NYC capturing highlights panic rooms as necessity as an alternative of a luxurious

Office security considerations have made panic rooms in workplace buildings much less of a luxurious and extra of a strategic necessity, based on Geno Roefaro, CEO of Saferwatch.

SaferWatch is a security and emergency alert platform that permits real-time communication, tip reporting and panic alerting to assist people and firms. 

Roefaro mentioned the corporate is already consulting on the build-out of those rooms for a dozen corporations, lots of which have reached out lower than per week after a gunman, recognized as Shane Tamura, entered the foyer of 345 Park Avenue and went on a capturing rampage with an AR-15 type rifle that left 4 lifeless. 

Some staff within the constructing, which homes international funding powerhouse Blackstone, actual property agency Rudin Administration, the Nationwide Soccer League and international skilled providers agency KPMG, sought refuge in these rooms whereas chaos ensured, whereas others took shelter in loos or barricaded themselves in workplaces. 

Nevertheless, one sufferer, 27-year-old Julia Hyman, was shot and killed after stepping out of a panic room inside Rudin Administration’s Midtown workplace. Rudin owns the property.

Roefaro described these rooms as “a crucial layer of safety throughout lively threats” that enable staff to flee to shelter safely whereas first responders are alerted in actual time.

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Whereas they’re costly to construct, costing roughly $150,000 to $500,000 for a totally safe room, Roefaro mentioned, he argued that it’s pivotal in defending staff and executives from exterior threats. 

Samuel Fish, founding father of Protect Safety Doorways Ltd, mentioned that corporations have historically put in panic rooms and protected rooms of their workplaces for C-suite executives, which generally concerned reinforcing the partitions, flooring and ceiling with bullet-resistant supplies similar to fiberglass and putting in pressured entry and bullet-resistant doorways and home windows. 

“The rationale this was primarily tailor-made to the senior executives is as a result of these people have been the almost certainly targets for disgruntled present or former staff, or exterior people in search of retribution towards a company,” Fish mentioned. 

Nonetheless, he argued that the panorama has modified within the final 20 years “as office shootings have turn out to be more and more random, and the agendas of the perpetrators more and more disconnected from actuality.” 

Monday’s incident, significantly the picture that surfaced exhibiting staff barricading themselves with workplace furnishings, “sparked lots of people saying, properly, how else can we shield our personal staff? Like, the place can they go? What can we do for them?” Roefaro mentioned. 

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Cops stand subsequent to the glass window with a bullet gap close to the scene of a lethal mass capturing in Manhattan, New York Metropolis on July 29, 2025. (Mike Segar/Reuters / Reuters)

There’s a variety of panic room choices that staff can presently discover in workplace settings, from fundamental protected areas that enable staff to take refuge behind bulletproof doorways and out of a shooter’s direct line of sight, to totally safe and hid rooms outfitted with strengthened glass, based on Roefaro. 

These high-end rooms typically require superior communication programs that allow prompt, two-way communication with regulation enforcement. That’s the place Roefaro’s firm is available in: companies with such rooms can combine SaferWatch’s panic alert programs, which give real-time alerts and assist activate a coordinated emergency response.

Individuals stand close to a glass window with a bullet gap, close to the scene of a lethal mass capturing in Manhattan, New York Metropolis on July 29, 2025. (Kylie Cooper/Reuters / Reuters)

Over the previous few many years, Fish mentioned, an growing variety of corporations have began to construct workplace panic rooms in dual-purpose areas similar to convention rooms, break rooms, and loos, as corporations started to understand that “janitors and CEOs are sometimes equally in danger in office shootings.”

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Nevertheless, Roefaro argued that worker security goes far past merely making a bodily protected house. Employers should make sure that workers obtain well timed alerts and clearly perceive the correct lockdown procedures within the occasion of an emergency.