Rotary Log for April 7, 2022
President Justin called the meeting to order at 12:15. We had another great turn out for our last day in the Clipper Room. Starting next week, meetings will resume in the main dining room.
Fine Master, Past President Neal Ouellett, gave a nifty presentation about the club’s Hands On project at the Portsmouth Women’s City Club. Many thanks to Neal and PP Ted Alex for organizing the project and spending lots of additional hours to ensure it’s success.
Don Chick, our talented club photographer, shared a few OSHA violations. His all-seeing camera caught Rotarians using ladders questionably. Both Neal and Don teased Portsmouth Women’s City Club (PWCC) President Carrie Baron. She remained perfect and presentable “in her designer jeans” following hours of painting and volunteering, unlike our motley crew.
Vice-President Yvonne Legge presented Carrie with a much-deserved Paul Harris Fellowship. The successful Bean Group real estate agent has given back to the community through extraordinary leadership at the PWCC. Yvonne hinted that she hopes the Rye resident will be a future Portsmouth Rotarian. Congratulations, Carrie!
Justin introduced our speaker, Portsmouth Detective Rochelle Jones. Det. Jones gave us a much-abbreviated Active Shooter training course. The full program normally takes about two hours and is available through the Portsmouth Police Dept. Instruction is designed to give participants important tools for responding to a crisis.
Rochelle gave us a detailed summary of her experience. The well-known police officer grew up here and currently serves many roles including Portsmouth Community Outreach Officer. Her career began in the Army and led her to a degree in Criminal Justice and a job at Strafford County Corrections. She joined the Portsmouth Police Department in 2002. She is also a competitive softball player and coach.
She began the presentation with the simple observation that the world is not fair. You may be good and kind and treat others compassionately, but you are still not safe from bad guys. Rochelle’s job is to protect all of us from that threat and she takes it very seriously.
During the Covid Pandemic, murders increased 20 percent, the biggest single year jump in 60 years. Rochelle asserts that one out of every four adults have a mental health issue. The police department has responded by offering CRAST, short for Civilian Response Active Shooter Training.
CRAST arose from observations of the response to the school shooting at Columbine, Colorado. Looking at the situation afterwards, experts assessed what could have been done differently. It was determined that students and teachers should have taken exit routes instead of sheltering in place. Rochelle played a very moving 911 call to give us a real life feel for the situation. She emphasized that she was in no way trying to judge anyone after the fact, but instead sharing key takeaways.
Law enforcement officials now advocate a response called Avoid, Deny and Defend, which is also known as Run, Hide and Fight. Hiding under a desk is not the safest route to go. If there is a clear path to flee the scene, first leave it, even if escape means breaking a window.
The first response to gunfire is denial. We do not want to imagine this is happening. In a high stress situation, you might want to convince yourself nothing bad is happening. Rochelle encouraged us to listen to our “lizard brain” and do what it takes to survive. Most active shooter situations last six minutes so you have precious little time to react.
When Det. Jones is in a public place, before she sits down, she determines the exit points. That is not something I really thought about before, but I sure will now. During a crisis you will have a burst of adrenaline, and this may help you to escape or fight back in a worst-case scenario.
If escape is not possible, your next option is to hide. But if you choose this option, you will want to barricade yourself with everything you can. She advised piling desks, chairs, anything you can move in front of windows and doors to stop the shooter.
The last option is to fight back, but only if all other options are ruled out.
“In that extreme case,” Rochelle said, “use combat aka yoga breathing to calm yourself down and shift from fear to fighting for your life.”
She showed a video of bystander James Shaw who grabbed the automatic weapon from the Waffle House shooter. He was driven by the desire to see his daughter again and that helped him overcome fear and save many lives that day.
Another tip is to call 911 as soon as it is safe to do so. Police officers are now responding to Active Shooter situations immediately and not waiting for the SWAT team to arrive. Be prepared to encounter officers arriving at the scene as you are fleeing. Listen to whatever orders they give you, knowing that they will be on high alert, too.
If your business or group would like to participate in the two- hour training, reach out to Detective Rochelle Jones. Meanwhile, we hope to never forget the lessons learned from this important presentation.
Respectfully submitted, Aileen Dugan
Photos by Sara Treacy and Don Chick
