A mass shooter would find Fort Wayne is full of sitting ducks, according to a former city police officer.

Dottie Davis said Tuesday that most people lack “situational awareness” at work, school and public places. They don't know the location of building exits or precisely where their car is parked, they don't pay attention to the people in their immediate vicinity, and they don't have a plan in case of an attack, she said.

“Hiding and hoping is not a strategy. That is not a plan, so we've got to stop thinking that the table you're sitting at is going to save you,” she told about 75 people at Arts United Center.

Davis, ex-security director for Fort Wayne Community Schools and now a business consultant, was among the speakers at “Let's Talk About Mass Shootings,” the latest in a series of Community Conversations organized by Advancing Voices of Women.

She said she and her husband “play the what-if game every time we go out for dinner.” They scan the restaurant and ask, “What doesn't belong here? What is out of the ordinary?”

She, Allen County Deputy Prosecutor Mike McAlexander and forensic psychologist Dr. Stephen Ross described the typical mass shooter, based on data from attacks, as being a white, male, gun-owning loner older than 35. He's likely been a domestic batterer and substance abuser who has made threats, orally or on social media.

Ross said research shows that narcissism or megalomania – “a very high sense of who they are and what they were trying to accomplish” – is common among mass killers.

He said he is not a fan of the Violence Risk Assessment Guide used by mental health professionals for their patients “because that could stigmatize you and be used against you,” including in divorce cases.

“Our ability to predict is poor,” Ross said.

McAlexander said Indiana has “comparatively lax firearm laws” and that legislators tweaked the state's red flag law on gun seizures to require police to demonstrate that a gun owner probably will – rather than may – cause harm to himself or others.

“And the last time I checked, we were not issued crystal balls to take to court with us. ... I don't know how we're going to be able to prove that someone will behave that way in the future,” he said.

Indiana bans gun ownership by people convicted of domestic battery, but “they still possess,” Davis said. “We see convicted batterers in possession of firearms quite often.”

McAlexander wondered whether people would be willing to sacrifice their privacy rights so that law enforcement agencies can better identify and monitor those who have shown signs suggestive of violent behavior.

He and Davis suggested ways people might prevent mass shootings: employees should inform employers if colleagues are intoxicated at work; churches should have security teams; parents, teachers and friends should watch for and report students' threats on social media; and people should be on the lookout for weapons other than guns, like knives and baseball bats.

Davis called for more realistic drills at schools and workplaces to prepare for the threat of an armed intruder.

“We need to be thinking about avoid, deny, defend,” she said.

A mass shooting “can happen anywhere,” McAlexander said at the start of Tuesday's program.

“It could happen across the street there at Fort Wayne Ballet,” Ross said. “It could happen to us even right now.”

AVOW's Civil Conversations series is sponsored by The Journal Gazette Foundation and has included programs on school choice, sexual harassment, elections and gun regulations.

bfrancisco@jg.net