Humber Polytechnic and the University of Guelph-Humber (Humber) take the safety of our community seriously. As part of that commitment to safety, Humber will conduct its annual active attacker drills in September 2024.

The goal of these drills is to test our procedures and mass notification systems, and to ensure community members know and understand what to do in the unlikely event of an active threat on any of our campuses or locations. Active attacker drills take place every year during the third week of September. Please see the new 2024 drill information below.

Active drills will be held on the Tuesday of the third week of September at all campuses and locations. The active attacker drills will take place on Tuesday, September 24, 2024 SIMULTANEOUSLY at ALL CAMPUSES (North, including 30 and 100 Carrier and residences, Lakeshore, including residences, and IGS) as follows:

• The drill will start at 10 a.m. and end at approximately 10:10 a.m.
• The first part of the drill involves testing the mass notification and PA systems and will last 3-5 minutes.
• Note: IGS does not have an accessible PA system, so this only applies to North and Lakeshore campuses.
• The second part of the drill requires all Humber faculty who are in class at the time of the drill to play the Run Hide Defend (RHD) video (5:42 minutes) as part of the 10-minute time allotment for the drills.
• There will not be a mass notification test for evening classes, however, instructors are required to play the RHD video for their students on September 24, 2024. Community members not on campus are encouraged to watch the video as well.
• New for this year, the Run Hide Defend video will also be played on all Humber TVs across all campuses. There are limited HTVs that have audio associated with them, however, Closed Captioning has been added to video.

Prior to the drill beginning, an announcement will be made using the public address system, where possible, to let community members know immediately before the drill is about to start.

Please note that during the drill, the actual active attacker message will be played – not a test message. This is to familiarize the community with the message they would hear during a real incident. DO NOT call 911 or public safety during the drill unless you have a real emergency.

During the drill, all activity on campus is to stop and community members should pay attention to the emergency messages being played over the PA system, where available, and displayed on computer screens across all campuses. Once the drill is complete, an announcement will be made on the public address system advising that the drill is over and normal activities can resume. Drills are expected to last between 10 to 15 minutes.

The Active Attacker Response procedures can be found on the Department of Public Safety website. Also, look for the Active Attacker Response posters located in classrooms, lecture halls and private meeting spaces across campus.

Please note that online Active Attacker training is also available.

The training is approximately 30 minutes in length.

All community members are encouraged to take the training prior to the drills to ensure they know how to properly respond.

If you have any questions please contact Kathy Branton, Manager of Business Continuity and Emergency Management at kathy.branton@humber.ca or via Teams at 647.577.8802.

Rob Kilfoyle
Director, Public Safety and Emergency Management