Threats to schools are all too familiar to many police agencies in the United States. Many police leaders, officers, and investigators are dealing with this widespread phenomenon in one way or another—taking part in response planning, assigning school resource officers (SROs), conducting training, providing community outreach, or a combination of all these efforts. And, tragically, too many police officers have personally responded to actual school shootings or other senseless acts of violence at schools.

Numerous studies have been done and much has been written about the psychology of school shooters, the pathway to violence, threat reporting, intervention, and monitoring. The challenge for stakeholders is often taking this academic knowledge and industry recommendations and putting them into practice in an operational setting. In short, how do police leaders move from knowing and understanding threat management to actually doing it daily?

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