HOUSTON — Ominous music plays as a man in dark clothing, sunglasses and a backpack walks toward people working in a high-rise building. The narrator’s voice warns: “It may feel like just another day at the office, but occasionally, life feels more like an action movie.”
Moments later, the man opens fire on a security guard near an elevator.
It’s the beginning of a nearly 6-minute video created by the city of Houston in an effort to teach residents what to do during a shooting. Local Homeland Security officials said they realized during training exercises that first responders knew how to react, but citizens were far less knowledgeable.
The video emphasizes a short mantra — run, hide, fight — to help people remember their options. The video was made using $200,000 from a federal grant, and its release was expedited in the wake of last month’s movie theater shooting in Aurora.
“As children, we’re all taught by the fire department to stop, drop and roll if you’re on fire,” said Richard Retz, who works for the Mayor’s Office of Public Safety and Homeland Security and helped produce the video. “Unfortunately, with our society the way it is today, we felt that there had to be a new one.”
Several countries and other U.S. cities have done educational campaigns on similar topics, including a long-running one in Israel that tells people what to do if they see an unattended package. Such campaigns can be effective because they bring incidents people see on television closer to home, said Danny Davis, director of a homeland security graduate program at Texas A&M University.
“You’re not going to turn a civilian into a commando with a short video, but at the same time you can at least put in the back of their mind the possible options,” Davis said.
Houston officials considered including a segment in the video advising armed residents to use their guns if possible. But when they delved into the facts, they got a surprise: Only 2.7 percent of state residents have a concealed-carry permit,
Retz said.
Houston officials decided to use grants from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to create the video after the three-day shooting rampage in Mumbai, India that killed 166 people in 2008.
Initially, Houston officials planned to release the video in a well-coordinated safety campaign, as the city has done in the past for hurricane or flood preparedness. The shooting in Colorado, however, changed the thinking.
“The fact that the shooting was on everyone’s mind, we felt that it was important to get it out there as quickly as possible,” Retz said.
Since being posted on YouTube a week ago, the video has been viewed more than 220,000 times, and Retz’s e-mail has been flooded for requests to reuse the movie — from agencies across the U.S. and as far away as England and Germany. The city also plans to distribute it in a more organized safety campaign that would reach workplaces and possibly schools.
