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John C. Morley: (00:09)
Hi everyone. I'm John C. Morley. The host of the JMOR tech talk show and inspirations for your life.
Well, hey everyone it is John C. Morley, serial entrepreneur here. And welcome once again to another fine issue in addition to the JMOR tech talk show. Great to be with you, Marcus, how are you doing today on this wonderful Friday? The first Friday of May. Can you believe that?
Marcus: (01:20)
Yeah, I can smell the flowers coming already. Good to be with you.
John C. Morley: (01:23)
Unfortunately, I'm still seeing snow and, and feeling it. So I'm hoping that's kind of like a misdirection on the GPS. Mother nature might be taking a wrong turn and hopefully, she fixes it soon.
Marcus: (01:36)
Yeah, I'm hoping so.
John C. Morley: (01:38)
So we have a great show here for you tonight. We have an amazing guest, Kevin Craig. Who's gonna be talking to us more about security and more from the perspective of what needs to be done. Now, you remember we had another great guest. We always have great guests. We had Dr. Michael Nuccitelli and just last week, ladies and gentlemen, I'm not sure if you know this, but we wrapped up NSA national stalking awareness week. So if you haven't watched those shows go back in and go ahead and watch them. So there is an organization out there Marcus they're called Rand. So that's R A N D. And so the thing about Rand is that Rand is a corporation that's supposed to solicit and synthesize expert opinion on the need for limits of current technological solutions and to make the recommendations to guide the future investments.
John C. Morley: (02:41)
So the researchers use a combination of methods, one-on-one interviews, case studies of technology, and they do surveys and workshops and lots of the things to decide what's working and what's not working, but you know, the more we talk about technology, okay. It's still an issue, especially in schools, ladies and gentlemen, you know using technology to address common and severe forms of school violence is no longer a luxury Marcus, but it's a necessity. So just to get into this briefly, because we're gonna have a great guest in a little bit, but so some of the things for you to be, you know, having a bird's eye view on one is access control, remote door locks, mobile barricades, as things, the schools should already be using ID technology for parking making sure that people park in the right spots. And they only can park at certain times.
John C. Morley: (03:42)
And you know, just a way of also knowing with their internal security staff, where are certain vehicles and if a certain vehicle pops in, is that something that should cause a red flag because it's not on the typical list? So there are things that could be enabled. Video technology. We've talked about cameras, hundreds of times motion detection, systems, and smart artificial intelligence detection. So what we're able to do with smart AI is we're able to look at the perimeter in the area of the schools and different settings. And so what it can do is it can predict Marcus when the next fight or let's say lunch party is gonna break out. And so it's able to learn by patterns. It can look for certain clues. It's even able to count Marcus, based on what's going on in the world, so it can learn things and you can teach it to do things which it all uses from the artificial intelligence cloud.
John C. Morley: (04:41)
Because remember! all this stuff could not be on board. That little tiny chip is impossible. Schools are also getting into metal detection systems and even further than metal detection systems, people that might have guns, unfortunately in their possession might bring them in that are not metal. So now we have to become even more astute to how we're gonna detect weapons because they might not be made of metal anymore. The anonymous tip line is something that, you know, we've heard about this. It's been all-around since I've been in school many years ago. And you know, the thing about it is that anonymous tip line people say, oh, gee, what am I getting paid? Or what, what do I get for calling it? You know, if you're calling the line because you're looking for a free lunch or a free dinner. I mean I feel bad for you.
John C. Morley: (05:34)
There are other places out there you can go like a soup kitchen. But the tip line is not for that. The tip line is for you to provide an insight to officers, to law enforcement. So they can jump on what's going on and hopefully nip something in the bud before it becomes a big problem. So it's not about you getting FaceTime or recognition so that you could be in the limelight. It's about you helping others. Right. And I know that concept seems a little far for some of our viewers, but it's the truth, you know, in this world, we're here to help others. But I think some people get stuck in that doldrum or cauldron saying, well, gee, what's it gonna do for me? Do we always have to ask, what's it gonna do for me? Can't we do something once to help others?
John C. Morley: (06:25)
Many of you guys know that watch the show. My sole existence for being around is to become a better version of myself and help everyone else become better versions of themselves. People say, Hey, John, you're smoking, you're on crack. You're doing something. No, I'm not on anything. You sure. Are you sure you're not high? No, I'm fine. Cause like, you know, you're helping people. Why would you help people? So my question is, why not? Why have people Marcus, become so self-centered that they can't spend 30 seconds or a minute to call in something that could save someone's life? Why is that Marcus, do you think,
Marcus: (07:05)
You know, I mean, you hit it at the head with like the first beginning of you know, what they are essentially guilty of and that's being self-centered, you know, it some people are self-absorbed nowadays. There's a lot of self-interest being promoted ahead of the whole equilibrium of you know, working together, you know the lack of cooperation and trust.
John C. Morley: (07:33)
And I think people want attention.
Marcus: (07:39)
Yeah.
John C. Morley: (07:40)
It's not so much. They want to be on stage because you give them a stage and they run. They want to get attention, but in their way, they don't want big attention. They want attention from their peers or their group or their confidants. So it's a little different than somebody just looking for publicity. I guess they want that Marcus cuz they want to feel good. So their ego will be stroked. Right. But that's my 2 cents.
Marcus: (08:11)
That's excellent. Awesome. Enjoy.
John C. Morley: (08:13)
Thank you. Thank you. So, you know, it's not just happening, ladies and gentlemen at the adolescent level, it's happening as we get older. Now, this wasn't the case when I was in you know, grammar school or high school, even college, this changed recently people that come past the teen years were usually very focused and concentric on helping society.
John C. Morley: (08:41)
Something happened in the last 10 or 12 years, Marcus, I can't put my finger on it. Was it the millennial generation? Was it the fact that they're feeling, I don't know, quote-unquote unentitled? And so, because I feel entitled, well then I guess you're gonna revolve around me. And I think that's a horrible attitude. Yeah. That the world is gonna revolve around someone else. It doesn't revolve around anybody. It should revolve around everybody itself. It shouldn't revolve against one person. So these are important things and this is why the schools are going crazy right now. You got adolescents and people just outta college that are taking a job somewhere and they're getting into fist fights. Marcus, they're getting into lunchroom battles. Or a corporate publicly traded company. And they have a romper room lunchroom. What the heck is going on?
Marcus: (09:37)
Wow.
John C. Morley: (09:40)
So this technology that I'm talking about is not just for kids. Violence prevention is something that we're seeing is all around us. And recently I had a chance to talk to a lady and we're hoping to have not her on a show, but to create a show to create this awareness and it centers around stalking and it centers around abuse, not so much physical abuse, but we're talking about main name celebrities are stalking others or non-celebrities. Wow. And I just think that's crazy. You might as well. Well, gee John, if I have billions of dollars, I could do whatever I want. No, you can't. I always say you could do whatever you want providing you don't harm, hurt or defame the rights of anyone else just cuz you have a billion dollars in your wallet.
John C. Morley: (10:36)
Well, that's nice, but that doesn't make you Joe. I can be ignorant and I can do whatever I want and I can run a red light and I can do anything I want and I can steal. I don't think so because it's these entitled people, Marcus that, you know, they just got their brand new car and the lights, you know, it's a cool thing they want to go through. The red is it's just about going through. It's just cool to drive through that red light and drive fast through that yellow light. Yeah. I made it bro. I made it through the light. You nearly killed half the people around you, but you made it through the light. That's my point. It's not just about selfishness with the person but in the values of society. And this is something Marcus, that's very messed up.
John C. Morley: (11:25)
So we've also got things like alarm and protection systems. We've got scream alarms now we've got motion sound and heat detectors and we even have something called reverse 911. So that's when the system calls you back to alert you to a situation. We even have 911 now that when you call it and if you hang up, it automatically calls you back from another location to get another 911 operator on the line with you, which I think is pretty cool. That is so reverse 911 is being used as schools it's being used in townships and boroughs. It's being used in companies to alert people of it could be predators. It could be potential people, let's say going to become in serious legal trouble, but usually, it's set up so that the environment can protect the innocent. The challenge is, as we learn from Dr. Nuccitelli not too long ago, just because you're on the higher end, doesn't mean you're innocent. You know, you could be just as guilty as the one. And we said this before that a lot of times the stalker that reports you are the stalker and you're the stalker
Marcus: (12:42)
Yeah.
John C. Morley: (12:43)
They make it look like you're stalking them, which is the way it's painted to the legal bureau. But they set you up Marcus to stalk you. that's messed up. I'm sorry. Yeah,
Marcus: (12:56)
It is pretty sick. You know, when you think about it
John C. Morley: (13:00)
And by the way, filing frivolous lawsuits, I know at least in New Jersey, I'm sure in your place too, it's against the law to file a frivolous lawsuit.
Marcus: (13:09)
Okay.
John C. Morley: (13:10)
So definitely some growing up, but unfortunately, that's not gonna happen map some schools and bus routes. So this way the school and the administration and different people monitoring the buses can see, is there a problem? Even watching the bus, because I know when I took the bus, sometimes they always told people to sit down and most people behave, but now they're not behaving anymore. So now it comes to the point where if it gets too serious, maybe they might need to summon legal law enforcement or the police to come on board. And I think the kids are becoming more brazen and they just do whatever the heck they want. I mean, they're coming on a bus with a switchblade, Stun guns. I mean, that's sick. Social media monitoring is something that is not a figment of your imagination. And, and you heard what we said a few weeks ago with Dr. Nuccitelli is that it's not okay to do it once, but if a person does it once and they get there, their radars, okay, fine. We move on. But it's when they come back again and they repeat that behavior, which becomes habitual. Now that becomes a deliberate intention.
Marcus: (14:25)
Yeah. At that point. Yeah. They just, you know, egging it on and, and just calling for some like major drama to occur. You know, it is really bad.
John C. Morley: (14:35)
Exactly. And I knew this happened to a good friend of mine. He got inconvenienced for an entire year of his life. Almost lost his job with a major publicly-traded company. And the guy that reported him was very close to being arrested himself because my friend with our help, had filed a countersuit against the other guy. And he was like, what the heck's going on? Like the bad guys, the state's supposed to go after him. He's the bad guy. No, they're thinking it's just a Gerald Rivera or Dr. Phil case. And the state's not interested in the matter anymore because they see, they don't even have a criminal record and they can see your behavior. And the issue sounds to be like a personality disorder.
John C. Morley: (15:24)
Not something the court has time for.
Marcus: (15:27)
Yeah.
John C. Morley: (15:28)
So definitely a problem. So you know, all these things exist that we talked about how you can, you know, protect yourself and schools can use these technologies and corporations can use the technology to be smart eyes to know what's going on. And however, the research on their effectiveness Marcus is okay. It's non-existent. So how can we determine what's right if there isn't enough data? There aren’t enough case studies out there to prove what's what, so we need to do more implementation of this to find the right technology, to find what's gonna work in your environment. We heard from Jonathan Miller, not in law ago that when we have a situation, it's not just about the technology, it's about the policies, the procedures, and the people
Marcus: (16:19)
Mm-Hmm ,
John C. Morley: (16:20)
You could have billion-dollar technology, but if you have schmucks behind the cameras that are behind the security desk, well, it doesn't matter what you have.
Marcus: (16:29)
Yeah. There ain't gonna be no
John C. Morley: (16:30)
More than at the airport many years ago. Right. How those people magically got by like the lady that's going by and then suddenly or the male that's going by and suddenly the person beyond the counter hits the female button and that causes a whole trip. And so it seems like an innocent mistake, but it's not, it's planned on purpose to harass the people.
Marcus: (16:57)
Yeah.
John C. Morley: (16:59)
That's a real problem. I think security should be non-intrusive as possible as long as it's not life-threatening and it should go from there. Our next guest, ladies and gentlemen, I am very pleased and proud to welcome you here to the JMOR tech talk show. This man also has experience in the I should say in the legal field, he's done quite a bit in the legal field, but what's a little different about this gentleman is he is part of a compliance team. So he is the assistant vice president of safety and security and investigations at PORZIO compliance services. He's the one that is the subject matter expert in law enforcement management and school security. So he's great let's say a compliment to Jonathan Miller and he's also a retired New Jersey police chief, who has over 30 years of experience in public safety, emergency management, and school security.
John C. Morley: (18:07)
He's a licensed private detective and he's certified as a public manager, police instructor, school safety specialist, and school resource officer in New Jersey. Chief Craig holds a master's degree in public administration with in case you are wondering a specialization in school security and safety administration, he has represented the New Jersey, a state association of chiefs of police in New Jersey, and the K-12 task force in conjunction with the office of Homeland security and preparedness, and was appointed to the New Jersey school security task force by the governor of New Jersey as an SME or a subject matter expert. In addition to being certified as an instructor in the active shooter response scenario de-escalation and threat assessment. Chief Craig is an instructor for the Jersey school safety specialist academy in the New Jersey department of education and a member of the ASIS international school safety and security council an advisory board member and a senior instructor for the New Jersey association of school resource officer throughout his law enforcement career.
John C. Morley: (19:14)
And beyond chief Craig has conducted training and been part of planning and assessments for public and private schools and colleges in New Jersey, including urban, rural, and suburban schools and faith-based institutions, churches, synagogues, temples, etc. He is regularly consulted. As we said, as a subject matter expert on issues of school security in Northern New Jersey. He is also been involved with the nonprofit security grant program and has been very helpful in grant applications, investment justifications, and vulnerability and risk assessment. Again with the part being part of the team there at PORZIO compliance services, ladies and gentlemen, without any further accolades, which he has achieved quite a few, please help me welcome him to the JMOR tech talk show, Mr. Kevin Craig.
John C. Morley: (20:25)
Well, it is a pleasure, as I said to have Kevin Craig with us today who comes to us from a very interesting discipline. We've talked a lot about security. We've talked a lot about psychology, cyberbullying, and things of that nature. Well, here's something that I'd like to say is like a cousin or maybe a brother in the same family. And if it's not, I believe it definitely should be. Kevin Craig is the vice president of safety, security, and investigations for a consulting company. We'll learn a little more about that later. Kevin welcome so much to the Jay Moore tech talk show today.
Kevin Craig: (21:04)
Thanks, John. Happy to be here with you today.
John C. Morley: (21:06)
You know, when we think about security you know, you being in law enforcement and having experience in schools. And I think, I believe also in the legal field from working with law firms and stuff, it always seems to hit me that people that are not responders or people that are not doing what you or and doing, they don't get it right. They miss that point. They don't understand the other side of the coin. And so what I'd like to ask you today is we all know security is important in schools, administration buildings, federal buildings, et cetera. Why are people not doing this stuff? That's life-critical?
Kevin Craig: (21:52)
Well, it's interesting John, because no matter what kind of industry are you working in, whether you're in a corporate building, a school a house of worship people are there for different reasons, right? And particular I work a lot in the school settings with a lot of my clients and people didn't become educators or school administrators to be security experts. And while the safety and security of children are certainly a priority. There are a lot of things that school administrators, faculty, and staff have to deal with regularly which often pushes the safety and security piece kind of on the back burner. So while we like to be an advocate to be proactive, in many cases, people become reactive until something happens until they have an incident in their business until they have an incident in their school until there's an incident in the community, they don't look at the threat and the risk as closely as they should.
Kevin Craig: (22:48)
So coming from a law enforcement background you know, I come from that, you know, when, when you're in police work or you're in security to look at those things, to look at risk and threats and how to mitigate them is your job. So that's your focus. So you kind of look at every angle as, you know, how can we prevent this from happening? And if it does happen, how can we respond effectively? And other disciplines, that's not their core focus. So often the security piece kind of gets pushed back until they have to deal with an incident or they're involved in a crisis.
John C. Morley: (23:22)
You mentioned something very interesting, Kevin, and one of your colleagues Jonathan brought it up as well in one of our prior shows, we're talking about the assessment, that threat assessment. And I remember him sharing with us on the show that it's not about doing something when it happens. As you said, we to be proactive instead of reactive, he explained to me how they wanna become the student's friends. So they can sense when there might be something wrong or even the worker's friends. And then when there's a change of the atmosphere or of the person's physicality or personality that it causes you guys to respond differently, correct?
Kevin Craig: (24:12)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, when it comes to being a school administrator or a manager and an organization who's responsible for mitigating potential incidents of violence or things like bullying or hazing or other issues that schools deal with you don't know what you don't know. So we rely on our students, our parents, and people in our community to kind of inform us of the threats and things that the school may face or the organization may face. So having that kind of threat assessment piece in your organization whether it's formal or informal can go a long way to prevent violence, we've gotten good. We practice a lot in responding to incidents of violence. We have law enforcement training for active shooters. Our kids are doing lockdown drills in schools even in the workplace.
Kevin Craig: (25:05)
We ha have certain things that we do to practice how we would respond if we encountered a threat. But what we need to do is establish relationships with our students so that they're comfortable. If they see something that they say something, I mean that's the cliche, that's the catchphrase of Homeland security. But it rings true if people see things and then they don't report them it's of no value they just walk away kind of saying, well, I wonder if that person was really up to something. I wonder if that person was a threat if they report it, then something can be done. An investigation can take place. You know, people in those positions do their due diligence to kind of, you know, determine the credibility of a threat and whether or not action further action needs to be taken.
John C. Morley: (25:52)
And I think that's a key point here tonight, Kevin is that don't be afraid to call the police and to report something. Now don't bother them every five seconds, because you're hearing a noise. They're gonna get crazy with that. But, you know, if there's something outside, that's not normal, you know, call them, they don't mind checking it out. They'd rather check it out than have to deal with a major alarm and have to deal with a lot of other challenges. So I think a lot of people I know have been fearful of the police and have not thought of them as friends, but they're there to help us, aren't they?
Kevin Craig: (26:28)
Oh yeah, absolutely. And you know, law enforcement should establish those relationships and establish that trust with their community. So it's a two-way street. People have to trust law enforcement and law enforcement has to earn their trust and advocate that people do report things. And again, it's helpful to everyone in the community. Everyone has a role in safety and security, no matter who you are, no matter where you are. If there's an identifiable threat or even something that appears that it's potentially a threat we need to report those things. Worst case scenario, it's vetted by law enforcement or security personnel. And it turns out to be nothing. I think most agencies and most people in positions of a, you know to mitigate those threats or, or that falls within their purview would be happy to investigate any number of threats or reports that turn out to be nothing. Then have one slip through the cracks and have somebody get hurt or killed or have a major incident happen.
John C. Morley: (27:32)
Absolutely. I think they're training people on how to become more proactive because, as you said, the incidents are predicting this and causing problems that they don't have the resources to handle. But if they would've just caught it early, like a fire, if they would've caught it when it was just something like a little small trash can fire, we've been able to put that fire out a lot easier than make it a seven-alarm fire. Right. I mean, I know I'm being facetious, but you get the idea, you know, and when we think about all these types of technology, you know, we have to protect not only for security, we have to protect not only the students, but we have to protect the faculty. We have to protect the contractors, the parents that visit, and any guests that come to that school. And that was a big eye-opener to me because it's not enough just to scan people's licenses and hope that we're gonna catch them. After all, that license is only as good as what they did 24 hours ago. Or maybe even later than that it's not enough to say, Hey, you're clean five minutes ago.
Kevin Craig: (28:37)
Yeah. There there's a tremendous amount of technology available that can greatly enhance security, everything from cameras. Like, you know, we talked about earlier to access control, visitor management systems, anonymous reporting applications, the software that comes with cameras, and the technology can provide a lot of additional information, you know, beyond just the image, right? There's, you know, there's heat-mapping and things that can show where people are in the building where people are congregating. So there's a lot of technology that's available to schools and other organizations that can greatly enhance their security strategies. The important part about technology is that it has to be useful. It has to be user-friendly, and it has to be integrated into an overall strategy that also includes the people involved, the staff, the faculty, the administrators, the students, the parents, and also robust policies and procedures that support all the things that we want to get out of our security strategies.
John C. Morley: (29:50)
And you were just reading my mind there. The last thing I thought policies and procedures. I was thinking that you said it's important to have those policies and procedures. Cause if we don't have we could have the rolls Royce of technology and things just slipped through the cracks and like, well, I have the best camera system. Well, doesn't matter if you had the best camera system, the airports had the best TSA scanners, but then because the policy was a little lax, they were able to let certain things go through because things bumped or so I think everybody has to be on a page, which I think is not easy, right. To get everybody on-page.
Kevin Craig: (30:27)
Yeah. And that's why those security strategies need to be comprehensive. You need to have your people trained and be familiar with what their roles and responsibilities are. We can't expect reasonably that our staff members who became teachers or our school psychologists or custodians or teachers to understand how to react. If we don't train them appropriately, again, they didn't become, they didn't pursue these careers to be security experts or to be doing lockdown drills. It just happens to be a symptom of the society we live in today that this is something that we have to do. So you know, much like we do in any other profession, we have to train our staff for any type of different eventuality they might encounter.
John C. Morley: (31:14)
I don't think many years ago people were gonna be knowing that the word Adam was part of a lockdown to find a missing child in a store. Nobody would've known that a hundred years ago, but like you said, because of an incident and because of a boy named Adam they got that phrase and hopefully a lot of people follow even hospitals having certain procedures. But I have another question for you. You know, I've always said this before on my shows that technology is not bad or good, it's how you choose to apply it. That makes that choice. Just like a weapon is not good. It's not bad. It's how it's deployed or how it's used. And so when we think about the school and we think about, you know, the different kids and the administration, how about as far as being able to track certain things like applications and even maybe social media, which really could open up more than a can of worms. I like to say that people feel they're very safe at home or even in school because, you know, they're in a private secluded area in a quiet room. But what they don't realize is that danger is more prevalent there than it is outside because they can be learning about that person, get their profile, and then set up a whole strategy that could capture that person.
Kevin Craig: (32:44)
Yeah. We live in a world that's very technology-driven. Our students grew up with technology. They were born with cell phones in their possession. So technology particularly for our younger generation is just a way of life. They don't function without it. And you know, it does have certain pitfalls in addition to all the benefits that being so relied on technology has and having so much information readily available there are potential pitfalls and that's something that when we try to capture that information by using things like social media monitoring and open source intelligence those things are very valuable for investigators and they can be valuable even in a school setting to identify behavior that's potentially threatening to individuals or schools themselves.
Kevin Craig: (33:42)
So there are positives to that technology. There are a lot of people in the security field that utilize that technology and have a very great outcome. So I think the cautionary issue there is privacy. What are we doing with this information and how can it be used negatively? So we have to be very respectful of the fact that we are using these platforms that we using them to identify threats and potentially mitigate incidents of violence. But we do have to be aware that there are potential privacy concerns with people's information and the way that information could potentially be interpreted if it's taken outta context to negatively impact a student or somebody else, who's the subject of those social media posts or any other information that appears online.
John C. Morley: (34:38)
And this is why schools and also organizations in the last 10 years are required to have internet and social media use policy or internet and communication policies, how the phone is used because it's not just the internet anymore. And it's not to be a bad guy. It's because there are a lot of things that can happen. One, it annoys somebody. Second, the company getting a lot of hot water and I'm not talking a hundred dollars fine. They could be sanctioned to not only have large penalties but could also wind up in jail. They could damage a company's reputation in a fraction of a second, and trying to get that back is, well, almost, I'm gonna say impossible when we think about security. It breaks down into 12 things, observation honesty, actually, a couple really, we're a few less honesty and integrity abilities to lead and work in a team, communication skills and empathy, facilitatory attitude, hardworking and flexible, and then also a physical fitness skill. So you have to have the right agility to be able, I think, to handle you know, what's going on. But I think the biggest question that I have probably right now when we deal with schools or we deal with any type of environment is when you say something is threatening, and this is a big conversation that happens.
John C. Morley: (36:15)
What I may think is not threatening might be threatening to you or someone else. So it's very similar to harassment training. We have to take this in a very broad spectrum because we have people at all different levels of mind. And the reason I say this is that we do have people we just talked about before that they're gonna call the authorities and they're not meaning to do it, but you're doing something that annoys them. So I guess my question is Craig Kevin, how do we make sure that we're not falling into that trap because we might be doing something very innocent, but really what we're doing is considered annoying to someone else or harassing them.
Kevin Craig: (37:01)
So I think the best way to look at that is through an overall overarching threat assessment process you know, again, individually, we may find something is threatening, but someone else may not, as you just said. So the way threat assessment is moving is the creation of threat assessment teams, multidisciplinary threat assessment teams, where you have multiple people who have different perspectives of a student or an employee interact with them in different ways to give you an example, a threat assessment team in a school might include an administrator, a school counselor, school psychologist, a teacher of that student. Maybe somebody from the security staff who may have other pieces, and perhaps even someone from law enforcement, a school resource officer, someone who might have some information about that student and their behavior, or their background outside of the school.
Kevin Craig: (37:58)
So you're taking something in the context that somebody says is threatening. So to give an example, a student posts something a cryptic message on social media or a photo of them holding a weapon. To one person who the person that reports that it might be very threatening, but when that same information goes to that team and that student or that individual is looked at in a more holistic fashion and that piece of evidence. So that specific threat that was reported or potential threat that was reported is looked at in a broader picture a better determination could be made, whether or not this isn't something that's threat threatening, something that needs to be looked into further, or is something that's, that's kind of looking, being viewed out of context. And it's not a credible threat. So having a process that involves multiple people. So it's not just one person's opinion as to whether something is threatening or not, I think is important.
John C. Morley: (38:57)
So what I like to say on this, and this goes back to somebody I knew for a long time that took action. I'm gonna say against that person, they didn't do anything that was threatening or anything wrong. They may be called them once or twice, and they went and filed a harassment claim. Now, the reason I bring this up to you guys is that the police are not here to handle your Gerald Rivera moments. They're not here for your Dr. Phil. That's not what this is about. And even though it's gonna cause some complication to the other party, and it's going to, let's say, put them at bay for a little while.
John C. Morley: (39:42)
I got news for you. It's gonna come out in the wash. And when it comes out in the wash, it might take a year for that to happen. Okay. But when it happens, one of two things is gonna happen. The other person is going to look like a fool. And the second thing is I forget the exact name, but there's a name. You probably know that if they fall file false claims, they're gonna be put on that list. People do this because they want to control. Law is not about control or ego. Law is about keeping order and protecting us, but we should never falsify a story. And I can't impress upon this enough. I've seen people, falsify stories, somebody I knew for many years spent their whole year and a half before they were proven innocent. In our country, I'd like to say you're guilty until proven innocent.
Kevin Craig: (40:43)
Well, I don't think there's any question that there's culpability and liability both criminal and potentially civil for making false allegations. So you know, certainly I don't think that someone should report something that they know for a fact to not be accurate to put someone in a precarious situation. But I don't think that someone making a good faith report to law enforcement or Homeland security or a school administrator about something that they saw that they perceived to be a threat, even at the end of the day, turns out not to be. I don't think that's in the same category as willfully trying to put someone in a precarious situation by falsely reporting. I think they're two completely different avenues.
John C. Morley: (41:34)
Not. They're different, but I wanted to express this because there are a lot of people and it's particularly around the college-age to maybe five to 10 years after college, they have this thing that they wanna control everybody. And they feel that if they pay enough money to fabricate a story, cause I gotta be honest with you. Lawyers will fabricate a story. If you pay them, they will fabricate a story. His friend, I think paid like $10,000. And they fabricate a story about the person and they told them how to get him convicted. Now that's just wrong. I'm not even gonna go there. But the point is you have to be responsible for what you report. But you do need to report as much as you can. And yeah, if you go to report something and you know it's not a threat, that's not to be held against you, but don't go saying that the person is a threat to your life, or you feel unsafe around this person just because you've got an argument with him, see, that's wrong. But I know a lot of people in college that would do that
Kevin Craig: (42:40)
Well, I'm sure there are certainly people out there that do that. The attorneys, the attorneys that I know and work with have the highest ethical standards. So they don't certainly fall within that category.
John C. Morley: (42:52)
Which is a good thing. Unfortunately, some are not on that side of the fence. So I don't know where those other people were and how they got the bar exam passed, but they did. So obviously reporting is very, very important. And when we talk about no technology and being part of things, and when things are free, I like to say, when things are free, they're not free. There's a cost associated. It just may not be something you pay with money. It might be your privacy, or it could be something else in your life. And so how is it that one person, whether they're an adult, whether they're a child, how are they to know whether the condition that they're in, is safe? And I know it's a general thing, but I am going here for a reason. What are the benchmarks that somebody should look for to know that this situation is not threatening because let's face it, people that this might happen all night? How do we know that something is just not threatening as opposed to threatening? And that's kind of where I want to go in a broad sense, because in the middle of the night, they may not have somebody right there. What kind of questions can they ask themselves to figure out, is this just my ego or is this something I should report?
Kevin Craig: (44:17)
Well, I think in a lot of ways it comes down to your gut instincts. If you're feeling as if you're legitimately threatened by someone and there are indicators, whether it's something on social media, something he said to you, or an interaction face to face that you had with someone, and you feel that you are threatened. I wouldn't recommend that anybody hesitate to report, and I don't know that you, that anybody can say for sure, 100% that if they perceive a potential threat. That threat is not credible until somebody whether it's law enforcement or a school administrator or an employer you know investigates to make that determination.
Kevin Craig: (45:08)
Sometimes some facts exist. There are explanations for things. There are explanations for comments and behavior that can minimize the credibility of a potential threat. And likewise, there's information that might come up during an investigation or an inquiry into a complaint that might enhance the credibility of a threat. So to say that there's a specific level of concern that someone should say, I'm not gonna report this, or I'm going to report it. I think it comes down to your intuition whether you feel that something is legitimate or potentially could be a threat and you make the report provide as much information as you can and let the individuals who are responsible for vetting that information and determining that credibility, make that determination.
John C. Morley: (45:58)
And we'd rather have something reported and it goes to be nothing than to not report something. And then, later on, it becomes, as I said, a four or five or seven-alarm emergency,
Kevin Craig: (46:08)
100%
John C. Morley: (46:09)
Down the road. You know, when we think about schools or we think about corporate buildings access controls come a long way with being able to protect schools, what do you think schools need to do? Because we talked about budget concerns, and that is a concern. So how do you show a board that they need to get something when they keep putting money in? What's your caveat being in the consulting, what is the magic to let the board understand that, Hey, this is something that's in the medical field, we'd say it's medically necessary. In school, there isn't a term that says it's like school necessary. What is your way of saying, Hey guys, you gotta do this? We've had three incidents. What's your way of showing them that you gotta take this recommendation?
Kevin Craig: (46:58)
Well, I just really like to talk to my clients about what the standard of care is really? when we look at just schools in general. Access control is a significant issue. But you know, there are very few schools that you can get into these days without coming to the main office, single location buzz. Hitting a buzzer that you're on a video conference with someone in the main office who hopefully is vetting your identity and your purpose for being in the building. That has become the standard of care. If you're doing anything less than that you potentially have some work to do. But that being said, every school has different resources.
Kevin Craig: (47:44)
Every school has a different budget. Every school has different physical facilities some are brand new. They can put whatever type of technology, and security measures they want, and some are decades old where they have to retrofit older buildings. So I don't think it's as easy to say that every school has to do X, Y, or Z. I'm a big advocate of the fact that there's no one size fits all. There are some best practices. There are some technology and policies and procedures and training that can be easily implemented in just about every school, regardless of your resources. But you may not know that until you take a holistic look at your school facilities, review your policies and procedures, make sure you have a comprehensive compliant safety and security emergency operations plan and that you're training your staff. And then the technology can come afterward. If you have those basic foundations for security, training, policies, and procedures you can build on that with technology.
John C. Morley: (48:45)
But what I've seen being always the challenge for a lot of schools is school ends at a certain time, right? And everybody thinks because school's over well, security needs to end. It shouldn't. It needs to continue if aftercare or other programs are going on. Some of the schools have gotten smart now where they keep the security guards there, and those security guards are trained in threat assessment, or they're in law enforcement. Some of them have guns on them, not on their person, but they have access to them. And some schools allow that and some schools don't, I think it's still an issue of, you know, how do you do this? You want to be transparent, but you also want to not come off with the spirit that you're the US Navy. You know, you want to have that presence, but you don't want it to be very known of what's going on. You want to kind of have, I guess let's say a subtle presence. So people know you're aware but they're not fearful of you.
Kevin Craig: (49:48)
So, so that's community-specific really. Some communities wanna have school resource officers or law enforcement officers park their vehicles right out in front of the school to let everybody know, Hey, we have an SRO here. And others would rather not have a school resource officer or law enforcement presence in their school on the daily basis. Instead, they have some other security strategy where they have home monitors or security staff that are district employees. So that is district-specific. But the bottom line is you, these schools must safeguard their students and their faculty, and their visitors. And that does extend to your point. Does extend beyond the school day, just because the bell rings at two 30 doesn't mean that we no longer have to protect the students and the staff and the visitors that are coming after hours.
Kevin Craig: (50:40)
Especially when they're there for school-sponsored functions, athletic activities clubs you know, different reasons that they're still on school grounds. We still have to provide a safe environment if we're sponsoring those school environments. We've seen more and more incidents this year. And in recent years of incidents of violence at sporting events, football games, and basketball games outside the school at dismissal time. So that's evidence that we need to carry our security strategies beyond the school day and make sure we're securing special events. In addition to what we do during the school day.
John C. Morley: (51:20)
You got a good point there. Now, a lot of times they'll stay till four or five or whatever it is, which is good. They do that. But when there's a basketball game, late at night, maybe it's seven o'clock. Or if there's a weekend game, they don't bring those security resource officers on. They just don't do it. I guess it's a cost issue, but you're right. That's when those things happen, it could be a fight in the parking lot. It could be some argument; it could be anything. And I guess as you said, incidents, it's unfortunate, but nobody does anything until something happens, right? It's like nobody sees the value.
Kevin Craig: (51:54)
Well, the school security just like workplace violence and incidents of violence and houses of worship when they happen there's hypersensitivity and there's immediate what seems to be immediate action. Everybody wants a quick fix. How do we make our schools safer? How do we make our workplaces safer? How do we make our houses of worship safer? And that's when they often look to some form of technology. This is gonna be the magic thing that fixes it. So it kind of goes, the focus kind of goes in peaks and valleys when you have a, a recent incident then everybody wants to do everything at all at once to try and mitigate anything from happening again or happening in their school. If fast forward a month or two, six months, eight months, or 10 months without another incident that's nationally publicized. And that focus again tends to fade and the resources go to other places. So again, I hope that our school administrators and our managers, and our workplaces focus on security all the time, not just when there's been a recent high-profile incident that brings it to attention. It should be something that's done you know, year-round all the time. Not just when there's an incident, that gets some publicity.
John C. Morley: (53:12)
I couldn't agree more with you, Kevin. And I have to say that the church that I belong to here in town was a perfect example of why we had a set of security. Well, we had a kid from town set the church on fire. We still don't have our church back. We're hoping by Easter that we'll start rebuilding an 18-month. We'll get our church. But when that happened, we moved over to school, then, you know, we had COVID and they were checking numbers and stuff, and we used COVID as an excuse, but it wasn't the main excuse because now people are coming, there is still a security guard there. They're still checking the numbers. They're still getting to know who are the people coming in there? I remember one time I had my parents there and they didn't recognize the car guy going out of the car.
He says, excuses me, sir. Does he say are you here? So, oh yeah, my son's here. Oh, okay. Who's your son. Cause they know every car and almost every person, which is good, but the minute some car shows up or some other car was there. Like there were kids playing basketball, what are they doing here? Or I noticed it to us and they just go over and they kind of handle issues before they become a problem, but they're very expensive to have those guards. And there's just one of them. And they're usually on about an hour before mass, and then they're usually off about a half-hour after mass, but this is something that's needed, I guess, in churches, synagogues to make people feel secure. Because the most damaging time is when people are there, but yet our most travesty happened when no one was there. Thank God. No one was there. So our next step is we can't have security guards there around the clock. We can't do that. So we have to have cameras that monitor when somebody gets too close and have it linked to a police station and they can go and check out when somebody gets too close to the building or something like that. I mean, it's sad. We have to do that, Kevin, but I guess that's kind of where we're going. Right.
Kevin Craig: (55:13)
Well, I think, unfortunately, you know nobody likes to have their houses of worship or their schools look like fortresses or be so heavily focused on safety and security. But the alternative is we don't necessarily have it. So it's kind of an acceptable risk type of scenario. So there are a lot of measures that can be put in place that, you know, can provide security that doesn't make our houses of worship, our schools, or our businesses look like prisons. But the bottom line is security is not inconvenient. And you know, basically what it comes down to you is that there are certain common-sense security measures that we need to implement if we really wanna have the highest level of safety that we can. And even with that, there's no 100% guarantee that if we have that guard sitting in the back of our house of worship or walking through our school hallways an incident's not going to happen. It just kind of minimizes the possibilities and gives us a quicker response to mitigate any potential incident that happens.
John C. Morley: (56:24)
That's why people do it. So remember it, ladies and gentlemen, it all starts with you. So, you know, if you see something, say something. But everyone has to be on board with this. So if there's a policy, there's a procedure. And even if you don't like it you really should follow it because if one person doesn't do it, another person before you know it, will get anarchy, and when no one's following the policies and procedures and everything that organization, that school, that charity, that federal institution tried to put together has now crumbled right before your eyes. Well, Kevin, this has been an amazing time with you and learning about security. This opened a lot of eyes to a lot of parents, maybe a lot of administrators, and hopefully some students because again, this is everyone's responsibility and even contractors and visitors. Ladies and gentlemen this is Mr. Kevin Craig, who is the vice president of “Safety, Security and Investigations” the consulting firm. And what firm are you with? Kevin, if you'd like to share that
Kevin Craig: (57:32)
I'm with Porzio Compliance Services, Morristown, New Jersey.
John C. Morley: (57:36)
Okay. So again I would want to thank you for joining us today and helping people understand that education is the key to prevention. Kevin, thank you so much for joining us today. I know I've learned a lot and I know, and I know our audience has learned a lot, and I hope that you'll choose to use this, to do what I see every day believe, and achieve to make our lives better. And those around us to the ones we love and care about. Thanks for being a guest, Kevin, and we hope to have you again on another great show.
Kevin Craig: (58:12)
Absolutely. Look forward to it. Thanks, John.
John C. Morley: (58:14)
Well, that' certainly was a breath of information.
Marcus: (58:22)
Yeah.
John C. Morley: (58:23)
A lot going on in our world that I think people just don't take seriously. And I think school security is just one part of the puzzle.
Marcus: (58:33)
It is. We are gonna see some increase in school shootings and we gotta be prepared. We gotta care about these kids. And we can't just sweep these things underneath the rug. I'm glad, you know, you brought our guests on to kind of like highlight what's happening and where we should be going.
John C. Morley: (58:51)
And knowing that, you know, I think all the people I bring on from this gentleman to Jonathan Miller, to Dr. Michael Nuccitelli to many others that I've had on and I'll bring on it, doesn't negate the fact that there's a responsibility and accountability, and that needs to be the mission of the team, the school, the principal, it's everybody's responsibility. Cause it's not like just me because I'm head of security, it's everybody's role. And I think when we start to understand that that's only when it's gonna become successful.
Marcus: (59:34)
Yeah. You got a point. Got an excellent point there.
John C. Morley: (59:37)
Well, ladies and gentlemen, we are just about to the end of our hour here. It's been another amazing show here for you guys. And so security's no joke, so we need to get educated so we can properly protect ourselves. Hey ladies and gentlemen, you like my hat. I know you do. Well. We're gonna have these hats available pretty soon. So you can get a hat just like John (believe and achieve). You can go to www.believemeachieve.com. You’ll see a plethora of information and videos allowing you to be able to become a better version of yourself and help everyone else become better versions of themselves. Well, Marcus, I guess we gotta say goodbye. We will see you guys next week which is May 13th with another great show. Until then ladies and gentlemen, watch my other great videos. I am John C. Morley international podcast talk show host now a new voice on radio in the Chicago area. So definitely keep your eyes on all we’re doing on the JMOR Tech talk show we are gonna be turning two years old on June 26th and we have a birthday party planned that’s all I am saying. I will see you guys next week if you don’t see me in another video real soon. Have a great weekend. Be smart, be safe, and get educated.