NEWS RUN. HIDE. FIGHT.

Here’s what to do if there’s an active threat on campus

BY CROSS HARRIS @thecrossharris

Students and staff had the opportunity at the end of March to be instructed on how to survive an active threat by LSU’s National Center for Biomedical Research and Training/Academy of Counter Terrorist Education: LSU NCBRT/ACE for short, or in conversation simply “NCBRT.”

The organization with the long name holds noble aspirations: “To influence, develop, and deliver specialized training and education,” reads its mission, “providing the skills necessary to prepare for, respond to, and recover from complex threats and high-consequence events.”

That mission arises from a long list of tragic school shootings: Columbine, Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech, Uvalde. There have been over 4,000 mass shootings in the U.S. since 2014, according to the Gun Violence Archive. And this year, the nonprofit has already tallied 131.

So, on Tuesday, March 28, and Wednesday, March 29, the NCBRT set up shop in LSU’s Student Union to deliver four sessions (two each day) of its

HEALTHCARE course, called “Surviving an Active Threat: Run. Hide. Fight.” Here, participants learned the finer points of the three steps outlined in the title.

“It’s all about preparedness,” said NCBRT lecturer Jeff Holcomb during the final session on Wednesday, “It’s very unlikely that you’ll be involved in an active threat, but it could happen.”

The chances are low but nev- er zero.

Plus, “the body can’t go where the mind’s never been,” Holcomb added. So, in the interest of survival, these are the basics of run, hide, fight:

First, you have to recognize that a threat is present. When confronted with a shocking situation, we typically enter a state of denial. In the same way that you might convince yourself that those shots in the night came from a firework rather than a firearm, so too are we often slow to recognize when our lives are in danger, Holcomb said.

And denial itself is dangerous because it delays response times. “The longer you take, the less options you have,” LSUPD Chief Bart Thompson said.