NOVEMBER 24 • 2022 | 13

E

arlier this fall, Jan Goldstein Frank 
of Bloomfield Hills sat in the 
auditorium of Bloomfield Hills 
High School with other employees, staff 

Jan 
Goldstein
Frank

and contractors for a training 
seminar on how to respond in 
the event of an active shooter 
on campus. 
The longtime forensics 
coach was grateful to receive 
“
ALICE” training (Alert, 

Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate), 
named for its easy-to-remember acronym 
of potentially lifesaving measures that 
educators must follow if they ever find 
themselves in a mass shooting.
While she was grateful for the training 
as she pondered a new school year, she 
said the fear of ever having to be in such a 
situation could be avoided if the state’s gun 
laws had more teeth. 
“The ALICE training was one of the 
saddest days of my life,” reflected the 
Bloomfield Hills resident. “I don’t know 
how any human could effectively execute 
the training under the extreme stress and 
pressure of being in a life-threatening 
situation such as having an active shooter 
present in a school. 
“We were taught how to use a staple gun 
to properly clear shards of glass from a 
window so students could escape without 
being cut. You think to yourself, ‘Why am 
I here?’ I’m here with other teachers taking 
this course because this country refuses to 
figure out a way to regulate the possession 
of firearms and particularly ones that are 
weapons of war. 
“We are educators tasked to take care 
of children,” she continued. “Society 
is layering this active shooter training 
on teachers — a population that is 
among some of the most overworked 
and undervalued people in our entire 
community. It’s absurd, it’s like putting a 
band-aid over a gunshot wound.” 

THE IMPACT OF THE 
OXFORD SHOOTING
On Oct. 24, the teenager charged with 
killing four fellow students at Oxford High 
School and wounding six others, including 
a teacher on Nov. 30, 2021, pleaded guilty 
to his crimes in Oakland County Circuit 
Court. His parents, who purchased the 
9mm pistol for him just four days before 
the shooting, are charged with multiple 
manslaughter counts.
In the months that have followed 
since the shooting, grassroots, political 
and organizational leaders in the Jewish 
and general community admit that even 
though they are optimistic that legislative 
reforms on gun safety are within reach 
due to a shift to a Democratic majority 
in Lansing, our state and nation will still 

suffer through mass shootings. 
Efforts to pass gun safety laws, including 
safety storage mandates, red flag laws, 
magazine limits, enforcing the illegality 
of private gun sales and eliminating 
gun access to domestic abusers, need 
to be compounded with beefed-up 
mental health resources and behavioral 
assessments. 
In interviews with the JN, all sources 
acknowledged that gun reform must 
happen within the parameters of the 
Second Amendment. They stated most 
people, whether they own guns or not, 
weigh on the side of common sense, and 
said guns should not be taken away from 
responsible owners. 

VIOLENT THREATS CONTINUE
This fall saw no letup to violent threats to 
our students, and all the while school and 
law enforcement officials state they are in 
constant communication with one another. 
During the first week of November, two 
bomb threats were called into Frankel 
Jewish Academy in two days.
In an unrelated incident, a 14-year-old 
teen from Oxford Township was arrested 
Oct. 12 after posting photos of guns on 
social media and claiming he would kill 
Jewish people, according to reports from 
the Oakland County Sherriff’s Office. 
An FBI investigation later found the teen 
was in possession of a handgun. The teen 
was the third person arrested that week 
in Oakland County for making violent 
threats. 
West Bloomfield Police Chief Michael 
Patton said all threats to schools are taken 

Michael 
Patton 

seriously, adding that his 
investigative team would 
rather check out 99 false leads 
if it means that one real threat 
can be abated to save lives. 
“No one’s crystal ball is 
perfect,” Patton said. “But 
often after a shooting tragedy, 
people will later say they suspected 
the perpetrator had issues or seemed 
problematic but didn’t want to come 
forward to say anything because they 
didn’t want to bother the police. There 
have been formal studies on this on 
how some shootings could have been 
prevented. That is why we still promote 
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