Security improvements remain a work in progress, one year after NH Hospital shooting (2024)

Eleven days after a security guard was killed at the state psychiatric hospital, in November 2023, the Department of Safety gave Gov. Chris Sununu a list of recommended security enhancements for all state buildings. Sununu had requested the list, saying safety was the “number one priority” in the wake of the shooting.

A year later, the state has completed some safety measures at the state hospital, but officials are only just beginning to take on most of the other recommendations, including a professional safety assessment of state facilities.

And rather than look at all state buildings, that assessment will be limited to three large state office complexes in Concord.

Related: NH gun reform failed after hospital shooting. Advocates will try again in 2025.

Safety Commissioner Robert Quinn, who got approval for the $792,290 assessment contract with New York-based Guidepost Solutions on Wednesday, said his agency has used the year since the hospital shooting to understand what it needed from a consultant. That effort involved meetings every other week with a variety of state agencies, Quinn said.

“I will tell you that this working group . . . has worked very hard. We have tried to listen and understand not only narrow issues but what are some of the larger concerns,” Quinn said. “While it might seem that it has taken a long time from this tragedy to today, this has been taken very seriously. A lot of people have worked hard to come up with a plan to make our buildings safe for employees and visitors.”

The contract to begin safety assessments of state offices comes at the end of a year that saw other responses to the shooting of officer Bradley Haas, 63, fall short. Lawmakers failed to close a legal loophole that allowed Haas’ shooter, John Madore, 33, to purchase a gun despite a past psychiatric commitment. The Legislature rejected other gun safety measures, including a red-flag law and waiting period, while passing bills that expanded gun owner rights.

And while some of Quinn’s safety recommendations have been put in place, including requiring visitors to be screened before entering the state hospital lobby, many others remain a work in progress.

Few new safety measures are in place

In addition to the security assessment of state facilities, Quinn’s safety recommendations included identifying and implementing short- and long-term security improvements; upgrading communication and notification systems; and increasing active threat trainings.

Also on Quinn’s recommended list: a review of all state facility emergency response plans and the development of a plan to improve video surveillance and entrance security at state facilities. The final item called for reviewing state security job descriptions so employees know what incidents they should respond to and which should prompt a call to a security officer.

That recommendation was a response to the fact that the Haas was unarmed while screening hospital visitors, per state hospital policy. Madore was fatally shot by a state trooper who was assigned to the hospital campus but not stationed within the lobby.

Quinn’s recommendations included hiring private armed security to police the lobby, a measure that also remains in progress.

Robert Buxton, director of the state’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management, led the working group that met for the past year to identify security needs. He said the state has begun addressing some of those items.

State agencies were offered templates to do a self-assessment of their security measures, Buxton said. The state is implementing new emergency notification systems that will send alerts to people within state buildings and the public. Staff inside the state hospital the day Haas was killed said the emergency notification system failed, leaving them locked in offices for over an hour without critical information.

At the state hospital, the sliding doors that allowed the shooter easy access to the lobby are now gone. Employees must now use a badge to enter, and visitors must be cleared by security.

Buxton said the security audit by Guidepost Solutions — approved this week by the Executive Council — will inform the state’s plan for addressing the other items on Quinn’s list. He pointed to a second $497,565 contract with Guidepost Solutions, also approved this week, that calls for five trainings to help improve emergency response plans.

The two contracts call for Guidepost Solutions to begin its work within the next few weeks, but Buxton said it will take the state time to take on the company’s recommendations.

“This is not a one-stop show,” Buxton said. “This is an opportunity to look at facilities and move forward and implement the plan. This is a continuous project.”

Quinn and Buxton said the work by Guidepost Solutions will allow the state to address security gaps at all state buildings — eventually.

“You can't do everything all at once,” Quinn said. “It’s a phased-in approach. Those (initial) assessments could be applied to other buildings.”