Tips for Surviving a Theater Shooting
I know it sucks we have to talk about this but in light of the fact that Black Panther is coming out this weekend I think it needs to be addressed. The possibility of a shooting happening at a Black Panther screening is very real, seeing as there will be very high populations of people of color going to see this movie.
Here are some tips I learned in school for surviving a shooting, modified a bit to match the setting.
1. TAKE NOTE OF YOUR EXITS. Your first instinct should be to GET OUT if at all possible. If you are near an exit, GET TO IT and run. Call the police and get somewhere safe. Remember, shooters have tunnel vision. If you are lucky enough to be within a shooter’s peripheral vision, you have a good chance of being able to escape.
2. If you are unable to exit the theater, HIDE. Get down under your seats, crawl underneath chairs to get to an exit, whatever. If necessary, smear yourself with blood and cover yourself with a dead body and play dead. I know it’s gross and horrible, but this is something that can save lives. Many shooters are not going to go around shooting dead bodies; their goal is to kill as many people as possible. If you look dead, there’s a chance they won’t shoot you.
3. If you cannot hide and you cannot escape, AMBUSH THE SHOOTER. You need to get a group of people to do this, and I’m not sure how that would work–if you’re going with a group of people you could all agree to jump the shooter if you were near him, or someone could shout “JUMP HIM” in the theater and a group of people would jump him.
This is very effective. A single person WILL NOT be able to withstand a group of four or more people bringing him down, especially if you distract him beforehand by throwing WHATEVER YOU CAN at him.
That means food, popcorn buckets, sodas, purses, bags, WHATEVER. Like I mentioned before, shooters have tunnel vision and will not be expecting objects being thrown at them.
It takes a shooter a certain amount of time to go through the mental process of finding a person, locking that person as a target, aiming, and shooting. Anything you can do to disrupt that process causes that person to start it all over again. DISRUPT THAT PROCESS BY THROWING WHATEVER SHIT YOU CAN FIND AT HIM. In the seconds he has to go through that mental process again, ambush him, get him on the ground, kick his weapon away, and call 911.
If you have any more tips, please feel free to add on. Keep your friends and family close. Stay smart. Stay safe.
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