Empowering educators, protecting students, mitigating harm.
WHAT WE ARE ABOUT.
Black Belt Safety is founded on a critical question: what should I do if an active shooter engages me? It is considered de rigueur in educational institutions that the lockdown method alone is a “best practice” solution. Get behind a locked door and wait for law enforcement to arrive. There are numerous problems with this approach, but two are especially salient: what if you can’t get behind a locked door (as happened at Covenant Presbyterian School in March, 2023)? Or what if the shooter breaches the locked door and enters the room (as happened at Red Lake High School in March, 2005 or more recently at Dreierschützengasse secondary school in Graz, Austria in June, 2025). What then? We designed our curriculum to help educators defend themselves and their students during an active shooting. We believe educators should be their own first responders.
WHO WE ARE.
D.M. Hutchinson holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania. He is a Professor of philosophy and a former Department Chair. He teaches and conducts research in ancient philosophy, cross-cultural ancient philosophy, and the history of philosophy of mind. Additionally, he has trained in martial arts for 40 years and he holds black belts in Judo, Japanese Jiu-Jitsu, and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Since 2020, he has added combatives and traumatic injury response (based on TCCC) to his active attack preparedness.
D.M. Hutchinson
Founder/Lead Instructor
Dave Durenberger is a Special Operations Sergeant with over 20 years of experience in law enforcement. He is a lead Defensive Tactics instructor, a Reality Based Training instructor, and he spent 12 years on his agency’s SWAT team. Taking training and continuing education seriously, he has taken numerous courses covering the use of force along with a wide range of other relevant topics. He has taught law enforcement students at the college level; he has assisted with training police officers from different departments in how to coordinate and respond to mass casualty incidents; and he has taught civilian self-defense courses. Additionally, he has trained in martial arts for over 30 years. He holds a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, and instructor levels (black belt equivalents) in Muay Thai and Pekiti Tirsia Kali and instructor certificates in Jun Fan Gung Fu and Filipino martial arts.
Dave Durenberger
Co-Founder/Lead Instructor
Rescue in Color
Our Partners
The team at Rescue in Color provides our instruction and training in traumatic injury response. Dr. Wagner and Officer Soultz put their heads, expertise, concern and hearts together to develop an intuitive approach to bleeding control kits.
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING.
“Professor Danny has dedicated his life to martial arts and teaching. Not only does he hold black belts in Judo and Jiu-Jitsu, he is a well respected philosophy professor. Drawing on his knowledge of the martial arts and teaching he has developed a training program to provide a safe environment for the academic learning environment. This is a first-of-its-kind training program developed to provide educators with situational awareness, responsiveness, and tactics to deal with outside threats. Black Belt Safety has leveraged experience in the martial arts, teaching, and peer-reviewed science to develop a program to empower educators and academic institutions while maintaining the safety of their students.”
Ishmael Bentley, Owner, M-Theory Martial Arts
4th degree black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu