01 June 2018 by Lilly Chapa
​Overall, 2017 was a landmark year for catastrophic natural disasters in the United States, leading to dozens of deaths and revealing weaknesses in emergency response systems. Two regions were hit particularly hard—the Houston, Texas, area where more than 80 people were killed during a hurricane in August, and northern California where wildfires were responsible for more than 40 deaths in October.

These multiday disasters were far-reaching and overwhelming—for both citizens and first responders. During the Houston floods, overloaded 911 dispatch centers led hundreds of people to turn to social media for help, and kayak-paddling citizens pitched in to help rescue efforts. Criticism of emergency response during the California wildfires was swift—evacuation warnings during the rapidly evolving blaze were either delayed or nonexistent, and emergency lines were constantly tied up.

After-action reports by state and local officials are still being conducted, but the emergency communications failures have left citizens, law enforcement, and legislators looking for solutions.

The question of how people can seamlessly use their phones for a myriad of activities yet not use that same technology when calling 911 has been asked for years as mobile devices have become the standard—more than 80 percent of 911 calls are made from wireless devices. There is a mobile-friendly solution—albeit one that has not been widely adopted. Known as Next Generation 911 (NG911), the program is IP-based and would allow citizens to call, text, and send multimedia transmissions to dispatch centers, which would have enhanced response capabilities.

Many of the problems experienced during the Texas and California disasters—especially overloaded phone lines—could be avoided with such a system. NG911's enhanced location capabilities and ability to reroute calls to other dispatch centers would allow for more seamless emergency response, especially during high-volume call times.

While potential for such emergency communications technology improvements has been discussed for almost a decade, there is no federal requirement for dispatch centers to upgrade 911 technology, and it's up to states and localities to implement—and pay for—the new system. Legislation was passed in 2012 that outlines the federal role in helping communities transition to NG911 and calls on the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to coordinate efforts among U.S. federal, state, and local stakeholders. The overarching goal of the legislation is to connect the more than 6,000 independently operating systems in the United States into a nationwide interconnected system with modernized capabilities.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) reviewed these federal efforts—known as the National 911 Program—and found that key challenges include addressing funding, governance, and interoperability and technology concerns. This year, NHTSA is planning to implement a $115 million grant program and outline a roadmap dictating national-level efforts to encourage NG911 adoption at the state and local levels.

"Collaborating with the appropriate federal agencies to determine federal roles and responsibilities to carry out the roadmap's national-level tasks could reduce barriers to agencies effectively working together to achieve those tasks," the GAO report states. "Furthermore, developing an implementation plan that details how the roadmap's tasks will be achieved would place the National 911 Program in a better position to effectively lead interagency efforts to implement NG911 nationwide."

At the end of the day, however, it's still up to each of the country's almost 6,000 dispatch centers to make the upgrade, if they choose. A U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) congressional report released at the end of 2017 surveyed almost all states on their NG911 implementation efforts, finding that many were taking some steps to pave the way for the upgrades but they face funding challenges.

The FCC report details how dispatch centers are raising money to implement NG911 capabilities—a huge hurdle for localities, experts say. The National 911 Program commissioned a study last year assessing the cost of nationwide NG911 implementation, but it has been under review for months and has not been released publicly. However, some officials estimate it will cost $10 billion to implement across the country.

Officials at each state and locality are taking a different approach to raising money—often a combination of state funding and increased fees for phone subscribers. However, not all money raised so far is dedicated to upgrading 911 services. In 2016, states raised more than $2.7 billion in 911 fees, but only 7 percent of that money was spent on NG911 efforts versus maintaining legacy systems. Additionally, about 5 percent of the money collected was diverted to nonpublic safety uses, the report notes.

Localities also face challenges collecting subscriber fees. It's up to telecommunications companies to collect the fees and give them to the states and localities that have implemented them, but 20 states lack the ability to audit the companies to make sure they are collecting fees from all applicable subscribers. It's a common concern—counties are required to notify telecom companies of the fee increase and trust they will pay up.

One county in Nevada—one of the states that is unable to audit telecom companies—has one of 12 emergency communications systems in the United States that is three generations old. In trying to upgrade its system to NG911, the county implemented an increased subscriber fee in 2016 but has not received the expected amount of money due to sporadic telecom payments. The county expected to collect $150,000 for NG911 by now but has only received about $46,000.

Many localities are waiting for the NHTSA grants to become available, but experts agree that $115 million across almost 6,000 dispatch centers will not go far. In March, representatives of emergency communications organizations requested that Congress consider funding its own grant program for NG911.

"Without significant federal funding, we are concerned that 911 networks across the country, including in rural and urban areas, will not be upgraded quickly and efficiently," the letter notes.

"The grants will not cover it all—there will need to be significant local funding," says Andrew Huddleston, an assistant director at the GAO who worked on the NG911 report. "The grants are there to provide financial assistance—that's why we highlighted funding as a key challenge area for the states, because it can be a significant cost."
Huddleston says he visited several dispatch centers and saw how funding was a challenge for small and large communities alike.

"It can be more challenging for local governments that might have a smaller tax base, and even for larger ones because they have more infrastructure," Huddleston explains. "We visited a fairly large call center in an urban area that would seem like they had more resources than average, but they did talk about how during the transition time they would have to maintain their legacy 911 system as well as bring the NG911 system online—so basically paying for both while they are transitioning. That's hard from a money perspective."

Other challenges to nationwide NG911 implementation include interoperability and technology challenges. Thirteen states have deployed IP networks for local emergency services to use, but most dispatch centers remain on legacy networks, the report notes. An estimated 1,800 centers can receive text messages, but there is no data on how often citizens text instead of call emergency services. One Houston emergency operations center reported that it only received a handful of texts during the height of the floods, compared to tens of thousands of calls and hundreds of posts on social media.

While being NG911, compliant requires a set list of capabilities—securely using additional data for routing and answering calls, processing all types of calls and multimedia, and transferring calls with added data to other call centers or first responders—there are several ways to implement the upgrades. Even if two neighboring states are NG911 compliant, they may not have seamless interoperability if they are using different equipment or software solutions, the GAO report notes.

"The systems are supposed to be all interconnected—if you call one call center and it's overloaded, that call can be transferred to the next center seamlessly, and they can answer the call, so you still get emergency response and not put on hold," Huddleston says. "To be able to do those things you have to have interoperability. There are multiple software solutions that could be employed for NG911, so that's definitely something state and local governments will need to be willing to consider."

An IP-based emergency communications system will have to address cybersecurity challenges as well. The FCC report notes that in 2016, just eleven states and the District of Columbia had spent money on cybersecurity for their dispatch centers. Additionally, the GAO report discusses the federal government's role in assisting dispatch centers in strengthening their cybersecurity when switching to the new system. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a guide outlining cybersecurity risks of NG911 and what centers could do to mitigate them, the report notes.
"We talked about cyber risk because we're moving to an IT system, and that opens potential for different kinds of attacks than you'd have with the traditional 911 system," Huddleston explains.
Indeed, Baltimore's computer-based 911 system experienced outages in March due to a ransomware attack. The program that the city uses automatically populates the caller's location and dispatches the emergency responders closest to the caller, but the attack shut down the system for about 24 hours, requiring call centers to manually dispatch first responders.
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Another challenge facing dispatch centers is setting up technology and guidelines for dealing with photos and videos sent through NG911. None of the states that GAO spoke with were processing multimedia through their 911 systems due to concerns related to privacy, liability, and the ability to store and manage the data.
"We highlighted multimedia as a challenge, since one of the intentions of NG911 is to allow not just voice calls but also video or images to be part of what citizens can share when they're trying to contact 911," Huddleston says. "But that creates challenges on the end of the 911 call centers—what do they do with the video? They have protocol for phone calls, but video is a different beast in terms of what to look for if there are privacy concerns."

01 March 2018 by Mark Tarallo  Appears In March 2018 Print Issue
​Fraud is thriving these days, and many of its practitioners have acquired daunting levels of skill and ingenuity for reading the current operational environment, finding weak links, and adjusting their methods to maximize the likelihood of successful scams, experts say.


"They are as skilled in committing these frauds as any skilled person is in any field of endeavor," says Alan Brill, a director with Kroll's cybersecurity and investigations practice. "They are criminals, but you have to respect the level of skill that they have, to know what you are up against." 


This fraudulent activity is affecting more and more companies, according to a new study. About two-thirds of U.S. companies reported an increase in fraud attempts over the past 12 months, according to The Fifth Annual Fraud Report: A New Landscape Emerges, a study issued by IDology, an Atlanta-based identity verification firm. Last year, fewer than half (42 percent) of U.S. companies reported such a rise.


And it's not only the sheer number of fraud attempts that is changing. Methods used in perpetrating fraud are evolving, too.


"The biggest challenge faced by businesses in the fight against fraud has been the continually shift­ing tactics used by fraudsters," reads the study, which finds that 71 percent of organizations cite "shifting fraud tactics" as their greatest challenge.


Use of fraudulent credit, debit, and prepaid cards is still the most prevalent type, with 65 percent of respondents saying that it is the most common method in their industry. However, there are signs that it is starting to decrease. That 65 percent figure is actually down from the 73 percent of respondents who cited that fraud type in last year's survey.
According to the report, the reason behind this decrease is the widespread adoption of EMV chip cards, which have reduced point-of-sale fraud. With chips making it harder to commit this type of fraud, more criminals are shifting to an online environment, where the customer is not present. "They will try to find the path of least resistance," IDology CEO John Dancu says.


There's another driving factor behind the shifts in the fraud landscape, and it has to do with how nimbly the fraud­sters share knowledge. "They are really good at communicating among themselves," Dancu says. Sometimes, they will discuss methods on the Dark Web; this keeps them situationally aware and helps them change methods if necessary. 


Some are also not shy with expressing pride of craft. "When they find a weak link, they are happy to tell everybody else about it," Dancu explains. "If you're on the Dark Web or their other forums, you can see the interactions and the professional enjoyment that they have in letting other people know what they have discovered. It's about being The Man."


Those dark websites and other places where fraudsters sell information and data are pretty sophisticated enterprises, Brill says. "There is a comradeship among people who do this. They do meet at the marketplaces, and these marketplaces don't look that different from eBay, with vendors getting rated by people that buy from them," he explains. Some vendors even offer BOGO specials, he adds.


As is true with most fields of endeavor, this increased professionalization brings about more specialization. So, some fraudsters specialize in malware, some in the monetization or selling of breached data, and some in "social engineering"—knowing how to get to the right entry point to access information, Brill explains. 


He offered the following example of a social engineering specialist. These days, many banks frequently advertise how effective they are in protecting customers against fraud. In this environment, it may then be no surprise if one day you get a phone call from Visa security, with the caller informing you that your card was just charged with suspicious activity—$300 from an adults-only emporium in Las Vegas. Horrified, you deny the charge and ask for it to be cancelled, and so you gladly give your card information, Social Security number, and date of birth when the caller asks if they can verify you as the cardholder.


But what you might not realize is that you just handed over your information to a criminal posing as security. This type of thief takes advantage of the expectations created by frequent bank commercials that promote their quick security operations. "In effect, you have been primed for a social engineering hit," Brill says.


Although the study finds that customer-present credit card fraud may be decreasing, it also finds that synthetic identity fraud (SIF) is a growing problem. In an SIF scam, a combination of real and fabricated identity information is often used to create a new identity. Thirty-one percent of businesses in the report say SIF has increased, and 58 percent are "extremely" or "very" worried about it. Helping to drive this problem is the recent flood of major data breaches, which gives criminals more identity data to use.


In Kroll's investigations practice, Brill is seeing a big increase in the following type of case. A fraudster obtains the Social Security number of a young child in the aftermath of a data breach, then uses it with other information to open a few credit accounts, including one or more credit cards.


The scammer then exploits the accounts for years, with charges that are never repaid and lapse into default. Finally, the young child becomes old enough to apply for a credit card, or a lease on an apartment, and is surprised to find out that his or her credit rating is abysmal.


Marcus Christian, an attorney in Mayer Brown's White Collar Defense & Compliance group, also sees SIF as an increasing problem. Christian, a former prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida, has heard reports that some of the criminal organizations in South Florida have been shifting away from selling narcotics and toward identity scams. "The money is as good as, if not better than, the drug trade," he says. In addition, it is often perceived as a less dangerous practice, and through connections in local school systems and banks, these criminals can obtain stolen data, he adds. 


The second-most cited type of fraud in the report—first-party or friendly fraud—is also on the rise, with 51 percent of respondents saying they have been a victim of it, nearly double the percentage (26 percent) of respondents who cited it in last year's survey.


First-party or friendly fraud generally describes fraud committed by individuals using their own accounts. These types of fraudsters might make an online purchase and then dispute the charge after the merchandise has been received, or they might open credit card accounts with the intention of maximizing charges and then lapsing into default to avoid full repayment.


One reason first-party fraud is increasing, the study finds, is that it is difficult to foil; it is hard to disprove false claims that ordered merchandise was never received, for example. However, experts say that big data applications hold some potential in this area as a security tool, because they can be used to recognize patterns of excessive refund requests and other telling information.


Finally, Dorcu says that another cause for optimism in the fight against fraud is that an increasing number of companies are realizing the importance of working together. Fraud is a serious issue for companies regardless of industry, and since the perpetrators are sharing information and strategies, those fighting fraud need to do the same, under a consortium mindset.  
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"Getting connected and talking with peers is really an important part of solving the problem," Dorcu says. "Be flexible, be collaborative, and be open-minded to what's going on out there." ​

17 May 2018 by SHRM.org  ​Employees trying to escape a bullying boss, and even those who have managed to land a new position, may be surprised to learn that their workplace nemesis is causing further damage by providing negative job references.
HR departments similarly may not realize that supervisors are disregarding company policies against giving references that go beyond confirming job titles and employment dates.


With prospective employers often bypassing human resources and calling supervisors for references, bully bosses can and do impair employees' future job prospects, experts say.


"In the good old days, the references were HR, and in many cases, in many companies, HR still is the traditional venue. But we've seen a marked shift of interest in calling the former supervisors," said Jeff Shane, president of reference-checking firm Allison & Taylor. "Hiring managers have long since figured out that supervisors tend to be far more talkative."


Job seekers often wrongly believe that their current or former employers will say nothing negative and do no more than confirm employment, Shane said.


Many supervisors, however, never receive company training on how to respond to employee reference checks, while many others forget or ignore the policy, he added. His Rochester, Mich.-based firm checks references on behalf of job seekers, compiles reports on responses from former employers, and, if necessary, sends cease-and-desist letters to companies violating policies or even laws by supplying negative references that cross the line into misrepresentations or lies and that could be construed as defamation.


"We call a great many supervisors as references for individuals. The vast majority of the time, the supervisor has something to say" beyond titles and employment dates; their reviews, even if sincere, often are less than optimal. "In many instances, they know exactly what they're doing" and that the employee is unlikely to ever find out if the negative review caused a missed opportunity, Shane said.


Nearly half of all reference checks that Allison & Taylor conducts contain some degree of negativity, he said. Even a supervisor who gives an employee a positive letter of recommendation will sometimes go "180 degrees in another direction" when called for a reference, he said.


Smart firms wanting to avoid litigation coach bosses to give only employment dates, said Gary Namie, Ph.D., co-founder of the Workplace Bullying Institute, which refers bullying targets to Allison & Taylor to learn about feedback from a current or former employer. Often the news confirms a candidate's fear, and "a great many of our clients are totally shocked and devastated" by what is found.


Job seekers may try to avoid a supervisor's risky review by asking co-workers or others to vouch for them, but people checking references typically believe, incorrectly, that a boss is the most trustworthy source of information on an applicant, Namie said.


"The person who was bullied doesn't stand a chance if the bully boss is loose-lipped," he added. "These supervisors who are bullies because of their own narcissism are eager to talk and tear this person down." Workplace bullies have reason to lie about their own actions, he added.


Some vindictive bullies even go so far as to track a bully target who leaves the company and to spread negative comments about the worker to new supervisors, according to Namie and Shane.
"They can continue to make that person's life very difficult," Shane said.


Namie's institute considers workplace bullying—repeated mistreatment and abusive conduct—a national epidemic, with 60.4 million Americans affected. Namie says employers are failing to take responsibility for preventing and eliminating it.
Bosses account for more than 60 percent of workplace bullies, the organization's 2017 survey found.


Even a supervisor who doesn't provide an overtly negative review can use meaningful pauses and tone to convey a damaging opinion. "Many times, the tone of voice of the reference will speak volumes about their level of enthusiasm or lack thereof for the person we are calling on behalf of," Shane said.


Online reference-check provider SkillSurvey aims to eliminate both the "tone" problem and situations where references go off the record to unfairly harm a job seeker's chances through its software-based rating system.


Job applicants must enter more than two references, who then rate applicants in several areas, with all responses kept in confidence and provided to the hiring organization in a report that averages all of the references' ratings. Five is the norm, often with a mix of supervisors and colleagues, according to SkillSurvey CEO Ray Bixler. The references are all provided online—with names removed, ratings averaged and no calls made.


If four of five references give glowing reviews while a fifth gives lower ratings, the prospective employer might call the applicant in and ask about it, Bixler said. "At least at the very minimum, the client is able to start making decisions of whether it was a rogue reference."


Many applicants enter more than five references, which can further reduce the damage a bullying boss might inflict, Bixler said. 


Dinah Wisenberg Brin is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia covering workplace issues, entrepreneurs, health care, personal finance and logistics.
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© 2018, SHRM. This article is reprinted from https://shrm.org​ with permission from SHRM. All rights reserved. ​​ ​​ ​

01 June 2018 by Holly Gilbert Stowell  Appears In June 2018 Print Issue​Relationships between students and campus law enforcement have been key to establishing an environment of safety and security at Delaware Valley School District, which encompasses 200 square miles in northeastern Pennsylvania.


"Kids have come to the police officers…and told them about potential threats that we've been able to curtail before they've happened," says Christopher Lordi, director of administrative services for the district.


About eight years ago, the rural district decided to employ its own sworn police force and hired five officers, including a chief of police. It has since added a sixth.


"Having a police force not only gives us a presence of an armed person to counteract any issues that we may have, but it also allows us to create relationships with students," Lordi says. 


The officers are a presence on the three campuses that make up the district. They may be found teaching and conducting Internet safety classes and anti-drug programs.


"Not only are they our first line of defense, but they're also relationship builders, and they create positive environments where kids will feel comfortable to come and tell them things," Lordi says.​


Still, the officers and faculty can't be everywhere at once when incidents do occur, which is why the district installed a camera and video management system (VMS) about 10 years ago.


"It doesn't matter how many administrators you have, how many teachers you have, how many officers you have," Lordi notes. "They can't be everywhere at once, so the cameras allow us to be in those places when somebody can't."


As the original cameras and VMS were becoming outdated, Delaware Valley's board was supportive of purchasing a new system. The district worked with integrator Guyette Communications of Plymouth, Pennsylvania, and chose the Vicon Valerus VMS system, as well as approximately 400 cameras, also from Vicon. Installation began in March 2017 and ended just before the new school year began in August.


The cameras, the majority of which are the 3 megapixel IQeye Alliance dome model, were installed inside and outside of the district's eight buildings. The Vicon Cruiser domes with 30x optical zoom were purchased for the parking lots to better read license plate numbers. Campus police have access to a license plate database, so no license plate recognition software is needed, but Vicon does integrate with such software should customers need that feature.


In addition to feeding into a central video server at a district-wide monitoring station, each building has its own local recording capability and stores video for a set number of days.


Delaware Valley is expanding a career and technical education wing, which includes 25,000 square feet of classrooms and workspace. The school plans to install more cameras there. 


The district police force is responsible for managing the VMS, and each officer has a hardwired PC monitoring station to view video feeds. Campus police also have access to footage via iPhones purchased by the district and use them to see what's going on at their campuses.


"When we need to view something quickly our officers can go right on their iPhones and view it right from there, which is handy if you don't have the ability to get back to your computer," Lordi says.


Giving all officers access to the entire district's camera feeds was also crucial. "We did that for backup purposes," he says. "If anything were to happen on one of the campuses, all of the officers—after they secure their buildings—can go on and be the eyes and ears for our officers on those other campuses."


Soon after the cameras were installed, the new system led to the capture of a thief. In the spring of 2017, when a laptop went missing, the video was reviewed in the general time frame that the incident occurred. It revealed an employee going into an administrative office with a garbage bag, then coming back out.


"We could zoom in, and you could see that the bag was significantly larger when the employee came out," Lordi notes, adding that the old camera system would not have been clear enough to identify the culprit. The footage was turned over to local police, who apprehended the employee. That person has since resigned.


The detail captured by the cameras also helped solve an incident in the parking lot. Lordi notes that the main campus is in a high-traffic area, which can attract unwanted activity.


"We were able to pull the license plate from one person that had an incident on campus...and track the person down," Lordi explains. "It just provides another layer of security, so we know who's on the campus and what time they leave the campus."


While the district currently hands footage over to law enforcement after the fact, it's working on a memorandum of understanding with local police and hopes to establish a network that allows police to view video from the campuses live. "We're currently working on a strategy to get them involved beforehand," Lordi says.


With the combination of its police force and the camera system, Delaware Valley has seen a significant reduction in incidents on campus.


"When our officers first started we had something like 200 to 250 incidents that our administrators were dealing with; I think last year we had 36," he says.


The Valerus VMS and cameras give campus police and administrators peace of mind about their ability to solve incidents, and ultimately keep students safe.


"It allows us to feel secure knowing that it's going to be on camera if someone doesn't view or witness it live," Lordi says. "We can always view it on the cameras later." 
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For more information: Dee Wellisch, dwellisch@vicon-security.com, www.vicon-security.com, 631.952.2288.

18 May 2018 by Megan Gates  
​WHAT WE KNOW

• ​​A shooter opened fire at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas, at approximately 7:45 a.m. Friday morning.
• Ten people were killed and 10 were injured in the shooting.
• Police have a suspect in custody. He has been identified as Dimitrios Pagourtzis, 17.
• The shooter was armed with a shotgun and a .38 revolver.
• Explosive devices were found in the high school and the surrounding community. Local authorities are urging community members to report "suspicious packages" by calling 911.
  ​

DEATH TOLL RISES TO 10, TEXAS GOVERNOR ABBOTT CONFIRMSUPDATE 3:25 p.m. ET, May 18, 2018
Ten people were killed and ten more injured in the Santa Fe High School shooting on Friday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott confirmed in a press conference this afternoon.

"We grieve for the victims who lost their lives at Santa Fe High School and we pray for the families that are suffering and the families that will continue to suffer in the days to come," Abbott said.


CNN Newsroom✔@CNNnewsroom"It's with a very heavy heart that I can confirm that as of this time there have been 10 lives that have been lost, and another 10 that have been wounded." - Texas Governor Greg Abbot, speaking live on school shooting https://cnn.it/2LfbDjA 
2:07 PM - May 18, 2018

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He also confirmed more information about the suspected shooter, Dimitrios Pagourtzis, including that authorities have discovered evidence on his computer, phone, and in a notebook that he intended to carry out a shooting and commit suicide. Before he was able to commit suicide, however, Pagourtzis allegedly turned himself over to the authorities and was taken into custody.

To carry out the shooting, the gunman was armed with a shotgun and a .38 revolver. Abbott said the shooter took these firearms from his father, who had obtained them legally. There was no evidence at the time of the press conference that the father knew his son had taken the weapons.

Abbott also said that authorities were interviewing two people of interest, but declined to release any additional identifying information about them.

While those interviews are ongoing, authorities are continuing to sweep Santa Fe High School for explosive devices and are searching two residences and a vehicle associated with the gunman. Law enforcement is proceeding with caution, Abbott said, due to the risk of discovering additional explosive devices that could pose harm to investigators.

In addition to conducting a full investigation into the shooting--with the goal of prosecuting the gunman--Abbott said he will be working with the Texas legislature and other state officials to set up roundtable discussions. They will discuss "swift solutions to prevent tragedies like this from ever happening again," he explained.

Future actions could include taking legal action to keep guns out of the hands of those that pose an immediate danger, enhancing background checks, increasing resources for school security, and funding initiatives to address mental illness and gun violence.

Abbott said his goal is to work together to create laws that "protect Second Amendment rights but ensure that our communities, and our schools, are safer."

SUSPECT IN CUSTODY IDENTIFIEDUPDATE 2:55 p.m. ET, May 18, 2018
An official briefed on the investigation told USA TODAY that the suspect in custody for the Santa Fe High School shooting is 17-year-old Dimitrios Pagourtzis.

"The suspect was armed with at least one rifle or shotgun, but the first official cautioned that there could be other weapons related to the incident, though not yet recovered," according to USA TODAY.

Authorities have detained another individual as they continue to investigate the shooting. However, more information about who that individual is has not been confirmed.

EXPLOSIVE DEVICES FOUND NEAR HIGH SCHOOL, SURROUNDING AREAUPDATE 1:00 p.m. ET, May 18, 2018
The Santa Fe Independent School District announced that explosive devices were found in Santa Fe High School and the surrounding area.

"Because of the threat of explsive items, community members should be on the look-out for suspicious packages and anything that looks out of place," the district said via a statement to Twitter.

Santa Fe ISD@SantaFeISD#UPDATE There have been explosive devices found in the high school and surrounding areas adjacent to the high school. Because of the threat of explosive items, community members should be on the look-out for suspicious packages and anything that looks out of place.
11:41 AM - May 18, 2018

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The district is urging anyone who sees something suspicious to call 911 and wait for authorities to respond.
Multiple authorities, including the FBI, ATF, Texas Department of Public Safety, and local law enforcement are on the ground responding to the situation.

TRUMP GIVES A STATEMENT ON SHOOTINGUPDATE 12:20 p.m. ET, May 18, 2018
In an appearance at the White House this morning, U.S. President Donald Trump said he is monitoring the situation in Santa Fe, Texas, and reiterated that school safety is a top priority.


CSPAN✔@cspanPresident Trump on shooting at #SantaFe High School in Texas: "My administration is determined to do everything in our power to protect our students, secure our schools and to keep weapons out of the hands of those who pose a threat to themselves and to others."
10:53 AM - May 18, 2018

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"My administration is determined to do everything in our power to protect our students, secure our schools, and keep weapons out of the hands of those who pose a threat to themselvs and to others," Trump said. "Everyone must work together at every level of government to keep our children safe."

MULTIPLE FATALITIES TEXAS SCHOOL SHOOTINGUPDATE 11:30 a.m. ET, May 18, 2018

A shooter at a Texas high school killed at least eight people and injured multiple others on Friday morning. Authorities have a suspect in custody, and said it is no longer an active shooter situation.
Police responded to shots fired at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas, after a gunman opened fire around 7:45 a.m. when the school day was beginning. 

“Witnesses described students running from the school as they heard gunshots; they also described hearing an alarm at the school, though the sequence of events wasn’t immediately clear,” according to CNN.

Authorities have not released the identity of the suspect in custody or of any of the victims. However, The New York Times reports that an officer working for the Santa Fe school district as a school resource officer was injured during the shooting. 

The shooting is the third school shooting in the past week, and the 22nd mass shooting in the United States since the beginning of 2018, CNN said.

Both the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, and the Harris County Sheriff’s Office are on the scene to investigate the incident. Security Management will continue to update this post as more information is confirmed.
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In response to the incident, ASIS International has made soft target and active shooter resources available for security professionals. They include white papers, webinars, book excerpts, and recorded conference sessions designed to help deter, prevent, and minimize future attacks.

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