By Nick Stevens, Editor-in-Chief of HighSchoolOT
At a time when violence is becoming more common in the United States, mass shootings have become normal, and disagreements have become increasingly heated, schools spend a great deal of time discussing safety and security.
We have seen a number of school shootings across the United States this year and over the past few decades. The Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas, demonstrated the disastrous consequences of not following policies and procedures. We have also seen mass shootings at parades, grocery stores, movie theaters, malls, places of worship, clubs and office buildings.
Other shootings that aren’t high-profile mass shootings are also on the rise in many locations across the country. The trend includes North Carolina. The city of Durham has reported nearly 400 shootings so far this year as of August 11. There were 26 homicides in Raleigh this year, compared to 19 for the same period in 2021.
We’ve also seen officers being attacked at sporting events, including some videos that have gone viral on social media.
There are a growing number of safety considerations that schools need to take into account, but this is not limited to the school day. Athletics is held after school, and members of the community come to campus to participate in these events. On Wednesday, members of the N.C. Athletic Directors Association for a virtual training session on safety at high school sporting events where they discussed some of the issues and best practices. Safe Sport Zone President Jay Hammes led the discussion.
Hammes was a Wisconsin high school athletic director when he attended a street sporting event. As he left the school, shots were fired that just missed him. Ever since, Hammes has been an advocate for sports safety.
Every North Carolina school is required to have an emergency plan for situations such as medical emergencies and inclement weather. However, Hammes says the plans are often too long for people to understand, and when the emergency actually occurs, people forget the plan and resort to their instincts.
“Do you think I was contemplating my plans of action when the bullets were fired?” he said. “No, absolutely not. When things get hot, plans evaporate. Instincts take over. Instincts come with practice, practice, practice.”
Hammes said it’s crucial that everyone involved on matchday practice the contingency plans – from school administrators to coaches to all event staff. This preparation allows them to react instinctively to situations that arise, and we have seen situations like this in North Carolina.
Just last week, the soccer game between Salisbury High School and West Rowan High School ended early after an unidentified woman allegedly yelled at a man with a gun, prompting a rush to the exit. According to The Salisbury Post, three people were injured in the stampede. It came after a social media post said a shooting would take place near the game, police said. Some witnesses said they heard gunshots, but police found no evidence that shots were fired, according to the newspaper report.
In September 2021, multiple shots were fired at the football game between Chambers High School and Glenn High School in Charlotte. No one was injured, but the rush of people attempting to evacuate the stadium was seen live on HighSchoolOT. In October 2021, two teenagers were shot dead after a football game at Seventy-First High School, and another teenager was shot dead in the Durham County Stadium parking lot after a game between Northern Durham High School and Riverside High School.
“You have to ask yourself, ‘How will it be in five years?'” Hammes said. “It has to be practiced consistently, like our fire drills. We have stopped our fire drills. But we have more shootings in our schools than fires.”
Prevention is key
The best way to keep people safe at high school sporting events is to prevent an emergency, Hammes said. To see also : The LGBTQ+ organization Varsity Gay League creates inclusive sports leagues. There are a number of best practices he outlined that schools can implement.
“Prevention, prevention, prevention is the motto today,” said Hammes. “But you can’t offer 100 percent security. If someone really wants something, then they do it.”
Hammes’ company teaches a practice they call “active supervision.” This requires everyone working at the event to be trained to supervise crowds entering the facility, in the stands and everywhere in between.
One recommendation from Hammes is to purchase a portable metal detector for the gate. It’s best to use it on spectators as they enter the facility, but simply displaying it at the gate can be daunting, he said.
The gate is an important place for supervision. Hammes said scanning the gate when entering can alert event staff to potential problems. Therefore, having administrators or law enforcement at the gate is crucial.
“People detectors are sometimes better than metal detectors,” Hammes said. “They shouldn’t be looking for physical traits, that’s profiling and if they’re doing that, you should get them out of there. But watch out for things like people walking in with their hands in their pockets and watch their eyes. If they’re scanning you or looking for witnesses or escape routes or officials, that’s something to watch out for.
When schools use metal detectors, Hammes said having a police officer flank the metal detector helps because they’re good at looking for suspicious activity. He said it’s also important to look for things that are out of place, like someone wearing a jacket when it’s hot outside.
Manage the spectators
Active shooters and those with guns aren’t the only safety concerns that exist at high school sporting events. Read also : Filipinos are buying books to preserve the truth about the Marcos regime. Spectators can cause safety issues if they lose control of their behavior out of anger or if they storm the pitch in celebration.
Last December, pepper spray was used to break up a fight between fans at the John Wall Holiday Invitational, closing the tournament for the night at Wake Technical Community College’s Northern Wake campus. A fight between fans of Farmville Central High School and Life Christian Academy of Kissimmee, Fla., spilled onto the court mid-game. The fight followed an on-pitch fight in the previous game that had already encountered safety issues, a tournament spokesman said at the time.
Also last December, two high school students were shot dead during a basketball tournament at Catawba College in Salisbury. The shooting resulted in the campus being placed on lockdown.
Managing spectator behavior is another important way to prevent safety issues at high school events, and Hammes says it starts with having enough people working at the event to monitor the number of spectators in attendance.
“If we could learn to actively monitor our events, we could reduce the problems almost to the point where you have an incident or two every three or four years,” he said.
Hammes said event staff should be assigned a department to monitor. Every few minutes, a venue staff member should be checking this area for people who look upset or angry, have loud voices, or are yelling at the referee or coach. If a person is identified, note what they are wearing, not what they look like. Hammes said noting what they wear is called pattern recognition. So the next time the person scans that section, it will be easier to identify that person.
“Every time I turn my head, I’m going to focus on that person and watch them,” Hammes said. “You can de-escalate a person’s anger just by watching. They know you’re watching.”
Hammes said nonverbal communication, such as a shake of the head or signs to calm down, can be effective. Positioning yourself so that you are standing or sitting next to the person can also be effective.
“If the person continues their behavior, you need to deal with it. We have to have the courage to go out there and do that,” he said, noting that it should be done with compassion and empathy, not anger. The key is to de-escalate the situation.
“If you’re not calm, you can’t de-escalate. Be patient,” Hammes said. “If you see a conversation with another event staff member getting heated, help them out. Jump in and help de-escalate because once he gets heated, they can’t de-escalate.”
NC working to prepare schools
NCADA is a professional organization for athletic administrators in North Carolina, and one of its core missions is to provide training and resources for athletic directors in the state. The virtual session with Hammes was part of that educational process, but it doesn’t end there. On the same subject : Waco Pastor fills stomachs and hearts with donated food tags. In 2023, NCADA plans to offer safe athletic certification courses to its members.
“As parents, we expect that we’ll take our kids to play and come back and pick them up, that they’ve had a great experience and been safe the whole time, so our intention in doing these kinds of workshops and interactive webinars is to push those ideas.” and provide best practices to our athletic directors,” said NCADA executive director Roy Turner. “We’re just trying to be in a proactive situation.”
Turner said athletic directors in North Carolina are already more vigilant 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 get a heightened sense of intentionality when we start being more proactive,” he said.
Many schools have switched to using digital tickets since the COVID-19 pandemic, and digital tickets give schools a better way of identifying who is coming to an event. Some school districts have implemented clear bag policies, while others use magnetometers and metal detectors at the gate. Schools are also investing in signage to communicate sportsmanship policies and expectations, and some schools are displaying QR codes that people can use to anonymously report a tip about violence or threats.
“I think we all want to make sure every kid in the future has an opportunity to experience (education-based athletics) and learn the life skills that we were able to learn and that we took from it,” Turner said.
Event safety will be an integral part of the future viability of kid’s high school athletics, and today that means preparing for—and hopefully preventing—acts of violence at events.
“It’s really sad that kids today have to go to school and take care of that, but that’s the new world,” Hammes said.
