Atlanta's convention center was unaffected by this week's shooting but the conference closed early. Photo Credit: Georgia World Congress Center Authority
Just one day after holding an educational session on active shooters, organizers of Riskworld, the annual conference of the Risk Management Society (RIMS), had to deal with a real-life example.
Riskworld, which typically draws more than 10,000 attendees, took place at Atlanta’s Georgia World Congress Center from April 30 to May 3. At midday on the final day of the conference, a shooting took place at Northside Medical Midtown, a hospital facility three miles from the convention center, killing a 38-year-old woman and wounding four others. Police locked down the area as they searched for the gunman, who was captured nearly eight hours later.
While the convention center was unaffected, show organizers elected to cancel the 3 p.m. keynote and closing night party. Gary LaBranche, CEO of RIMS, posted a recorded message on the conference website on Wednesday to explain that the early closure was "simply out of an abundance of caution." He emphasized that the shooting "was not at all connected to RIMS or Riskworld" and that everyone associated with the conference was safe.
The decision was partly due to logistics, LaBranche noted in his video message. Four designated conference hotels were close to the medical facility, and Riskworld’s shuttle buses were not able to access those properties. However, he assured participants, other buses were operating on schedule, the airport was unaffected, and "life is going on normally in downtown Atlanta."
Timely Session on Active Shooter Response
Appropriately enough, on May 2, the business journal Risk & Insurance covered the May 1 Riskworld session on handling active shooter scenarios. The article, "At Riskworld 2023: Training Is Vital for Active Shooter Survival," noted that co-presenters Ike Jenkins and Marc Vincent had updated their slides with the latest figures on U.S. mass shootings a week before the event. Not surprisingly, wrote Michelle Kerr, an editor and national conference chair for Risk & Insurance, "By the time they’d checked into their hotels, that figure was already outdated."
Mark Walls, vice president of client engagement for insurance provider Safety National, called the experience "a real-world lesson in risk management and crisis communication." A speaker and attendee, he recounted the incident in a May 4 LinkedIn post, noting, "Overall, I would say the response to this could have been better."
Attendees were notified about the incident two hours after it occurred, said Walls, but they were not informed that Atlanta police had issued a shelter-in-place order in the area around the hospital, which made several conference hotels inaccessible. In fact, organizers did not share that detail until the shelter order was lifted, Walls wrote.
Walls stands with the organizers with respect to the schedule changes, however. "I did feel RIMS canceling their afternoon and evening events was appropriate, given that the shooter was still at large," he told Northstar.
En route to the airport the next day, Walls asked his driver about the incident: "He shrugged and said, 'Atlanta has shootings all the time. This one made the news because it was in the business district.'"