Active Shooter

Ensure Your Personal Safety
If you are in a building when an event occurs, with knowledge of the event either through your own observations or via a Connect – ED emergency notification, you should immediately secure the room you are in by closing window treatments, turning off radios, computer monitors, and silencing, not turn off, cell phones.

• If in a classroom, barricade the door with furniture, books, filing cabinets, tables, etc.
• In a private office shut and lock the door. After securing the door, stay behind solid objects and away from the door as much as possible.
• If you are in an area of a building that can not be secured, find the closest area where you can safely secure yourself.
• Allow others to seek refuge with you if it is safe to do so.

If you find yourself in an open area, immediately seek protection by putting something between you and the shooter; trees, rocks, motor vehicles (use the engine compartment area for cover). If you know where the shooter is and there appears to be an escape route immediately available to you, consider leaving your cover and escaping. If in doubt about escape, find the safest area available and protect yourself as best as you can. Use common sense.

If the shooter enters your office or classroom there is, unfortunately, no set procedure that can be formulated to address a proper course of action. Use common sense. If you are hiding and flight is impossible, attempts to negotiate with the shooter may be successful. Playing dead may also be a consideration. Attempting to overcome the shooter with force is a last resort that should only be considered in the most extreme circumstances. If the shooter leaves the area, proceed immediately to a safe place and do not touch anything that was in the vicinity of the shooter. Only you can determine if this is something you should do.

Notify Authorities
Call Saint Joseph's College Campus Security emergency line at 7911, or from a cell phone, 893-7911 . You may have to wait as this line may be overwhelmed with other calls – do not hang up.

Be prepared to provide Campus Security with as much information as possible:

• What is happening and where you are located, including the building name and room number; the number of people with you and the number injured, in any; your name and other information requested.
• Try to provide information in a calm clear manner so that the Campus Security officer can relay your information to responding law enforcement and emergency rescue personnel.

Law Enforcement Response
Campus Security will respond to the area as the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office is being immediately notified. It is important to remember that, while a good deal of time may appear to pass, help is on the way. The most important thing anyone can do is remain inside a locked room or otherwise safe area. Law enforcement officers will locate, contain and stop the shooter.

The first priority of law enforcement responders is to stop the shooter and render the area safe once again. Therefore, they will not render medical aid to you or others who are injured. Once the shooter has been stopped, then the focus will shift to emergency medical response and evacuation of building occupants.

Numerous law enforcement agencies may be involved in a response of this type; Cumberland County Sheriff's Office, Maine State Police, police from neighboring towns such as Gorham, Windham, Westbrook and Portland may be involved. Officers will be uniformed as well as in plain clothes. You can expect, during an evacuation process facilitated by law enforcement agencies, to be told to keep your hands on your head. You may be searched and escorted by a police officer, remember that this is for everyone's safety, as the police much be certain that no other shooters are still at large. Keep in mind that even though you have moved to a safer location, the entire area is still a crime seen. Police will usually not let anyone leave until the situation is fully under control and all witnesses have been identified and interviewed. Until you are released, remain at whatever assembly point authorities designate.

What can you do
Prepare a plan of action for an active shooter in advance. Determine possible escape routes and know where the nearest building exits are.