Active Shooter Expert Media Interviews and Verified Citations

These are my active shooter expert media interviews and the print citations behind them. Reporters have been calling me for two decades. When something happens, the phone rings, and I try to answer honestly rather than usefully. What follows is the record of that, gathered in one place for the first time, with a working link to every one of them so you can read the original rather than take my word for it.

I have deliberately linked out to the publications themselves. Anyone can describe an interview. The only thing that proves anything is the article, on the outlet’s own domain, with my name inside it.

The quote that still holds

We live in a different world. And action beats inaction 100 percent of the time.

Chris Grollnek, Associated Press, June 13, 2016

I said that ten years ago and I have not found a reason to revise it. It ran on the wire, which means it travelled further than anything I have written since.

Associated Press

Twelve stories, each verified live. The Associated Press is a wire service, so these also ran under member outlet bylines across the country, which is why you may have read one of them somewhere else entirely.

• Experts: Fast action by police critical in mass shootings · June 14, 2016
• Did a delay in police response give shooter more time? · June 13, 2016 · the story carrying the quote above
• Public areas of airports seen as most vulnerable to attack · January 7, 2017
• Even with increased airport security vulnerabilities remain · January 8, 2017
• Workplace shootings, like Orlando’s, tick upward in US · June 5, 2017
• Stats show increase in fatal workplace shootings · June 6, 2017
• Police experts urge intensive training if teachers are armed · February 24, 2018
• Florida school shooting response caught on radio traffic · March 9, 2018
• Phoenix police say man shot ex-girlfriend before ambush · February 11, 2022
• Doctor who fought church gunman remembered as kind protector · May 18, 2022
• Cops took 5 hours to warn that dance hall shooter was loose · January 24, 2023
• Chief defends delay telling public of mass shooter at-large · January 25, 2023

People don’t rise to the level of the occasion; they fall to the level of training that they have.

Chris Grollnek, Associated Press, May 18, 2022

National newspapers and broadcast

• The Washington Post · Police are trained to attack active shooters, but Parkland officer didn’t. Would armed teachers help? · February 23, 2018
• The Washington Post · Tiny school police force in Uvalde took charge, then failed to go in · May 27, 2022
• Los Angeles Times · Aggressive ‘active shooter’ tactics face scrutiny after LAPD kills girl at Burlington store · December 28, 2021
• PBS NewsHour · Police experts urge intensive training if teachers are armed · February 23, 2018
• ABC News · Former substitute teacher developing gunshot alarm for schools · March 12, 2018
• Philadelphia Gay News · Active-shooter expert seeks Pulse accountability · June 7, 2017
• WILX · Did a delay in police response give shooter more time? · June 13, 2016 · the syndicated wire copy

Independent profiles

These are not press coverage. They are third-party organisations describing my work on their own domains, which is a different and in some ways harder kind of corroboration.

• AASA, The School Superintendents Association
• GSIS, Senior Advisor
• Safeware, ASPP PRO™ partner page

On the broadcast work

Across roughly twenty years I have made more than a thousand broadcast appearances, most of them repeat bookings on the same programmes rather than a thousand separate outlets. FOX, CNN, BBC, CGTN, RT and France 24 among others. Those segments are licensed and I hold them, and the archive is below.

What I would rather be judged on is the pattern. A reporter who calls you back for twenty years is worth more than a thousand one time bookings, and that is what the record above actually shows.