Walmart's active-shooter training is so old and 'inadequate' that it has become a meme, some workers say

Ben Tobin
Fri, December 2, 2022 


Walmart's active-shooter training has been around in some form for at least a decade, employees say.


It includes information on spotting "concerning behaviors" and how to respond to an attack.


Some workers say Walmart needs to do more on top of the training to address workers' mental health.

Long before the shooting at a Walmart store in Virginia last month, Walmart employees were required to complete a virtual active-shooter training each quarter to prepare them for sudden workplace violence.

The training has been used in some form for at least a decade, Walmart employees told Insider.

But after a team lead fatally shot six colleagues and himself at a store in Chesapeake, Virginia, concerns that the training is inadequate are growing among Walmart employees. Three current and former employees of the retail giant told Insider the active-shooter training wasn't enough to keep them safe. These concerns come with violent incidents accelerating at Walmart and other major grocery-store chains. One survivor of the Chesapeake shooting has accused the company of ignoring her concerns regarding what she describes as the shooter's earlier "threatening" behavior and is suing Walmart for $50 million.

The training is "the absolute bare minimum that could be offered," said a manager at a Walmart store in the southwestern US who asked to be anonymous because of fear of retaliation.

According to screenshots obtained by Insider, the training for the fourth quarter of 2022 included slides that instructed associates to look out for concerning and threatening behaviors, "life stressors," and social-media threats among their colleagues. The training also directed them on how they could help their colleagues and report suspicious behavior.

The training also includes a video that depicts a gun-wielding assailant in Walmart and how associates should respond. The video instructs people to "avoid, deny, and defend" — or get out of harm's way, go into a room and barricade it, or "defend yourself by any means necessary" if they can't get away from the shooter. The avoid, deny, defend strategy was developed by a program at Texas State University in 2002.

"Our company is committed to providing a safe and violence-free environment for our associates, members, customers, and vendors," the training says. "Together, we can be better prepared by listening, helping others that are struggling, and understanding the warning signs associated with concerning behaviors."

Walmart didn't respond to questions for this story, including whether the company planned to modify its safety training or add additional training in light of the shooting in Chesapeake.
'It has become a meme'

In 2019, a gunman at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, fatally shot 23 people using a semiautomatic rifle — prompting calls for Congress to pass more stringent gun-control legislation. The voices for reform included Walmart's president and CEO, Doug McMillon, who wrote to then-President Donald Trump and Congress to urge stronger background checks and restrictions on sales of certain types of guns.

The shooting in Chesapeake is only one of hundreds at Walmart and other US grocery stores in the past few years. Over the past two years, Walmart stores nationwide saw 363 gun incidents resulting in 112 deaths, the most incidents and deaths by far among 12 major grocers tracked by the gun-control-advocacy campaign Guns Down America, citing data from gunviolencearchive.org. Kroger, which has roughly 1,800 fewer US stores than Walmart, had the second-most incidents tracked by Guns Down America, with 45 resulting in 20 deaths.

Walmart employees told Insider they're worried about whether the quarterly active-shooter training had prepared them for violence in stores.

"The issues with the training are abundant," a former Walmart employee from Florida told Insider. "We watch the same video all the time. It has become a meme." He asked to remain anonymous for privacy reasons.

A survey a few months ago in the subreddit r/walmart asked respondents to choose their "weapon of choice" during an active-shooter situation after the video showed employees using telephones and laptops.

A Walmart employee in Michigan, who asked to remain anonymous, citing a fear of retaliation, called the training "mediocre and inadequate."

"It's ridiculous," the employee said. "I'd like to see Walmart pay more attention to the mental wellness of their associates."

The Chesapeake shooting survivor suing Walmart alleges that she reported "disturbing and threatening" behavior from the shooter but he continued to work at the store.

In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Chesapeake Circuit Court, Donya Prioleau, the Walmart employee, said the gunman — who had been working at the Walmart since 2010 — had been "disciplined on several occasions" and was "demoted by management for his improper and disturbing interactions with others" before being reinstated as a team lead.

The gunman "demonstrated a pattern of disturbing behavior leading up to the shooting, which Walmart knew, or should have known," argued the lawsuit, which was filed against Walmart by the law firm Morgan & Morgan on behalf of Prioleau.

The lawsuit said the shooter had a "personal vendetta" against several Walmart employees and kept a "kill list" of targets before the shooting.

The lawsuit also said the shooter "repeatedly asked coworkers if they had received their active shooter training."

"When coworkers responded that they had," the lawsuit said, the shooter "just smiled and walked away without saying anything."