is a highly sophisticated interactive audio-visual system which puts the officers into realistic scenarios and evaluates their decision-making and physical proficiencies.  Among other simulated situations, the officers deal with a number of school shooting scenarios.  

In the near future our officers will team up with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and Orange County Fire Authority to undergo armed suspect response training here on the campus. And more training is now being planned and scheduled.  Obviously, our one to three officers on-duty at any given time cannot contain an entire building.  So we will immediately be on the phone or radio requesting assistance from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. And we have already established procedures for the various forms this type of situation can take. In short, your campus police have been preparing for these kinds of crisis situations and will continue to prepare.

CONCLUSION

Because some concerns have already been expressed within the Saddleback College Family, I have written this paper with some haste.  Accordingly, if any questions arise or if I have failed to address an area of your concern, please do not hesitate to send an email.  Thank you for considering the remarks contained herein.

Regards,

Harry Parmer