Active Shooter Incidents, Part I: Beyond the Statistics to Practical Workplace Violence Insights

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Karen Tynan: Thank you for joining us for the Ogletree Deakins podcast. My name is Karen Tynan, and I’m a shareholder in the Sacramento, California, office and co-chair of the Workplace Violence Prevention Practice Group here at the firm. Here with me today is Dan Skoczylas, and he is a subject matter expert in workplace violence and active shooters. We’re talking about the FBI’s report on 2024 active shooter incidents. This is an important topic for employers looking to address workplace violence hazards and understand active shooter risk. This podcast is part one in a series of podcasts here at Ogletree Deakins.
So, first and foremost, Dan, let’s talk a bit about our backgrounds. I want to set the stage for this podcast. So, can you go first and tell us about your background and how you became a real subject matter expert in this?

Dan Skoczylas: Absolutely. First, thanks for having me, Karen. I appreciate being invited to talk to you about this over the course of a couple of segments, I believe, that we’re going to be doing here.
So, I am from Illinois. I was in law enforcement for 24 years in a suburb that is outside the city of Chicago. And as a police officer, I held a number of different roles. I did the first several years of my career as a patrolman. From there, I was assigned to develop the agency’s first tactical gang crimes unit. From there, I moved into a position as a task force officer with the United States Customs Service, which is now what is HSI basically today. Did a few years there. Detective, sergeant, and I retired as a lieutenant. So, I guess that officially makes me Lieutenant Dan if you want to really push it.
So, during my time doing that, I spent a number of years on the high-risk entry team, our capacity of SWAT, if you will, working on things like entries and school shooting situations, and did a lot of training in those respects. And ultimately, during that time, we recognized that we were training ourselves, but we weren’t really doing the public that we served any justice. Most of them were uninterested in participating at best, and when they did participate, it became glaringly obvious that we were not going to be really helping them in a situation like this, which got me to thinking of how could I actually help these folks and what could I do.

Karen Tynan: I love that.

Dan Skoczylas: From there on, it was kind of a mission of mine in life to figure out a better way. So that brings us to where we are today.

Karen Tynan: That’s a great story, and of course, I’m going to call you Lieutenant Dan from now on. And I’m just a humble workplace safety attorney who kind of came to workplace violence prevention from the lens of workplace safety but really started to get involved when SB 553 in California was passed and the lead-up to the bill passing, testified in Sacramento in front of committees, worked with the Chamber of Commerce, and really started before the law was even enacted. And as these laws and regulations on workplace violence prevention are becoming enacted in other states, it’s created quite a bit of momentum around this area of expertise. And I will share that you and I met and became kindred spirits over this subject matter, kind of workplace violence prevention nerds, and we decided to record this podcast when the FBI report on 2024 active shooter incidents was published.
That publication was June 2025, and it has caused people to ask questions. Employers, folks, want to understand what this report means. And I think it’s important to talk about the report before you and I dive into discussing active shooter threats, training, and other aspects. And, for you as this person with so much law enforcement and training expertise, I want to ask you first, can you give us this high-level overview of what the report is and also what the report isn’t? We are lay persons, we are not law enforcement, and we’re reading this FBI report on active shooter incidents in the United States in 2024. Tell us the high-level overview and what the report is and what it isn’t.

Dan Skoczylas: Absolutely, and I get these reports every year, and I try to pore through them. The heartburn that I have with these reports, when you’re trying to make decisions about your business or safety practices or policy practice and procedure and you’re using statistics to guide those decisions or give you some guidance with regard to how you should react to it, the statistics tend to paint a poor picture of what the problem actually is, the magnitude of the problem, whether it’s actually improved or gotten worse because the statistics are really biased based on who is compiling them.
The FBI, we all know that they’ve had some issues over the course of the last several years, but if you look at the report, they go into great detail to document everything from the gender of the shooter, the time of day, the day of week, all of those things. And in reality, clients like yours, Karen, and clients like mine that are looking for solutions to this don’t necessarily care what day of the week this is going to happen. They want to know how do I prevent getting killed and what do I do when bullets are whizzing over my head?
I understand the need to compile this data and to look at it, but let’s consider as well that the FBI is a federal law enforcement agency and they are certainly going to, let’s say, skew these statistics to put themselves in the best light and create a situation where it calms public perception of how bad this problem actually is. Simply changing the definition of what an active shooter is would completely change this report. The data’s important. I just don’t know how imperative it is to a client of yours or mine that is trying to come up with a solution to mitigate this problem. They want to know what’s going to work for them, not what the FBI defines an active shooter as on that given day.

Karen Tynan: I like that perspective. And if a layperson is reading the report, whatever it is, 20-something, 50-something pages, you could look at the executive summary and say, “Well, June has the highest number of incidents. The highest day of the week for incidents is Monday, and incidents were most likely to occur in the morning between 6:00 a.m. and noon. So never go to work in June on Monday morning.” You know what I mean?

Dan Skoczylas: Right.

Karen Tynan: Sometimes the data, it can be helpful and then in other ways it doesn’t really get you to a solution. So, I like how you word that.
Now, right off the bat, the FBI indicates that the 2024 data shows a decrease in active shooter incidents from 2023, a decrease by 50%. And so, I could see employers saying, “Oh, well, our risks are going down by half. Good grief. Do we really need to address this? Is this a realistic probability or a realistic possibility?” What do you think of the premise, based on this data, that in 2024, the active shooter incidents were down 50%?

Dan Skoczylas: Again, I believe that this has a lot to do with the FBI tweaking their definition of what an active shooter is. I’m very near the city of Chicago, and it is not unusual, for example, during the month of July, for the city of Chicago on any given Saturday night to have 70 to 80 shootings or people shot in the city. Based on the FBI’s definition of what an active shooter is, none of those qualify for these statistics, yet my guess would be if you ask the family members of any of those deceased folks who were victims of those shootings if that was an active shooter event, they would tell you absolutely. And if it had occurred in a place of business, whether it qualified as an active shooter event based on the definition or not, the owner of the company or the business still has the same problems. I have a dead individual on my manufacturing floor. The definition of what this is doesn’t make any difference. How did this happen? What do I do, and how can I prevent it from happening again?
So the statistics are all based on the definition of the day, which tends to change from year to year.

Karen Tynan: And we’ll get to that at the end of the 2024 report, there’s a five-year synopsis that actually shows it’s not necessarily a trend that shootings are going down. It actually doesn’t show that, “Oh, we could expect in 2026 it to be half again,” right? So, I like how you point out that looking at the data doesn’t necessarily give you a complete picture. It can give you information.
Now, one thing I found interesting is that the FBI does not distinguish between types of workplaces, although it has this category called commerce, and it has a separate category for houses of worship, government, and schools, but you can have employees in a house of worship. You have employees at schools, and you have employees at government locations. I know there’s even an incident in the synopsis where a park ranger was shot, but that’s categorized as an open space incident. I would categorize that as workplace violence happening in this person’s workplace, even though it was, quote-unquote, “outdoors.”
So I think that when people look at this data and the categories, and you see, “Oh, commerce, it’s about maybe a third of the incidents, maybe a little less,” that that shouldn’t necessarily mean that because of the category of commerce, you feel like you have a decreased risk. So, I wanted to ask you about these categories and understanding risk, let’s say what they call commerce or a place of business, compared to a government building or an outdoor space. Talk a little bit about those categories because the categories did not seem intuitive to me. They felt like kind of a square peg in a round hole. I had a hard time following the category analysis.

Dan Skoczylas: I’m glad that you brought this up. It’s interesting to me. And I agree with you. If you have an active shooting event, even by the definition that the FBI is providing for the day, if you have an event that qualifies as an active shooter at a kid’s soccer field at a park district, somebody works there.

Karen Tynan: Yes.

Dan Skoczylas: It is somebody’s place of business. I would argue that there’s no need to really break it out into these different categories. For our purposes, for mine and yours, Karen, they are all workplace incidents, all of them. Somebody works there. Whether it’s a church, a school, a park district, or the guy who runs the riding lawnmower at the football field, he works there. That’s his job. So, I’m not sure why they go to great lengths to break this down but, again, the only argument that I can make or see on their end is that, well, it softens the blow when we say, “Well, only 53% of these happened in a place of commerce.” But truth be told, a hundred percent of them happened in the workplace.

Karen Tynan: Yes, I agree with you on that. And the other part I noticed in the report is it says, “A firearm-related incident may be excluded if it involves,” and it gives kind of a list. Well, domestic disputes, we know that domestic disputes that carry over from the home into the workplace are incredibly common. That’s why we have temporary restraining orders that we get when there’s partner violence. And so I thought it was interesting that that’s excluded, and I think probably skews the data about what is happening in the workplace. And this again is on page two of the report, and it’s kind of the caveats, the little almost footnotes. And also, shootings in relation to another criminal act, well, is that a robbery? Because the person working retail who has a gun in their face, they think it’s workplace violence. And if there’s a bullet that comes out of the gun, they think that’s an active shooter.
And so, I do think it’s important, the way you’re explaining it, that the categories have definitions, and the definitions don’t always give us a complete picture. Am I saying it in a way that you agree with, or do you think there’s another nuance to explain?

Dan Skoczylas: No, you are absolutely correct. And when you’re talking about these stats and the analysis, one that I highlighted in the report, because I always scratch my head and think, because it’s a perfect example of how they can throw out a statistic that puts people at ease, and yet it’s so inaccurate.
According to this report, the average response time for law enforcement to an active shooter event is one minute and 48 seconds. I would argue that is absolutely ridiculous. First of all, if it’s inside a building, law enforcement isn’t even going to know that it’s going on until somebody has the wherewithal to call 911. And let’s not forget, everybody in there at this moment is dodging gunfire. So, picking up a phone is not first and foremost on their mind. Second, it’s got to go to the dispatch center. It’s got to go from the dispatch center out to the squad car. From the squad car, that may be 10, 15 minutes away. In reality, we all know, based on the reports in the aftermath of these events, the police typically don’t get there until the whole thing’s over and done with.

Karen Tynan: Exactly. And you didn’t know this before this podcast, but my sister, Melanie, on the weekends is a 911 dispatcher. So, I hear a lot of stories, and she shares with me dispatching people, how long things take. I agree with you. It’s logical to think about the time between someone who hides under their desk, calls 911, dispatch, the vehicle getting there, people getting staged, and all that. I think that statistic is a bit misleading, too. And I think if businesses looked at that, they think, “Well,” as we would say in the south, “The police are going to get there pretty fast.” So it gives that false sense of security, that false sense that they may not have to do as much as maybe you or I would envision.
So let’s talk some more about the data. Now, I’m definitely not a psychologist, behavioralist, or any of that. In this report, the vast majority of the perpetrators of the incidents described in the 2024 active shooter incident report are male. Now, is this consistent with your experience with active shooters? Do you think this is skewed? Tell me about your experience and what you think of that conclusion. I think in the incidents for 2024, they say there are 25 shooters, 22 are male, and three are female.

Dan Skoczylas: It does seem to be that the majority of the offenders in these incidents are males. However, that being said, the first one that comes to my mind that I can recall was a female. So, you take all of those things into account, and ultimately it’s just another one of those statistics where it doesn’t really make much difference. You’re going to react to the threat and the action, not the individual. So whoever’s got their finger on the trigger, it doesn’t really make any difference. It’s just another one of those stats that people go, “Well, everybody that works here is a female, so we don’t have to worry about this.” And if they would use that rationale, I don’t know. But again, it doesn’t help the situation.

Karen Tynan: Right. I think it’s a statistic, but we can’t really use it to manage the risk or use it to come to quick conclusions. And there’s also in the report an indication that, in situations at businesses, either handguns or a shotgun is used for these shootings. And I think it even dives down into how many handguns and who used a shotgun, but handgun laws vary, say, state to state. What do you see, or what have you seen over your career? What do you see people doing now in 2025 regarding preventing handguns in the workplace or addressing the risk of handguns in the workplace?

Dan Skoczylas: So, in my state in Illinois, they have these, and I can’t imagine it’s much different in other states. In fact, I know that they have similar laws in Colorado and whatnot. They stick these stickers on the door that say, “No guns allowed here. This is a gun-free zone,” which simply announces to the would-be shooter that they’re going to encounter less resistance at that particular establishment.
We get this question a lot, everything from should we prohibit guns in our workspace to should we allow and encourage people who are trained and licensed concealed carry holders to bring guns into the workplace? And I always defer those folks right back to their legal counsel to get those questions answered because there’s a lot to digest there. There’s a lot of room for liability exposure and whatnot. So, you have to be really careful with that.
What I do tell them is no matter what sign you have on the door, and no matter what your policy, practice or procedure is, they are going to circumvent it. I guarantee you that there are guns in your establishment. If given an opportunity, I would go find them for you. But they are here. Everything that we do as far as mitigating workplace violence, let’s just go with the assumption that they are present and then deal with it from there.

Karen Tynan: Right, that somehow, some way, if someone wants to bring a handgun or a shotgun into the workplace, they’ll most likely be able to do it. And I do think you’re absolutely right about every state, the handgun laws vary. And in some states, employers can have policies that apply in the parking lot, others, maybe, not so much. And it does become kind of a trickier area for having those policies. And I do see it has come to the forefront, I would say in 2024, 2025, where employers are asking what kind of policy should I have? What kind of enforcement should I have? If you’re going to have a policy that says absolutely no guns in the workplace, have you asked yourself if you’re going to search lockers? Are you going to search cars? What if someone comes and tells you, “Hey, I’ve got my hunting rifle in the truck because I’m going to go hunting this weekend straight from here,” is that violating your policy?
So I think you’re right. It can be a bit of a complex question, and there’s no answer in our dialogue here, but I do like pointing it out for employers to consider, “Hey, what is our policy? Do we need a policy? Should we have a policy? What is going to be compliant with both state and local laws? And how will this play out consistent with our company culture, or how we talk about safety in the workplace, how we address workplace violence?” So, I really like your thoughts on that.
Now, this completes part one, so we’ll close out here and say thanks for listening to Karen and Dan today. Again, this is part one in our three-part series. And look for Ogletree blog articles on workplace violence. You can check out our practice page and also our practice group on workplace violence prevention, and also our webinars. So, thanks for listening and stay safe out there and get ready to listen to part two.

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