Retired Tucson sergeant shares thoughts on preventing shootings

Published: Aug. 27, 2015 at 1:33 AM MST|Updated: Feb. 28, 2018 at 5:17 PM MST
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TUCSON, AZ (Tucson News Now) - A television news crew was shot and killed live on the air on Wednesday morning, and the man accused of doing it was a former employee of the station.

Officials are calling the incident an example of workplace violence, and it's bringing a lot of attention to the issue.

Retired Tucson Police Sgt. Michael Widmer wrote a book about active shooting scenarios called Intervention.

His book uses real cases to highlight what someone should do if they're ever in an active-shooter scenario.

Widmer said mass shooting incidents like the Colorado theater shooting and the Gabrielle Giffords shooting are things that can't be predicted, but workplaces with a disgruntled ex-employee should already be aware, and should have a plan in place.

In Wednesday's shooting incident, Widmer said it seemed that no one saw the gunman coming.

The best way a person can prevent such incidents, is to know their surroundings, he said.

"The only way to prevent something like this is to make sure someone gets there before it starts," he said.

Widmer said there should be someone monitoring news crews out in the field while they are going live.

Although security and surveillance is expensive, these shootings won't stop and everyone needs to be proactive, he said.

"Let's face it, law enforcement's got it down now, they know how to respond to everything. That's why these guys keep getting caught just like that," Widmer said. "Where we lack is, we got nothing going toward prevention."

In this is a day and age, everyone needs to be on guard at all times, he added.

"In order to prevent a shooting, is to find an intelligible way to be there before it starts. I stick with that and that's what's going to have to happen for this to stop," Widmer said.

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