Tacticians vs. Framers

The battle over what 'standard' really means.

When the FBI recognized ALERRT’s Level I class as the national standard of active shooter response training in 2013, it certainly set us apart, but what does being “the standard” really mean?

I know, dictionary definitions are dull - but bear with me here because I’m going to use these to make an important point. Merriam-webster.com has 10 different entries for the noun '“standard,” but this is the one that I think is most relevant here -

Standard

3 : something established by authority, custom, or general consent as a model or example : Criterion

And, of course, we live in the age of AI, so I asked ChatGPT for the definition of a standard too. Here is what it came up with -

Query - Define a standard.

Response - A standard is an established and accepted norm, guideline, or criterion used as a basis for comparison or measurement. It provides consistency, reliability, and a reference point for practices, processes, or products across industries, professions, or fields of study. Standards ensure quality, safety, interoperability, and uniformity, and they are often developed by recognized organizations or governing bodies.

So now I have laid out two definitions, and everyone is probably nodding their heads saying, “Ok, these make sense to me,” and that is why I hate using these kinds of general definitions! They are so broad that they allow almost everyone to think that they are agreeing without calling out key differences in what they are really thinking.

What we have been running into as we revise our training is a disagreement about what a “standard” is. There are two basic camps. One camp believes that a standard must focus on the specific procedures or tactics that are taught. I’ll call them “The Tacticians.” The other side believes that a standard is a common framework from which different groups operate. I’ll call them “The Framers.” Both of the definitions above can be used to support either camp. Below, I will detail each of these perspectives.

The Tacticians

The tacticians believe that everyone must be taught an identical set of procedures and tactics. In the context of active attack response training, this involves teaching everyone a single tactic to use in a particular situation. For example, a four person team moving down a hallway is taught to use the diamond formation and only the diamond formation. When making a room entry, trainees are taught to perform a strong wall entry and only a strong wall entry. Supporters of this approach believe that it maximizes the interoperability (and safety) of the trainees. Everyone is going to do the exact same thing every time and everyone knows exactly what everyone else is going to do.

The Framers

In this approach, everyone is taught a common understanding of a particular problem and a set of key areas that must be addressed to deal with the problem. For example the NFPA 3000 Active Shooter/Hostile Event Response (ASHER) Standard identifies key areas that must be addressed to prepare for and respond to these events. These include program management, integrated (Police, Fire, EMS) response, resource management, training and exercises, recovery, and risk assessment/mitigation. Within these areas are key issues that must be addressed, specific objectives that should be met, and common definitions, but the framework does not address specific techniques or procedures. Advocates of this approach argue that it gives local agencies the structure they need to work together to solve problems and flexibility to adapt the specifics to meet their local constraints. The framework does not attempt to tell the agencies what they must do, but rather gives the agencies a common understanding of the problem from which they customize local solutions.

A Third Way?

The tacticians’ approach can be seen as a very micro view of the problem. They are going to spell out the specific responses that a person should do in every situation. The framers’ approach is very macro. They are going to spell out how to think about the problem at the 50,000 foot level and point to a lot of issues that you need to work through in your policy, planning, and training, but they are only going to give you very broad guidelines about how to do that. Neither of these really hits the nail on the head for what ALERRT is trying to accomplish. Below I will layout the problem space as I see it and argue for what is a meso-level approach.

The Problem Space

At ALERRT, we are training first responders to mitigate the damage that is done during an active attack. These attacks occur at random and there is a lot of variability in both where and how the attacks are conducted. The first responders that react to these attacks are essentially a random group of people who happened to be close when the call went out. It is common for officers from different agencies to respond. So we have a highly variable event that will be responded to by a highly variable group of responders.

Now lets talk about the responders. I am going to focus on law enforcement officers here for the sake of brevity, but many of the issues I’ll identify also apply to fire and EMS. There are roughly 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the US. We say roughly because nobody really knows exactly how many agencies there are! These agencies are generally constrained by state level regulations and laws, but these regulations allow a lot of lee-way in what is trained and how. You will find some agencies that do an excellent job of training their officers and some that are doing only the bare minimum that is needed to check the box on state requirements.

On the active attack front, most agencies have some sort of training. In many cases that training was provided by ALERRT, but there are also a lot of other providers out there. Some agencies have also invested a lot of time and energy into developing their own programs and are not going to listen to an outside group that comes in and tells them they have to do things in a particular way.

So what does all of this mean?

In light of this unpredictability, our challenge is clear: prepare responders from a wide range of agencies for these high-stakes, dynamic situations. The responders will have varied levels of training, and we cannot dictate to them that they must respond in a certain way. We can only invite.

Over the years, we developed a concepts and principles based approach to deal with these issues. Our approach does not focus on prescribing particular tactics and proscribing others like the tacticians. It is also more specific than the framers’ approach. We show a way to do things. If you have a different way, we are Ok with that as long as you still meet our concepts and principles. More recently, we discovered that that this approach was grounded in an area of training research called Ecological Dynamics (EcoD). I won’t go into this area of research here, but you should know that my thinking is supported by the EcoD approach. Below, I will start by identifying what I think training should look like.

What should active attack training look like?

First, we provide an overarching framework that is used to think about active attacks. At the highest level, we break the response process down into two stages. The first is Stop the Killing. During this phase, the active attacker is still trying to create victims. So the objective of the responding officers is to prevent the attacker from creating more victims. The second is Stop the Dying. After the attacker has been stopped, the focus switches to helping the people who have been hurt. Many of the injured will need medical assistance or they are going to die.

Within Stop the Killing and Stop the Dying are sub-objectives that must also be achieved. For example within Stop the Dying, we have stabilize the injured, transport the injured to definitive care, and definitive care.

Within this objective structure, we have concepts and principles that are used to help achieve these goals. I will refer to these simply as principles going forward. Some of the principles (like comply with the fundamental firearms safety rules, 540 degrees of coverage, and communicate) are universal. Others are specific to a set of situations. For example, when moving outdoors, we tell trainees to spread out, but once they move inside, that changes to stay together as much as possible.

Then we have techniques that we demonstrate. These are specific examples of how the concepts and principles can be used to achieve the objectives. In other words, these are a way to apply the concepts and principles to achieve a goal. They are not the only way to achieve the objectives.

So we have Objectives, Principles, and Techniques (OPT). Objectives are the outcomes that we are trying to obtain. They are the What. Principles are the guidelines that are applied to help the responders focus on key aspects of objectives and to help make responders more coordinated and interoperable. They are the How. Techniques are simply one possible way of using the Principles to achieve an Objective. They are the Options.

In the next post, I’ll discuss some objections that we commonly encounter.