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Published: 2022-08-25 01:37:23 Updated: 2022-08-25 01:37:23
Posted August 25, 2022 1:37 a.m. EDT
By Nick Stevens, HighSchoolOT managing editor
In a time where violence is occurring more often in the United States, mass shootings have become normal, and divisions have become more heated, schools are spending a lot of time discussing safety and security.
We've seen a number of school shootings in the United States this year and over the last few decades. The shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, showed how failing to follow policies and procedures can have catastrophic consequences. We've also seen mass shootings at parades, grocery stores, movie theaters, shopping malls, places of worship, clubs, and office buildings.
Other shootings that are not high-profile mass shootings are on the rise too in many places across the country. The trend includes North Carolina. The city of Durham reported nearly 400 shootings so far this year as of Aug. 11. In Raleigh, there have been 26 homicides this year, compared to 19 during the same time period in 2021.
We've also seen officials assaulted at sporting events, including some videos that have gone viral on social media.
There are a growing number of safety and security considerations for schools to take into account, but it is not limited to the school day. Athletics occur after school, and members of the community come on campus to attend those events. On Wednesday, members of the N.C. Athletic Directors Association gathered for a virtual training session on safety and security at high school athletic events where they discussed some of the issues and best practices. Jay Hammes, the president of Safe Sport Zone, led the discussion.
Hammes was a high school athletic director in Wisconsin when he was attending an athletic event on the road. When he left the school, shots were fired and narrowly missed him. Since then, Hammes has been an advocate for sports safety.
Every school in North Carolina is required to have an emergency action plan for situations like medical emergencies and inclement weather. However, Hammes says the plans are often too long for people to comprehend and when the emergency actually happens, people forget the plan and fall back on their instincts.
"When the bullets were fired, do you think I was thinking about my action plans?" he said. "No, absolutely not. When things get hot, plans evaporate. Instincts take over. Instincts come from practice, practice, practice."
Hammes said having everyone involved in game day operations practice the emergency plans is key — from school administrators, to coaches, and all event workers. That preparation allows them to react on instinct with situations arise, and we have seen those situations happen in North Carolina.
Just last week, the Salisbury High School vs. West Rowan High School football game ended early after an unidentified woman allegedly yelled about a man with gun, which started a rush for the exit. Three people were injured in the stampede, according to The Salisbury Post. It came after a social media post said a shooting would happen near the game, police said. Some witnesses claimed to hear gunshots, but police have found no evidence that any shots were fired, according to the newspaper report.
In September 2021, several gunshots were fired at the football game between Chambers High School and Glenn High School in Charlotte. No one was hurt, but the rush of people trying to evacuate the stadium was seen live on HighSchoolOT. In October 2021, two teens were shot after a football game at Seventy-First High School, and another teen was shot in the parking lot of Durham County Stadium after a game between Northern Durham High School and Riverside High School.
"You have to ask yourself, 'What will it be like in five years?'" Hammes said. "It has to be consistently practiced, like our fire drills. We have our fire drills down. But we have more shootings in our schools than fires.”
The best way to keep people safe at high school sports events is to prevent an emergency from happening all together, Hammes said. There are a number of best practices he outlined that schools can put into place.
"Prevent, prevent, prevent is the name of the game today," said Hammes. "But you can't provide 100% safety. If somebody really wants to do something, they're going to do it."
Hammes' company teaches a practice it calls "active supervision." This requires everyone working the event to be trained to supervise the crowd as they enter the facility, in the stands, and everywhere in between.
One recommendation Hammes has is to purchase a handheld metal detector for the gate. Using it on spectators as they enter the facility is best, but simply having it displayed at the gate can be a deterrent, he said.
The gate is an important place for supervision. Hammes said scanning the gate as people enter can tip off event staff to possible problems, so having administrators or law enforcement at the gate is key.
"People detectors are sometimes better than metal detectors," Hammes said. "They shouldn't be looking for physical characteristics, that's profiling and if they're doing that you should get them out of there. But look for things like people coming in with their hands in their pockets, and watch their eyes. If they're scanning you or looking for witnesses, or exit routes, or officers, that's something to watch for."
If schools are going to use metal detectors, Hammes said having a law enforcement officers flank the metal detector is helpful because they're good at looking for suspicious activity. He said it's also important to look for things that are out of place, such as someone wearing a jacket when it's hot outside.
Active shooters and people with weapons are not the only safety and security concerns that exist at high school sports events. Spectators can cause safety problems when they lose control of their behavior in anger or when they storm the court in celebration.
Last December, pepper spray was used to break up a fight between fans at the John Wall Holiday Invitational, ending the tournament for the night at Wake Technical Community College's Northern Wake campus. A fight between fans from Farmville Central High School and Life Christian Academy of Kissimmee, Fla., spilled onto the court in the middle of the game. The fight followed an on-court fight in the previous game, which had already stretched security thing, a tournament spokesman said at the time.
Also last December, two high school students were shot during a basketball tournament at Catawba College in Salisbury. The shooting caused the campus to be placed on lockdown.
Managing the conduct of spectators is another important way to prevent security issues at high school events, and Hammes says that starts with having enough people working the event to supervise the number of spectators in attendance.
“If we could learn to actively supervise at our events, we could reduce the problems almost to the point where you have one or two incidents every three or four years," he said.
Hammes said event workers should be assigned a section to monitor. Every few minutes, an event worker should scan that section for people who look agitated or angry, loud voices, or yelling at the referee or coach. When a person is identified, make note of what they are wearing, not what they look like. Hammes said noting what they're wearing is called pattern matching recognition, so the next time the person scans that section it will be easier to identify that person.
"Every time I turn around, I am going to focus on that person and watch them," Hammes said. "You can deescalate a person's anger just by watching. They know you're watching."
Hammes said non-verbal communication, such as shaking your head or motioning to calm down, can be effective. Positioning yourself to stand or sit near the person can also be effective.
"If the person continues their behavior, you will have to address it. We have to have the courage to get up there and do that," he said, noting that it should be done with compassion and empathy, not with anger. The key is to deescalate the situation.
"If you're not calm, you can't deescalate. Be patient," said Hammes. "If you see a conversation with another event worker getting heated, go help them. Step in and help deescalate because once they get heated, they can't deescalate."
The NCADA is a professional organization for athletic administrators in North Carolina, and one of the core responsibilities it has is to provide education and resources for athletic directors in the state. The virtual session with Hammes was part of that education process, but it won't end there. In 2023, the NCADA plans to offer safe sport certification classes to its membership.
"As parents, we expect to drop our kids off at the game and come back and pick them up, that they've had a great experience and have been safe the entire time, so our intent by doing these type of workshops and interactive webinars is to provide these ideas and best practices to our athletic directors," NCADA Executive Director Roy Turner said. "We're just trying to be in a proactive situation."
Turner said athletic directors in North Carolina are already being more alert about environments. He said when there are rumors about something that could happen at a sporting event, those rumors are taken very seriously and not discounted.
"I think we are getting a heightened sense of intentionality where we are starting to be more proactive," he said.
Many schools have moved to using digital tickets since the COVID-19 pandemic, and the digital tickets allow schools a better opportunity of identifying who is coming to an event. Some school districts have implemented clear bag policies, others are using magnetometers and metal detectors at the gate. Schools are also investing in signage to help communicate policies and expectations of sportsmanship, and some schools have QR codes displayed that allow people to anonymously report a tip about violence or threats.
"I think all of us want to make sure ... that every kid has the opportunity to experience (education-based athletics) in the future and learns the life skills that we were able to learn, that we took away from that," Turner said.
Keeping events safe will be an integral part of keeping high school athletics viable for kids in the future, and today that means preparing for — and hopefully preventing — acts of violence at events.
"It's really sad that children today have to go to school and worry about that, but that's the new world," Hammes said.
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