AST 'CHAMPIONS' Edition December 2017 Digital-Dec2 | Page 69

Volume 18
December 2017 Edition
and moved on to a more likely threat scenario.
An assassin on a hotel roof trying to kill a politi-
cal or “high profile” VIP maybe but a guy bringing
automatic weapons into the hotel, breaking out
a window and shooting people – well frankly, it’s
very unlikely.
There are far too many more likely scenarios.
That said, I think this event and those in London,
Berlin, Barcelona and elsewhere should make
event planners and security officials all over the
world pause for a second and realize that threat
scenarios no longer fit neatly into the box like
they’re supposed to.
Mandalay Bay Windows used by Las Vegas Shooter to kill 58
people and injur e 546 on the night of October 1, 2017 (Image
courtesy of YouTube and Facebook)
We need to start thinking about scenarios that,
albeit may seem far-fetched, are possible. Well, it’s highly unlikely it will happen again any-
way under the same circumstances.
I did a presentation a couple years back at ISC-
East and talked about low probability – high im-
pact events and the need to address them. You know, lightening doesn’t strike twice in the
same spot.
I called dealing with them, “Impact Centric Plan-
ning.”
Many in the audience thought I was nuts. Maybe
I was before my time – I don’t know. I think today
what I spoke about then is much more relevant
than in years past.
Instead of thinking it “won’t happen here” we
need to think “It won’t happen here BUT if it does
how catastrophic will it be – how many injured or
deaths will there be and what kind I do now to
contain it?”
CHANGE IN TRAINING
The LA Times article went on to say, that casino
staff will need to be retrained.
I have a feeling this training won’t really do very
much good to stop this type of event again.
That’s really because the “spot” doesn’t
exist anymore, it’s been vaporized by
the lightening but moving on.
Some security folks will come in and tell the staff
that these are the tail-tail signs of suspicious be-
haviors and what to look for.
And everyone will laud the training and go back
to their busy schedules.
Unless, the classroom training involves regular
unannounced drills afterwards what was learned
will soon be forgotten, especially as folk’s transi-
tion in and out of employment.
While training is a good thing a much more per-
manent and effective solution would be to rede-
sign the inhabited portions of the building so op-
portunities for the types of behavior witnessed in
this case are reduced.
INTEGRATING PHYSICAL
INTO BUILDING DESIGN
SECURITY
I don’t believe in ambulance chasing nor do I be-
lieve in armchair quarterbacking.
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