Center for Personal Protection & Safety - CPPS

A potential mass casualty event was stopped because a family noticed something was wrong.

The individual's behavior had been shifting. Something felt off. When he posted something vague and unsettling on social media on his way to the airport, his family connected the dots and called it in. When police located him, he was conducting surveillance at the terminal. His vehicle had weapons.

A policy didn't do that; awareness did.

Relating this to organizations, most targeted violence involves someone with some connection to the organization, a current or former employee, a relative, a past student. That connection is actually an advantage, because their behavior is observable by people who know them.

The question is whether those people know what to look for.

Awareness training is not just for security professionals. When employees, families, and communities understand the warning signs of someone on a pathway to violence, they become part of the prevention system.

See something. Say something.

That is how incidents get stopped before they start.