TBI, Defend Systems holds active shooter seminar

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) - Hundreds of people in Nashville attended an active shooter event on the campus of Lipscomb University inside the Collins Alumni Auditorium.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation along with Defend Systems, a safety and security consulting firm put on the free event.

The training was put on by Brink Fidler the president of Defend Systems and went beyond the “run, hide and fight” method.

“Law enforcement is not going to make it,” Fidler said. “I mean yes, we want them there and yes they want to be there at the scene of every active shooter event and the reality is there not, or even when they are there’s so much damage occurring people don’t know what to do during that situation then the victim numbers get even higher.”

Fidler said the best thing people can do to survive an active shooter situation is to change their habits and to always locate an exit.

“The people who were inside of the grocery store when he began shooting outside all they did was dive on the floor and lay down because they didn’t know what else to do,” Fidler said. “Then as a result when he walks in the door--he literally executes them because they’re just laying there and not moving.”

According to the FBI, there have been an uptick in the number of active shooting incidents from 2017 to 2021. Statistics show that between 2019 and 2020, the number of active shooting incidents increased by 33% and 52.5% last year.

Fidler explained how he used the word D.E.F.E.N.D. as an acronym for deter, evade, fortify, evaluate, notify and defend.

“Starting with the word deter and we talk about how to prevent these attacks from happening when you strengthen security at your facility,” said Fidler. “How can you change the culture of safety around your organization. Then we moved into the ‘E’ which is ‘evade’ and that is the run portion but evade is different than running and we teach you how to evade and how to build layers as you move away from the threat.”

For school facilities he said if the shooter breaches the door to use a fire extinguisher as a distraction and a weapon.

“You can obviously spray that thing right in their face and you could instantly take their vision away and that’s pretty important to attack folks and then what are you holding a bright and shiny steel object so you have a blunt object as well,” Fidler said.

There 61 active shooter incidents in the U.S. since last year. 243 people were shot, 103 killed and 140 that’s according to the FBI stats.

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