Understanding School Safety and Security: Insights from a Secret Service Expert

Josh (00:00:02) - Hey good day fellas. Welcome to Uncensored Advice for men. My name's Josh. I'm the host of the show. A lot of times I can't even pronounce the names of my guests, so I stopped even trying because it's sometimes I butcher it. But today we're going to be talking about a topic that is, uh, for mature audiences only. Um, I want to set some expectations. Uh, some of the topics we're going to be talking about are touchy, sensitive. Um, and I'm just kind of prefacing that we're going to be talking about, uh, in the school systems and, you know, some of the, the things that have happened in the past, tragedies that have happened within schools, some have been very recent by evil people. Uh, so we're going to be talking about those things. So I just want to warn you, my listeners and fellow viewers, that we're going to be talking about these things when bad people enter schools and do dumb, bad, evil things. So with that, we've got Daniel don't know how to pronounce your last name.

Josh (00:00:59) - Welcome to the show.

Daniel (00:01:01) - Thank you. Josh. It's Daniel DeLuise. Don't worry about that last name. Uh, but, uh, again, I'm not on here to sell my book. It's called the first five minutes. We'll talk about that and how we got to that journey. Uh, but, yeah, it's an uncomfortable subject, but it's an important subject because, uh, the first thing I want to say, Josh, is that when I started with this, I leaned towards talking to teachers and administrators and schools, saying, hey, wake up, this is what you need to do. But a lot of teachers got frustrated because they said, look, I understand where you're coming from. You're talking about common sense, but I'm being told by a higher authority I have to do certain things so I understand their frustration. So I said, you know what? Parents got to get involved. And as you know, during a pandemic and all this stuff that was going on when parents went to school boards about what was being taught during the pandemic, they had a lot of power.

Daniel (00:01:50) - So not only parents, but especially dads. Gotta talk to your kids. I have a 17 year old, so a 17 year old boy. And you know how boys are different than girls? Maybe not, but it's hard to pin them down. It's. Yes. No. Yeah, whatever. Leave me alone. I got things to do. I got to get on my phone. I got to play my games. Whatever I got to do, pin them down and just ask them the basic questions of what's happening at your school during these emergencies. How are they running the drills? Are they running them where you have, let's say, an active event? Let's say there's a shooter on campus. Are they running it? So you stay in a locked classroom and you sit on the floor quietly and the police arrive. Are they doing it where you are supposed to run out of the classroom, down a hallway, out of an exit? If you hear anything like that, if you're anything about running, fighting, countering any of that, a red flag should go up for all you parents and dads and say, whoa, why are you running out in the hallway when there's a gunman who we don't know where they're at? And you know what happens, Josh? A lot of times they'll say, well, when we do the drill, we walk just like a fire drill.

Daniel (00:03:02) - Oh, we're going to walk out the exit and we're going to walk over here and we'll have a designated area. Well, during the event you're not walking. It's going to be mass chaos. You're going to run like a maniac with everybody else and pile up at that exit and trample everybody. And you're going to hear bad stuff, see bad stuff, probably get killed. Absolutely no reason to run out of that classroom. And that's what's happened recently. I say recently within probably about 5 or 10 years, they came up with what's called run, hide, fight for schools and run, hide. Fight was something for the corporate world. It was created a long time ago by Homeland Security, and it was a video out by the Houston Police Department. It's it's old, but it's still powerful. You've got the movie. Narrator. You know, on there narrating this gunman all dressed in black. And he comes into this business and they tell you, if you can run, run. Okay, I'm going to run out an exit call 911 to find a safe place.

Daniel (00:03:56) - I'm outside. I'm good. If you can't, you're supposed to hide in an office, under a desk, wherever. Hide yourself. The third part was fight, where if it comes to it and that individual is right on top of you, figure out some way to fight. You got to save yourself. Grab a fire or seizure chair, whatever it is to fight this individual made for adults in a corporate world. For whatever reason, somebody shifted over and said, you know what? This might work at schools. It doesn't. When I first started, I heard about this. I say, you know what? Maybe high schools, maybe because most of your high schools nowadays kids are more mature, they're old enough, they're not naive. But then I thought, I'm not good. I don't care if my how big my kid is at 17, I'm not going to have him fight a gunman. Are you out of your mind? And I'm sure as hell not going to have him run anywhere, because you're going to get in more trouble so that this run, hide, fight, along with another acronym I'm going to throw out there.

Daniel (00:04:53) - It's called Alice and Alice training is, uh, is run by a private organization. They market it. They will train and certify you in two days. So in two days, they'll usually certify a police department or police police officers. And then they go on to train the trainer on to these schools. Well Alice stands for alert, lockdown inform, counter and evacuate. So the schools love it. And I'll tell you what Josh, I you know, law enforcement educators have a real tough time getting along. It's like oil and water. And schools said, you know what, I don't want to be passive. I don't.

Josh (00:05:33) - Want to. Whoa, whoa. Before you get going, you were talking, uh, you named an acronym, and I'm writing this down because I want to bring up maybe specific parts of this. So alert lockdown inform. Right. What were the other counter?

Daniel (00:05:48) - Counter and evacuate. I'm going to go through each one.

Josh (00:05:51) - Okay. So before you do that. Let's set some credibility.

Josh (00:05:56) - Let's set some, uh, things. You've posed the the the topic that I, I know a lot of my dudes are listening in. They're leaning in, but they're going to go. Josh, who the hell's this guy that's telling us these these tactics that may be broken, right? Like, all right, this guy's coming in and he's telling us, okay, here's the problem. Here's the issue that I see. But they're going to go, Josh, can we trust this dude? And I don't know, I've never met you. Right? Can we trust this guy to tell us what to do with our kids lives in the case of an emergency? So before we do that, Daniel, let's have some, uh, let's have some idea on authority, credentials, credibility. Like, why should we pay attention to you? And no disrespect here, bro, I love you. No disrespect. I just don't know you. So absolutely give us an idea of why should we listen?

Daniel (00:06:44) - Nope.

Daniel (00:06:45) - Once I get going, you gotta watch out. Uh, my background, 24 years with the Secret Service, uh, started there at the right at the end of Reagan's term, and I finished up with Obama's term. I was a crime scene search technician. I was a canine technician. My dog lasted. He was 13 years old. I worked in public affairs. I worked at the white House for 17 years, on and off. Not all together at the white House in 17 years, but I was lucky enough to be in Washington, DC that entire time I was there during nine over 11. Um, yeah, different parts of my career. I went through the ranks. I ended up at the rank of lieutenant, and yeah, it was it was different divisions, three divisions. One was Foreign Missions Branch because there's 300 and something foreign missions in the DC area, and we were in charge of protecting them. We had regular police powers, meaning like Metropolitan Police powers. And I also had federal powers.

Daniel (00:07:40) - So the only agency that has dual powers like that, meaning I could arrest you for threatening the president, or I could arrest you for assaulting someone. The other division was the vice president's residence. And the third was white House. Most of the time, you're going to spend at the white House during your career. So anyways, um, finished up there after 24 years and I was going to move down to Florida, just retire and this position to open up with my county, uh, uh, school system and it fit my resume. And I thought, oh, that sounds pretty good. It was a safety and security management coordinator with Pinellas County Schools, 100,000 students, 140 schools in Florida alone. We were, uh, the sixth largest in the country. I think we were 27th largest. However, when I took the job, it was just me. Just me. I didn't know staff, no secretary, nothing. Here you go, Dan. You got it. See you later. So make our schools safe, okay? So I did.

Daniel (00:08:49) - What happened at the very beginning was they were still using codes. They would say a code red, blue, green, whatever the hell code they had out there. I don't know what that meant. What does that mean? Well, that means we go into a lockdown or it means we have a fire, or it means we have this get away from codes that took forever. And there's still schools out there to deal with codes and get away from the codes, talking, playing language, whatever you got going on plain language, fire, lockdown, lockout, bomb threat, whatever the heck it is, just go over to PA system and plain language. So with 100,000 students and 140 schools, I'm like, all right. I hated sitting at a desk. I got I have to see these people face to face, and I did. Of 140 schools, it took me a year, but I made sure I met face to face with every principal, those 140 schools, anytime they would run a drill, if they're going to run a lockdown drill, if they're going to run a fire drill, a bomb threat.

Daniel (00:09:41) - If I was available, I wanted to be there, not sitting at a desk listening to them at the phone. So I've observed over 100 of these types of drills. I either supervised them, was in what observed them, or was actually in a part of the drill. So those are my creds. And as time went on, fortunately I had people that I work for in my division that had the budget, that had the money that could, because what we want is from the outside in, we want to slow down that shooter. So from the fencing all the way into that school, that's what you want. You want layered security. So it slows them down. I started out here Josh. Fences around here were three foot high, three foot. I mean you know, you want I don't want barbed wire, but three foot does nothing. We had schools Josh that were open. I mean, we were kids. I mean, I'm much older than you when we were kids. Schools are wide open.

Daniel (00:10:36) - Yeah. Come on in, everybody. Whatever. Uh, right now, the main objective is to slow down any bad person it wants to get in there. That means you have one entrance only during the school day when you get everybody there. I understand there's different entrances. School bus over here, parents over there. Once you start school, you have that one entrance. And when a person comes in and you will allow them in, that stuff about locking the door and buzzing, somebody look, they're going to come in. That's not a big deal. But what you want to do is trap them in the lobby area. So once they come in, they're checked in. Well, I checked in license, you know, driver's license, check them in that they are allowed to be in there. Why are you here? Do you have an appointment? Whatever. And the only way you're going to get in is either you buzz them in or you swipe card them in, and then they're allowed into the school.

Daniel (00:11:26) - Otherwise gone.

Josh (00:11:28) - Yeah. Before we get okay credibility authority. Got it man you've you've mopped up crime scenes and you've seen bad things I'm sure. And you've also been at white House VP and being in those scenarios you have received, if anybody in the world has received threats and understand what's a threat, what's a real threat, what's a bad threat? It's Secret Service, right? You guys are the front end protection of our nation's leaders. Get that. The credibility authorities there. Um, as we're going through this stuff. Right. It's it makes sense. And as you're saying, you know, like you've observed 100 drills and you're like, oh, my gosh, this could be an absolute shit show. If someone's there with a whatever, fill in the blank and just picking people off, you know, students off who don't know how to fight, who don't know how to, you know, walk in a straight line when something bad happened, I get that. And that's a terrible fucking thing to even have to talk about today.

Josh (00:12:23) - Right. So but before we go, this man, I've got a concern. My concern is, is as we're sharing this, you and me have no, no control over who's listening to this message or buying your book. What happens if there's a bad dude out there going, all right. Tell me the notes, dude. Yeah. Keep going. Daniel, tell me everything there is to know about this stuff, like in your mind. And as you think about this stuff, how do you, as you're sharing this message, which is in good intent, how do you how do you know the bad guys aren't sitting there taking notes like idiots and, you know, running the same playbook as we are?

Daniel (00:12:59) - Yeah, I agree, the problem is that it's it's a question. It's it's I would say it's not so much a hypothetical question, but yeah, it's not that they're it's almost the same thing. I mean, the internet is a good thing and internet obviously is a bad thing for anything you want, any kind of information you'd want to find.

Daniel (00:13:16) - It's not that I'm saying something that is secret or is like some kind of thing like, oh, I got it now. He told me this. I know where to go to shoot somebody. The schools already, you know, are again, it's layering security. So it's not like I'm saying something where someone's going to tick off a checkbox and say, oh, now that he said this, I know how I'm going to get in and shoot those people. Yeah. Uh, because one thing I'll tell you, Josh, the majority of these shooters are either current students or former students.

Josh (00:13:48) - So they know the layout, they.

Daniel (00:13:49) - Already know the layout, and they know the drills.

Josh (00:13:51) - Too.

Daniel (00:13:52) - They know the drills too, but they watch the school. So I can tell you, Josh, right now, as of today, I can go to any high school. High school too. High school is worse than probably on the other schools. I will find an open door. I'll find one. There's going to be a door wedged open.

Daniel (00:14:08) - Why? Because you got teachers. Step out for a smoke. You got kids ordering a pizza, you got kids letting their buddy. And who's late? You got kids doing whatever the hell they're doing. They're going to wedge. I'm going to find a freaking triangle wedge somewhere in that school. And that to me is one of my biggest pet peeves, is these doors wedged open. You have only one entrance, but I'll walk around and they'll be an open door. And these people that watch, they know which doors are open. They know you know which ones are open at certain times of the day. I'm not saying anything out there. That is a surprise. Oh my gosh, doors are open. It's going to happen. So. Two things before we forget. We're going to go on from there. I'll tell you about that, Alice. Thing number one. You keep yourself safe. And that means students, teachers, administrators, whoever is in that school building, you keep yourself safe first.

Daniel (00:14:58) - Don't be a hero. Don't go try to confront the shooter. Don't be out there thinking you're going to talk them down. That's not happening there. Beyond that, they should have been talked to two months ago. At this point, it's too late. Number two, every school should have a school resource officer, an armed school resource officer. Well, very fortunate. In Florida, the legislative passed a budget where schools are allowed to have school resource officers. These people go through intense training. They are not there to arrest you because the biggest thing you got from defund the police is the students are like, oh my God, no, I feel oppressed. No, no, no, no, I got to go find a safe space. Get that cop away from me. No, they're not there to arrest you. They're there to save your life, for God's sakes. They are an advocate for the for yourself, parents, teachers, and the administration. So keep yourself safe. Number one.

Daniel (00:15:47) - Second school armed school resource officers. Those are my two biggest things I like to mention on every podcast that people be aware of. But all right, go ahead. We want to talk about the Alice thing or something else you want to talk about. Yeah.

Josh (00:15:58) - No something else I so I do think that that's valuable. So here's what on on this podcast show what I want people to do in the background. Here's a book, guys. The first five minutes. Right. If you want the details that in the weeds details. And then if you want like actual training connect with Dan get the get the training, do that stuff. Do the books. What I want to what I want to do in our conversation is, is inspire guys to do that. Right if this is of interest to them. But I want to ask you maybe questions that aren't in the book or things that are maybe ancillary to it, or maybe things that I could do as a dad, would I? I'm a guy who, in Florida, thank the Lord I live in Florida.

Josh (00:16:38) - But I have guns and I'm a good dude. I'm a dangerous. I'm a dangerous dude with guns. I love the Lord, I love people, and I will protect the innocent. Right? That's that's where my heart is. So for a guy like me, I'm gonna buy your book. I actually want to sign copy. You're not too far from me, so you can even drive it over. We'll have a coffee or a cocktail or something, but. So with that, I want a signed copy, so don't forget about that. But the the the the question, some of the questions that I want to ask you are the questions that for guys like me who are good dudes with with guns, who have kids who want to protect them and who want to serve, I want to ask you those questions. So could we, uh, could we do that and then encourage guys to read the book by the book, connect with you, hire you as a consultant? Could we could we do that?

Daniel (00:17:24) - Yeah.

Daniel (00:17:24) - Absolutely. Sure. All right.

Josh (00:17:26) - So from a dads perspective, I love my kids. I got three beautiful kids. And I will crawl into the gates of hell and do bad things to bad people to protect them. And I know that there's a lot of dudes listening who go, yeah, fuck yeah, me too. What can we do? There's an incident at a school. I've been in a situation where I, you know, like I'm not too far from the school, and I heard an incident or something like that. I'm. I'm as close to as possible. There's nobody that could stop me from going to protect my kids or whatever. So, like, what could I do? Man? That's where my anxiety goes, right?

Daniel (00:18:01) - Right. Okay. I don't want you to grab a gun and go to the school as if you're going to, you know, save them. That's not. That's a bad idea.

Josh (00:18:10) - Okay, cool. Tell me why.

Daniel (00:18:12) - Well, because you're going to be stopped.

Daniel (00:18:14) - Number one, they're not going to allow you to do that because again, you're not. It's almost like they're talking about, you know, arming teachers. For me, it's the kind of thing if I'm law enforcement, I'm responding and I see someone with a gun immediately, I'm thinking, well, that's the bad guy. He's not identifying himself. How was he dressed? You know, I don't know this person. All I know is he's got a gun. I'm going to take him out. So, yeah, don't drive there and show up with a gun saying, I'm here. Uh, let me in. I'm going to go. Yeah. Uh, you're not going to like that. Law enforcement is going to like that. So I know it's frustrating because we saw what happened in Uvalde. We saw parents that showed up and they said, what the hell are you doing? Will you. I'll go in. If you're not going to go in, I'll go in. And they were stopped.

Daniel (00:18:57) - And now, obviously, as we know, there's plenty of lawsuits that are going to come out about that, because for 45 minutes they stood in the hallways thinking it was a hostage situation. So it just was beyond belief. You know, me being in law enforcement was the most embarrassing thing that could, could possibly ever happen because these guys had the training, they had the training. But they're waiting for orders. Like what? No, you don't wait. You don't wait for anything. You don't wait for anybody to tell you go. That's how I was trained. That's how all along forces train. Even if it's just you, one person, you go, you want to stop that shooter? I don't care what the heck is. That's what you signed up for. You as a parent, you didn't sign up for this, and you didn't sign up to go in and do that. If you got I got you got parents out there that want to do it. Well, I'm sorry. Then join the police force.

Daniel (00:19:45) - But don't I don't want you to show up with a gun and go there and think you're going to help. You're not, I suggest. I know it's frustrating. I suggest if you have the information in front of you that whatever drills they're doing there is not making me feel comfortable. I've told my kids if there is an event there, they stay in the class. In a locked classroom, you don't run anywhere and you're not sure it's hell. I'm not going to fight anybody. If that happens, that's where you get a page and a half and you can get in front of that school board. I know they only give you three minutes, but you can get a page and a half easily in front of that school board and tell them, no, I don't agree with this. This has to change and and get enough parents to say in front of that school board to change it. That's the only way it's going to change by the school board and by the administration. If that doesn't happen, then you got to start talking to your legislatures, state legislatures, state senators say, well, this this is wrong.

Daniel (00:20:42) - This puts people at risk. And I can give you a site. It's called Safe Havens international.org one word safe havens international.org. Josh they have all the research that anybody can look up how this run hide fight. And this Alice does not work their unsound policies. And Josh so far $130 million in lawsuits due to this type of training that schools had to pay out of pocket for this type of training for both run and hide fight and Alice. So that's you say that in front of the board, and you can get that information in front of you and say, hey, what information? What do you got? Safe Havens international.org. Been in business for 30 years. The guy that runs it name's Michael Dorn. He was a cop. He's been he's been doing this for a long time. So now you got the data. So now you're like, I don't agree with this. And and you can present the data to them and talk to their school lawyers going, wait a minute. How were you certifying these people? You agree with this stuff? What about your insurance company? Are they backing the school when you have this type of training? I don't want my child to go through this.

Daniel (00:21:55) - I don't want my child to run out of a perfectly safe classroom. I don't want my child to fight some gunmen that shows up. Are you out of your mind? So this common sense deal has to as a parent. That's where you have to go.

Josh (00:22:11) - Yeah. And I hear you. I served, uh, fire rescue. Uh, medic! I served alongside the Swat and the and the police force. And I love my my boys and girls and blue. Right. Like, these are my my my ugly step brothers and sisters, right? Like, that's why we joke around. Uh, so I totally get that. As a father, as a dude, I feel helpless in terms of if something bad happens, and that's an anxiety that we have. You know, I grew up in the, you know, 80s and 90s and, you know, there were all the time, you know, bomb threats and idiot kids and and there was some shootings at Columbine and stuff like that.

Josh (00:22:51) - But it's like I'm 40 something now, and I'm seeing it on the TV a lot, and I'm going, oh my God. Like every day I drop off my kids and I'm praying with them. Keep them safe, Lord, protect them. And I tell my kids something bad happens. You hide. You play hide and go seek and you hide, right? You're gonna you're gonna hide and call dad on his, you know, call that on your watch. Call that on your thing. Right. So, man, I I'm really glad of what you're doing. You're so you're working. You know, you worked with these these schools and then you saw all the, the the holes, right? In the drills and such like that. And, and something inspired you to write a book. So what was the thing that one day you're like, if this I'm writing a book and I'm gonna do something about this. What was that event for you?

Daniel (00:23:36) - That you're right. That that's what. That's how I got trained in Secret Service.

Daniel (00:23:40) - If something would happen, you just. You fix it, you fix it. You're not going to sit there blaming somebody. Hey, you did this. You know, you fix it. So after all these shootings and one of them, the main one, well, two main ones for me was Sandy Hook in Newtown, Connecticut. That's one town where I grew up. I grew up in Monroe, Connecticut. My sister lives in Newtown, Connecticut, and was there when this happened. Uh, the second one was, uh, parkland, Marjory Stoneman Douglas down here in Florida, which was kind of the tipping point of how I got out of, uh, working for the county. And the reason for that was because the legislation in Florida said, you know what? We're going to have the local police, uh, sheriffs, county, whatever, take over safety and security. And I disagree with that because police, as you know, are reactive. They don't have the time to be proactive.

Daniel (00:24:25) - So I said, no, I'm not doing this anymore. But the reason for the book was after Uvalde. Um, my wife, uh, my new wife at the time, uh, she said, look, you gotta you gotta vent. You gotta get this out there. So I wanted something that was short, concise and common sense. It's only 77 pages long. It's a guidebook. I didn't want a 203 hundred page diatribe of Ed to speak and put on a shelf, collecting dust. I wanted a book where you could flip it open. And here's what I need to do. That's it. You read the book in an hour and a half at best. So after revalidate, that's that's when I wrote this. I said, yeah, I got to get this out because they're doing things wrong.

Josh (00:25:06) - So if I understand correctly, the new wife was sick of hearing the event. And she goes, you need to get this shit out of I don't want to talk about it anymore. Write a book.

Josh (00:25:15) - There's someone out there who wants to hear about that. Is that right? Is that how it worked?

Daniel (00:25:19) - Kind of. Yeah. Yeah, it's hard to be talking about it. Yeah. Like it's like when you stop talking about this, you shut up. Oh, yeah. It's it's. I wanted to write a I never wrote a book. I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I mean, I had to go through its online stuff and, and the publisher and the editors and all this stuff. So it was a experience.

Josh (00:25:38) - Hey, bro, I'm proud of you for doing that. And I can relate. Like my wife would say the same thing. She goes, I wrote a book for dudes. And you know, we're talking about porn, masturbation, all sorts of my wife's like, I don't want to hear it. Gross. You guys are gross, gross, gross creatures. I don't want to hear it. So I was like, I gotta write a book and start a show for men.

Josh (00:26:00) - So we're brothers. Uh, you're probably older, though. Uh, Dan, I love your heart, man. So do you do. So you wrote the book. What's what's next? Like, are you doing consulting? Like, private consulting? Like, you.

Daniel (00:26:14) - Know, Josh, I did that for a while, but I kept getting turned down. Um, because most schools are just not. We're good. We don't need it. We're good. Yeah. We're good, you know? And. And the school over here said were good. So obviously I couldn't deal with the county schools anymore because they didn't work for them anymore. And they decided to do their own thing, which here in Pinellas County is wrong. They're running what's called options based training. And they trick you because they'll say, okay, we're not exactly running run, hide, fight. We're going to tweak it. So it's age appropriate. So let's say high school. Yeah, we're probably going to run high school and we'll hide and we'll possibly fight.

Daniel (00:26:54) - We'll drop it down to middle school. We'll probably still going to run. But yeah, we're not gonna have them fight in elementary school. We're definitely not going to have them fight. But the run part is still in there. So what they did was they put the liability on the teachers. So they made it. So hey, we've got a gunman on campus. Teachers. You decide what you want to do. Well, if I'm a teacher, I'm like, I don't know where the gunman is. Why? Why would I run? I'm going to stay right here. But they give them this option. So you're kidding me. Why are you giving teachers this option of putting the liability on them? Do you imagine the lawsuits that way and the guilt if they make the wrong decision? So I've told my kid, look, anything happens, you're not running anywhere. You stay in that class. I don't care if the if the teachers scream at you to run, get down on the floor, lock that freaking door and wait for the good guys because they're coming.

Daniel (00:27:39) - Yeah. You know, and that's why I named it the first five minutes FBI data. And obviously this is back a few years because it takes a while to build up the data. Active shooters on average last between 3 to 5 minutes. So in those 3 to 5 minutes you're on your own. But decide what you're going to do. The door should already be locked. I'm at this again. Took forever. I said. The classroom door should be locked during school time. Oh no, we can't do that because they got to go to the bathroom or they got to go here. I got to get up and open the door again. Tough. Lock the door. You're already one step ahead. If you go into a lockdown, you shut the lights off, close the blinds. You sit on the floor away from the windows and door. You don't answer the door. You don't listen. Any announcements, fire alarms, nothing. And the good guys are coming. That's it. Simple. Yeah.

Daniel (00:28:26) - That's all you got to do. They're coming. And don't think. Look, I'll play devil's advocate. Oh, they're sitting ducks. Sitting ducks. Josh! There has been one, only one incident where a gunman tried to shoot out a lock in a classroom. Of all these active shooters that have gone on in schools for years and years and years, even Columbine. One incident where an individual tried to shoot out a lock. Why takes too long? I got to sit there, try to shoot out a lock before I'll just go down to the door that's open and get easy victims. This kid, it was Red Lake, Minnesota, and it was on a Native American reservation. He killed his grandfather. Uh, went to the school, shot a cop, grabbed a shotgun, went into the school. It took him three shots to even shoot the lockout. And he just got frustrated. He said, well, what the hell? It's easier for me to go in the window. So he shot the window out and climb through the window.

Daniel (00:29:16) - So this idea that they're sitting ducks, they, you know, these these people in law enforcement love that because they're like, oh no, they're sitting ducks rocking. And then we're going to all go out and, you know, run somewhere. No, they're not going to bust through a lock. It takes too long. They got a clock in their head too. They know what they know who's coming. Yeah. You know they already made that decision.

Josh (00:29:38) - Dan, I gotta apologize. Maybe not to you. Holy shit, man, as we were talking like. Here I am talking about one of the probably the worst event that's ever happened to a parent in the in their history. And as we're talking like. You know, part of my defense mechanism after seeing death, my own self, you know, being a medic and such like that, one of our defense mechanisms as firefighters and medics and cops, police, fire. Right. Whatever is laughing and cracking, cracking a joke or something.

Josh (00:30:09) - And that, that that's my defense mechanism because I've seen some bad things happen. I've been to a mass shooting. I've been I've seen I've seen bad stuff. And as I looked back, I just I paused for a minute to reflect as you were talking, thinking about all the the dads or moms out there who might be watching this and who are hurt and enraged, and they see me laughing. And we weren't I wasn't laughing at the bad stuff. But even just having that so I just, I, I, I repent and I'm so sorry. Like, for anybody out there who has been really hurt from this kind of situation, like I'm not making light of it for, for sure. And it scares the shit out of me. And if that happened to me, I've never experienced that with my wife or kids or or family members. If that happened to me, would break my heart. So I just want to say sorry guys. Like as we were just talking, I was going, oh my God, my heart breaks for them and I want to do something about it, man, because I'm scared and I don't want that to happen to my kids.

Josh (00:31:02) - I want to be proactive and I want to take out the bad guys before that stuff happens. I'm not going to do it, but I'm just saying, like, there's law enforcements that do it, but I, I want to be on the front end of this. So, you know, no jokes aside, like, I know that we have to have these kind of chats. And it sucks that sometimes I have to have them too. So this is, uh, so I just want to say that, Dan, uh, I know that this is very serious to you as well, and I appreciate the the passion that you have for this.

Daniel (00:31:30) - Thank you. I appreciate that, too. It's, uh. Yeah, it's something that, again, you can never imagine. It's heavy. Uh, and it's. It used to be years ago. Um, people, people at schools would just say, uh, I don't I don't need to do this training. It's never going to happen.

Daniel (00:31:44) - That was a famous last words. Never going to happen here. I mean, you look at Sandy hook, that school is. If you ever seen one of these Courier and Ives, you know, little Christmas card. I think that's what that looks like. That whole area, it is just the quintessential New England area. Hard to get through on a narrow road behind a fire station. You can't even see the school from the road. It's just something you would never imagine ever happening at that school. I mean, sure, Marjory Stoneman Douglas can say the same thing. It's A34 school. It's three floor school. It's huge. So it's the idea that, look, we can't make schools, prisons. We can't. I understand, you know, people talk about Israel and where they have, you know, armed people there with AR 15 or whatever guarding the schools. We can't do that. It's just it has to be a real balance between having an open environment for students and parents, yet being safe enough where if the bad person wants to get in, they can't get in, or at least they're slowed down enough to have enough time for the police to respond.

Daniel (00:32:42) - So, you know, I the one thing that comes up a lot and a lot of these parents meetings is they'll say, look, I, I'm fearful. We just had a shooting here at the school across the street or across town or wherever. Uh, administrators, principals do something. So what they normally will do is they'll say, oh, look, we got a grant for metal detectors. We'll put in metal detectors, and we'll be safe. Parents, we're all set. We got metal detectors. Your kids are good. No, metal detectors are nothing, Josh, but what they call security theater. They look good. Now, if I'm an insane person, it wants to get in that school with a gun. How is a metal detector going to stop me? I was going to start blasting away. What difference does it make? And kids are not dumb. They know the metal detectors. They're going to get that gun and somehow they'll get it in half. An after school event, during an athletic event, during the weekend, they'll throw it over to a window to their buddy in their backpack.

Daniel (00:33:33) - Hey, put this away for me, will you? Put it in my locker? And that's the main focus today on a lot. What's happening? Not so much as school shooters, even though the media jumps on that. It's the weapons in school knives, guns that show up in these schools. And that's where you have an issues with these weapons can probably with gangs or bully or whatever. Look, I can understand a kid if he's being bullied or something, I'm going to take care of business. I'll get my dad's gun. I'm going to go in there and take care of it happens. So be prepared for that. Also, not just the active shooter, but the disgruntled or bullied kid who brings in a gun. Maybe he's not even going to shoot anybody. He just wants it for protection. Or just to show them that I could shoot your ass for sure. So that's what you got to watch out for nowadays. So forget about metal detectors. That is wasted money. Train your people correctly.

Daniel (00:34:21) - Cameras. Cameras are good. However, as we know, kids are kids. All these kids middle school, high school. They know where the cameras are. They know where the hiding places are so they don't be seen if they're doing something stupid. That happens. But there's no technology out right now. Josh, where you have cameras that can follow an individual through every bit of that school just cost too much. It's in the millions just for these cameras.

(00:34:46) - Ma'am. Ben.

Josh (00:34:49) - Super. Um. Super important topic, super sensitive topic. Didn't even know the amount of emotions that I would have while having this, because I've had a lot of these interviews and I feel like, uh, um. Man, I just got I got blindsided. Not your fault. My fault for not preparing well for the emotions that I might have mid interview. So let me do this. I think that there's going to be a lot of guys out there who are super curious to, to super curious about your work, about preparing, about learning and maybe teaching our kids something different like, hey, this is what they're going to be saying to do.

Josh (00:35:30) - Maybe consider this right? And I'm not saying go buck up against authority or whatever, but like, hey, it might be good to know from another person's perspective, where could people go to find your book?

Daniel (00:35:40) - Uh, Amazon. You type in the first five minutes, it should come up in, like the first 5 or 6, uh, views there. I'm on LinkedIn. Uh, you know, use my last name. I've also got a Facebook page with the first five minutes, so I've got my email on there. You can contact me that way. Easy enough. I can answer any questions you got. So try to stay away from the hypotheticals because that could go on forever, you know, infinitely. But yeah, any any of your basic questions I'll be happy to answer.

Josh (00:36:05) - Yeah, yeah. We can. I'm sure we could do hypotheticals all day freaking long. And the problem is, is you can't prepare for all of them. So you have to you have to prepare well, but you can't prepare for all.

Josh (00:36:17) - Um. And I like what you said is we're putting the responsibility on teachers who did not sign up to be law enforcement, right? Part of their heart and their their mission is to protect students. But, man, they're not set up to protect them against terrorism or against terror or against bad, bad dude. Bad girls, whatever. Bad naughty people. So, um, yeah, I really, I think, I think that's an important, uh, message. Uh, so, Dan, I really want to encourage guys to, you know, people just to go check out your book. Um. And maybe be open in the future to maybe some type of consulting or training or, you know, dad training for for guys like me who, sure, you know, whatever. Um, and then I also see this as a powerful training tool for churches and for daycares and such like that. So, man, super powerful. Dan, thanks for thanks for coming on the show. Uh, one more time.

Josh (00:37:16) - Uh, the name of the book.

Daniel (00:37:17) - The first five minutes, uh, school shooting, uh, survival for administrators and teachers. But I would like to see parents, you know, take a look at it. And again safe havens international.org. They are a mentor of mine. Go there if you need the data and the research if you don't agree what's happening. The other thing Josh, is normally schools will tell parents, hey, we're going to have a drill tomorrow or we're going to have a drill on this day. Find out what they're doing. There's no way you can. You don't have to have your kids there. You can say, I don't I don't agree with that. I'm going to pull my kid. No, I want him to stay locked in a classroom. I'm not going to have him run or throw stuff at a shooter. Are you out of your mind? So you have that. You have that ability, but you have to get involved. It's it's not like years ago where you just, like, drop them off.

Daniel (00:38:00) - The schools got them. They're safe. We're good. Not in today's society. No. You got to find out how they're running these emergencies and and get involved. Yeah.

Josh (00:38:10) - Yeah. Well, Dan, thanks for showing up. Uh, your lieutenant Dan. Lieutenant Dan, because you were a lieutenant. All right. Anyways. I'm right. No jokes here. Uh. Love you. Thanks for showing up on the show, guys. Reach out to our guests, say thanks by their books, check out what they're doing, and if they're of interest, uh, connect with them. Their contact information will be in the show notes. Guys, I love you. And, uh, I'm sure that a lot of you guys are walking around with anxieties similar to mine. If you have questions, if you have thoughts and you want to connect with me or my guests, head on over to Uncensored Advice for men.com. Fill out a quick form and, uh, we'll get you connected. See you guys.

Josh (00:38:45) - Thank.