Katherine Schweit: Stop the Killing (In-Person)
Join the Chicago Council of the AWM to hear from Katherine Schweit, the former head of the FBI’s active shooter program and author of the recent book Stop the Killing: How to End the Mass Shooting Crisis. Stop the Killing offers insight into what each of us can do to end the active shooter crisis plaguing America. This book shares an insider look at what we’ve learned and failed to learn, about protecting our businesses, houses of worship, and schools. The book demystifies the language around active shooters, mass killings, threat assessment teams, and more.
This program is an in-person event at the American Writers Museum. Proof of vaccination is required to attend this event in person. The program will also be livestreamed, sign up here to watch the live broadcast online.
More about Stop the Killing:
Never gathered before into one place, readers gain access to evidence-based research and the most up-to-date information as they travel step-by-step through shooting prevention efforts and shooting aftermaths. Beginning with an understanding of how to spot potential shooters, readers learn the many ways to prevent shootings and the role threat assessment teams play. Threat assessment experts provide insight on what kind of information they need, and how they use it to intercept a person on a pathway to violence. The book guides readers through the process of assessing building security weaknesses and shows how to find vulnerabilities in people, programs, and policies.
Packed with practical advice for training every age, from preschoolers, to elementary school children, to adults, the book also includes the author’s own teaching outline on how to train people to run, hide, fight. The book gathers together examples to help build individualized emergency operations plans and shows how to tap vast government resources to cover costs to your office and employees, districts and students, and survivors and victim’s families.
Hear sober advice gathered from those who have survived and responded to shootings at Columbine High School, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook Elementary School, the Aurora theater, Los Angeles International Airport, and more. Their common theme is that it can happen anywhere and has. All the more reason to accept that as each of us better understand what happens and how to prevent it, we can be the ones to stop the killing.
The book also features a new preface exploring the 2021 school shooting tragedy in Michigan, especially the groundbreaking use of a domestic terrorism charge filed against the shooter and involuntary manslaughter charges filed against his parents.
Katherine Schweit is an attorney, security consultant, and retired FBI special agent. She was tagged by the FBI to create their Active Shooter program after the terrible tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Since then, Katherine has devoted her energy to helping prevent more tragedies.