IN THE NEWS WITH ASR

Campus Crisis Event Plans During a Pandemic

As COVID-19 cases continue across the country, college and university campuses have had to reassess and refine their safety protocols. While this unprecedented public health crisis remains front-and-center, now may also be the best time for campus leaders to leverage key learnings from their pandemic response that can help them prepare for the next major critical event that could very well be right around the corner.

Colleges are responsible for protecting their students, faculty, and staff from threats and hazards – whether active assailants or natural disasters – and creating a safer community that fosters a positive experience. As a result, many campuses provide security and protocols to keep everyone safe, and threat assessment teams that track risks and determine how to respond have become common.

Given all this, it is notable to mention that there is only so much that threat assessment teams can do to effectively analyze and respond to risk.  It has become abundantly necessary that colleges, schools, and businesses alike implement the use of technology when considering crisis response.  Utilizing technology is the only way to make an assessment, response, and communication plan possible.  Having a solid and executable crisis response is necessary to keep students, staff, and the community safer during a critical incident.

As campuses continue to face serious safety threats, technology that enables fast, accurate communication and a thorough response plan for critical events is no longer an option, many are demanding it.

Why Are Campus Crisis Event Plans So Important?

Even before the pandemic, campuses were facing serious safety threats along with routine obstacles that required fast, reliable communication being a staple in campus crisis event plans. The importance of a robust, accurate and updated crisis communication plan is now more important than ever as campus officials navigate the current environment and plan for what’s ahead.

Despite the US response to the Covid-19 pandemic causing many stay-at-home orders and lockdowns, as of December 13, 2020 there have been 600 mass shootings.  During a year when people were interacting LESS in public, we saw more mass shooting violence than ever before.

According to data provided by the Gun Violence Archive, which records mass shooting deaths, this is already significantly above the 417 mass shootings recorded in the whole of 2019.

The Gun Violence Archive defines mass shootings as a minimum of four victims shot (either fatally or not) excluding any shooter killed or injured in the attack. 

In addition, the climate of unrest shows no signs of waning.  Job loss, businesses shuttering permanently, health concerns, politics, and more have people feeling more volatile and frustrated than ever before.  As tensions continue to boil, its reasonable to assume that more violent response can be expected and perhaps even accelerated as the new year unfolds.

As we send our kids off to school, work, or play - are we confident that they are as safe as possible?

Any critical event — such as an active shooter — evolves at rapid speed. Anticipating such crises' can enable key decision makers to act quickly,  and reduces the impact that an incident has on campus (or business).  This helps to ensure faculty, staff, students, and employees are kept safe before, during and after an event.

How Can ASR Alert Systems Help with Campus Crisis Event Plans?  

ASR offers the best critical incident response technology solution in the industry. Our reliable and redundant methods of alerting persons who are in danger, as well as providing the fastest notification to law enforcement by communicating directly with police dispatch are not matched.  Our patented critical incident response technology uses hard-mounted buttons, mobile pendants and a mobile phone application to DIRECTLY communicate with first responders in the area to significantly decrease response times to an active threat or crisis situation.

ASR Alert Systems is a state-of-the-art patented critical incident response technology specializing in the field of threat alert notifications to local Law Enforcement and First Responders in the event of a crisis. The threat notification capabilities include Active Shooter/Assailant, Medical Emergencies, Severe Weather, and more. Our team of professionals has diverse experience in Security, Law Enforcement, and Special Operations Military. ASR has melded these capabilities for use in both the public and private sectors.  Here is how it works.

1. Emergency Presented - An emergency or threat presents itself.  Immediate action is needed to tend to the situation at hand as the clock is ticking.
2. System Is Activated - The ASR Alert System (critical incident response technology) is activated via one of the stationary wall-mounted activation points, mobile pendant lanyards or ASR APP. Sirens and strobes are initiated to alert personnel and to disorient the active shooter/assailant.
3. Instant Alerts Begin DIRECT to LAW ENFORCEMENT - Upon initiation, all personnel within the organization, as well as local law enforcement, will receive immediate emergency alerts via text and email notifications. Our critical incident response technology is the trigger to initiate life-saving response.
4. Quick Response - The nearest law enforcement personnel will be able to move quickly to neutralize the threat and tend to the emergency at hand. The ASR Alert System saves time by providing the exact location of the threat as well as images from the system cameras.

ASR is wholly dedicated to saving time to save lives and we approach our critical incident response technology from the perspective of those responding to crisis events. 

Communicating DIRECTLY with first responders is what makes ASR different from every other system on the market, we hold the patent on this technology.

As the United States continues down an obvious road of division, the propensity for more mass shootings will continue to rise and play out with the loss of many innocent lives.  The fastest route to reducing loss of life in these events is to get law enforcement and first responders on the scene as quickly as possible and with as much life-saving information as possible.  While organizations cannot control the state of the world and its tensions, they can control how they protect themselves and those that spend time in their buildings. 

SAVING TIME SAVES LIVES.