Security expert discusses ways businesses can protect against tragedy

December 2, 2015 8:57 pm

Following Wednesday’s deadly attacks in California, ABC 6 News spoke with a local security expert to find out what businesses and organizations can do to guard against these types of tragedies.

Michael Brugnoli, the Senior VP at RIBI Security in Warwick, works with businesses to make them less susceptible to attacks. He says a key component in preventing tragedies like mass shootings is making sure you’re not a soft target.

"If there are layers of security it becomes more difficult for someone to breech the layers,” said Brugnoli.

Brugnoli says no one is invincible. But, he says there are a couple of different things in addition to physical security measures that people can do pre-emptively.

"We preach the active shooter process. They are different for different applications, but they are all basically the same. We teach awareness, everybody becomes an agent for security,” said Brugnoli.

In the wake of so many mass shootings so far this year, Brugnoli says his business has seen a big increase in people wanting to up security. He says clients asking for advice on how to prevent and what to do in an active shooter situation is becoming incredibly common.

"It’s in every conversation that we have,” said Brugnoli.

There have been more than 350 mass shooting this year in the U.S. That’s according to The Reddit tracker, which defines mass shootings as incidents where four or more people are killed or injured by gunfire.

Last week, three were killed and nine injured at a Planned Parent in Colorado Springs. In October, nine were gunned down at a community college in Oregon. Before that, a mass shooting at two Tennessee military sites left four marines and a Navy petty officer dead. And, in June nine were killed at a historic Black Church in South Carolina.