Podcasts about jacksonville sheriff's office

Episode 17 #9 What is your comfort with schools' Violent Event and reunification plans?10 Questions for the Mayor to ask the Police and Fire Chief SeriesQuestion 9: "What is your comfort with our public and private schools' Violent Event procedures and offsite reunification plans?"Bill Godfrey:Welcome to our next podcast. We are continuing our series, 10 things for the mayor or the city manager, county manager to ask their police and fire chief together. Today, we're going to talk number nine, what is your comfort with our public and private schools, violent event procedures, and offsite reunification plans. My name is Bill Godfrey. I'm one of the instructors with C3 Pathways and a retired fire chief. And, I'm joined today by Don Tuten, chief with Jacksonville Sheriff's Office. Don's in charge of Homeland Security. Steve Shaw from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, a Sergeant with the police department there, also one of the instructors at C3, as is Don, and Ron Otterbacher, retired division chief from the Orange County Sheriff's office and also one of our C3 instructors. Welcome, guys. Thanks for being here.So, as we talk about this today, I kind of want to set the stage a little bit. In many states now, public schools are required to not only have emergency plans, but to have reunification plans, which has some interesting bumps in the road as we found out through practice. But, the other one that kind of surprised me a little bit was the situation with private schools. They're not necessarily subject to exactly the same regulations and requirements. I was, my daughter in private school, and I mentioned this in podcast series eight that when I sat down and talked with them about their procedures, there was a little room for improvement.We've worked on that and closed the gap, and I feel really good about that, but it made me wonder how big of a problem is this, not just with the public schools and the plans they have, but private schools who may have done little or no planning and never really even thought about doing an exercise? Don, tell me a little bit about what you guys do in your region there in North Florida. How do you approach that? What do you see as the things that are common between the public schools, and what's different with the private schools?Don Tuten:So, one of the things that we identified was, we got together with our private, or correction, our public school system, which has their own police department and has their own school board. What we did was, we partnered with them to take on that responsibility in our area on the law enforcement side for private schools, so we take care of any issues with the private schools. What we do is we meet with them. We establish contact with them, also with our community affairs, our intelligence unit, and our community affairs unit works very closely with the private schools. We do meet biannually with them. We make sure that everybody's on the same page on what their plans are. We emulate the same plans that the school board system is using, the public school board system is using, but the different challenges are, as we also partner, have a private partnership with churches as well as some of our community affairs folks to ensure that our public bus system is going to work for the private schools if they have an incident there.So, we basically have a plan in place. We're utilizing some of the same resources that public school program uses, but we're accepting that responsibility within my agency to ensure that that's going to continue to flow. And, we train with them, and we meet with them, like I said, on a biannual basis to ensure that that plan is still in effect and it is practiced.Bill Godfrey:So, Steve, obviously Don is from a very large organization. Yours is more common. I don't want to say it's a smaller organization, but it's more of a common size for police departments. What do you guys do in your region? How do you approach it?Stephen Shaw:So, we don't have as many resources as what Don has in his area, but one of the things that we do try to incorporate into all of our school response is the SROs that we do have, before the students come back at the end of a summer break, they will meet with all the teachers, and they will basically have a presentation and kind of a walk through. These are the procedures. These are the things that that you need to be thinking about. If we have an event, this is what a lockdown looks like. This is what you can expect from the responders, which is another important piece of that.Then, as the year progresses, as they have lockdown drills, as they have any kind of bomb threat drills or anything like that that they do throughout the year, we will try to invite patrol officers, investigators, people from other agencies like the neighboring jurisdictions to come and participate in these drills so that they can, A, see the layout of the school, B, see what's happening at that particular school, and kind of interact with some of the teachers and some of the students there. But, that's for public schools. For private schools, this is a little different. We don't have SRO's (School Resource Officer) in private schools, so we have to really take the initiative in our area to reach out to these schools to make sure that they're kind of on the same page as the public schools are, and that the officers are as aware of the private schools as they are the public schools.So, it creates a little bit of a challenge because some of these schools are ... A lot of times they kind of show up, and we have a new Montessori school in town for example, and we didn't really know that it's coming. It just kind of shows up. So, we have to really make sure that our people that are out on the street, patrol officers, community services people, anybody who's out there is kind of identifying these locations and taking the initiative to reach out to them, introduce themselves. Hey, I'm officer so-and-so. I generally work this area, just want to kind of introduce myself, see what you have going on. And, again, making sure that we're all on the same page as far as what we are telling them our response should look like.Bill Godfrey:That's really interesting that you've got your patrol officers kind of going out and making that first contact. Has that produced success for you guys in the area and enabled you to be able to follow up and help, either help them or work with them to get some meaningful plans that have been effective?Stephen Shaw:It does help, but again, it's one of those things that's subject to change. A patrol officer's primary function is to answer calls. So, if they don't have time, if they don't have time to introduce themselves, then that gap may go unfilled. So, it's really up to us as an agency. The ones that are there that look at the active shooter instructors, the community services people, the people who are planning these events, the emergency management people in town, they really have to make sure that we're on top of getting in contact with all of these places.Bill Godfrey:So, Ron, something Steve mentioned a second ago on, he was using the example of Montessori schools. As you and I have talked offline a few times, there's in some cases with the reunifications, offsite reunifications, some real challenges with age of kids, special needs kids, in some cases infants, daycare centers that are taking care of very, very small children. It's not really just a question of being able to throw them into a vehicle and move them. I mean, you have to worry about things like the car seats, and having the supplies that the kids need, and all that kind of stuff. What are some of your experiences in the work that you've done with schools over the years and some of the exercises that you've picked up on?Ron Otterbacher:Absolutely, and it's not just the private schools and Montessori. It's any school, because you have public schools that are heavy with special needs children, and you've got to be prepared for that. It's different than your regular elementary school, because you may need 15 special buses to take them away from there. The other thing you've got to do is, we talk often about off-campus reunification areas, but so many campuses still are unifying their people on campus. So, you've got to get out, and you've got to talk to the schools. You've got to check their plans. We started similar to what they did up in Chapel Hill, but we'd have our SRO’s (School Resource Officer) go review the plans, and if they had any issues or questions, then we'd have staff go and help with that issue. But, there's a lot of things to think about. It's not a simple thing, and until you exercise those plans that they have in place and figure out if they'll work or not, then you may not be successful.Don Tuten:I want to say one thing also, just a catalyst on what both of them said is, another opportunity is to have that information with the special needs and any other special challenge schools to put that information within your CAD system and your dispatch system. There's ways with the CAD systems now that you can put that information in so the responding officers, even if it's a newer officer writing that area, that information would come up on the call screen of what those challenges are within that school, how many kids there are, how many are special needs so they can start getting those resources en route as soon as possible.Bill Godfrey:I think those are all great points. Ron, in fact I believe you and I were working together when we ran into the school who brought us their reunification plan, which was a great plan that called for the kids to be reunified on their own football field. That was actually where in close proximity to where the shooter had fled. It was interesting. Of course, for those of you that may not know, we certainly endorse and support the I Love U Guys Foundation's standard response protocol and standard reunification method. We've looked at just a myriad of different programs out there, and it hands down, bar none is the best one out there, which is why we use it and teach it and support that method.But, I know when John-Michael Keyes who's the lead over at the foundation came down to do the training for my daughter's school, one of the interesting conversations is, with public schools there's usually a district or a school board or some sort of downtown office that's going to have personnel that can come out and facilitate the reunification offsite. Whereas with a private school, it's usually just that one campus. I know that was a pretty stunning conversation for the superintendent in my case to realize that it wasn't realistic that his staff was going to be able to go run that reunification site, and that his buses that were in the parking lot of the school weren't going to be leaving, because that was going to be part of what's been shut down, and that he was going to have to find some other community partners to work with, either another school or the local school board or emergency management to actually manage the reunification for them, because they weren't going to be able to do that. Have you seen that be a common issue across the country?Ron Otterbacher:Yes, I have, and I think that's why it's so important to exercise your plan, is because although you may have school board downtown, I don't know that in most of the plans I've seen, they called for them to go down and run reunification. Its usually teachers are going to go with the students, and they're going to account for them wherever they go. So, that's why it's important to sit down and discuss it ahead of time. There's no pressure on us today to discuss it. When an incident's happening, the pressure is immense, and we're setting ourselves up for failure if we haven't practiced it.Bill Godfrey:I completely agree with you. It's such an important thing to do, even in getting the school principals, and if there is a district office or a school board, getting those representatives to kind of understand what their role is in the incident management of one of these events, that you're not going to just kind of go off and do this separate thing. The kids have to be moved in a secure and safe way. There's going to be security issues at the reunification site that law enforcement is certainly going to be engaged with.There's accountability issues for the kids, releasing them back. Law enforcement is going to want to interview everybody to figure out who saw what and who knows what. Yeah, custody issues. There's a whole lot of stuff that that goes on with this. So, I think your comment is right on the money, that it's not only important to have these plans, it's important to actually take the time to exercise them and, to some degree, I don't know. Don, wouldn't you even say it's important to some degree include the parents so that they have some idea of what to expect if you're going to do one of these things?Don Tuten:Absolutely, and I think that works on several levels. Number one, it gives them the opportunity to understand what is going to take place if an event does happen. So, it pre-educates them on what is to be expected by law enforcement, what is to be expected by the school, as well as what is to be expected of them, the parent when they do arrive at that reunification location. And, some of the question is already answered, so hopefully, and we all hope that this does not continue to happen, and we don't have another event, but hopefully if something does happen, it helps increase their awareness of how safe their children really are when it comes to the reunification process, how professional it is going to be run, and it speeds up the process on getting the kids back.Ron Otterbacher:I agree. I think it's important that we bring them into the fold, so they have a knowledge. If they don't, the unknown is what causes fear. If they don't know what's coming about, it's going to increase their anxiety and fear level. By increasing that, it's going to increase the probability that something will go wrong, and there'll be some sort of confrontation. I think the more you can give them, the better they'll be.Stephen Shaw:Bringing in the parents, it's just like when we talk about integration with other agencies. I think a lot of it begins with ... We don't need to necessarily wait for a crisis event to practice our reunification. One of the things that we deal with in North Carolina and the South is tornadoes, ice storms. If we have a significant weather event that shuts down a school, we can start to practice some of our reunification methods at the school, let the parents know this is how we're going to get you back together with your kids. It doesn't necessarily have to be an active shooter event for us to start working on some of these methods and ironing out what our issues may be.Bill Godfrey:I think these are all great points. So, guys, if I wrap this up and summarize it, our big gaps that we commonly see is a school that doesn't have a plan, or they've got a plan, but there's flawed assumptions in the plan that they're going to use their own campus or use their own people and facilities, don't exercise the plan, and to some degree, we may not have told parents what to expect. Did I miss anything. Ron?Ron Otterbacher:The one thing I would add to it is reunification is beyond schools. Businesses need to have plans. Any group of people that are together need to have a plan for reunification if something goes awry.Bill Godfrey:Absolutely, absolutely. Gentlemen, I can't thank you enough for taking the time. I hope those listening enjoyed it, and I invite you to come back and listen to our final podcast in this series, which is going to be just an overall summary of what the gaps in our preparedness are and some of the things that we can do about them. Until then, stay safe. We look forward to having you back soon.

Times-Union reporter Andrew Pantazi and Public Safety Editor Scott Butler talk about tracking Jacksonville's homicide rate and explain how the Times-Union's homicide database differs from that of the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.

Join us on Women Lead Radio as Snowden McFall, your host of Women Igniting Success, has a conversation with Lakesha Burton, Assistant Chief of Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, about her personal experience with domestic violence and childhood abuse, and how to handle situations like hers. Interested in Learning More About Connected Women of Influence? Click Here to Be Invited as Our Special VIP & Guest to a Future Event! Interested in Becoming a Member of Our Professional Community!? Click Here to Apply for Membership!

Jaguars defensive tackle Marcell Dareus discusses how defensive communication improves during OTAs, and describes his recent ride-along with the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office in an interview with J.P. Shadrick.

As the rest of the state grows safer, Duval County is headed in the opposite direction. Times-Union reporter Andrew Pantazi discusses about the latest murder and violent crime statistics with Page One Podcast host Mark Woods.  

Michelle Cook has served in law enforcement for over 25 years. She started with the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office in 1992 and retired from JSO in 2017 in order to become the Police Chief for Atlantic Beach, FL. She's the parent of four adopted foster children and she's never let anyone dictate what kind of person she would become. There are badasses, and then there is Michelle Cook.

Jacksonville Shooting: Gunman's Motive Probed; Gamers Call For More Security At EventsAuthorities continued to probe Monday why a player at a video-game tournament in Jacksonville, Florida, gunned down two people and wounded 11 others Sunday, an incident that has prompted calls for more security at gaming events.The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office said the lone shooter, who is believed to be David Katz, 24, of Baltimore, was among the dead and had killed himself. No motive has been revealed yet. Some media reports said Katz was upset about losing an intense game.FBI agents, some in bulletproof vests with long guns, searched a family home of the man authorities believe is behind the attack in Baltimore, according to FBI spokesman Dave Fitz. The agents could be seen entering an upscale townhome complex near the city's Inner Harbor.The violence broke out during a Madden NFL 19 video game tournament that was held in a gaming bar that shared space with the Chicago Pizza and Sports Grille in an entertainment complex along the St. Johns River in Jacksonville. The incident stunned gamers and sparked questions about security at gaming events. They are typically livestreamed from local bars or other gathering spots; the largest are held in sports arenas. Another tournament, the Evolution Championship Series in Las Vegas, drew about 15,000 people in March.

Jacksonville Shooting: Gunman's Motive Probed; Gamers Call For More Security At EventsAuthorities continued to probe Monday why a player at a video-game tournament in Jacksonville, Florida, gunned down two people and wounded 11 others Sunday, an incident that has prompted calls for more security at gaming events.The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office said the lone shooter, who is believed to be David Katz, 24, of Baltimore, was among the dead and had killed himself. No motive has been revealed yet. Some media reports said Katz was upset about losing an intense game.FBI agents, some in bulletproof vests with long guns, searched a family home of the man authorities believe is behind the attack in Baltimore, according to FBI spokesman Dave Fitz. The agents could be seen entering an upscale townhome complex near the city's Inner Harbor.The violence broke out during a Madden NFL 19 video game tournament that was held in a gaming bar that shared space with the Chicago Pizza and Sports Grille in an entertainment complex along the St. Johns River in Jacksonville.   The incident stunned gamers and sparked questions about security at gaming events. They are typically livestreamed from local bars or other gathering spots; the largest are held in sports arenas. Another tournament, the Evolution Championship Series in Las Vegas, drew about 15,000 people in March.Psychology, mental health, Dr. John Huber, Kristin Walker, video games, mass shooting, stress, depression, self help 

Episode 07: Tactical Training for Leaders Discussion of leadership engagement, tactical training for leaders, and leadership modeling. Bill Godfrey: Hello, and welcome to our next installment of our podcast series on active shooter incident management training. My name is Bill Godfrey, a retired fire chief, and one of the instructors for C3 Pathways. I'm your host today, and with me is Michelle Cook, also one of our instructors but recently retired from the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office after 26 years. Michelle retired as the director of patrol and enforcement, which in layman's terms, Michelle, basically you were the ops chief - Michelle Cook: I was chief, yes. Bill Godfrey: About 1,200 uniformed officers. Michelle Cook: Yes, sir, 1,200. Bill Godfrey: And now she is enjoying life. For the last year, she is the police chief of Atlantic Beach Police Department, a small, beach-side community, beautiful little area, with ...? Michelle Cook: 30 officers. Bill Godfrey: 30 officers. Michelle Cook: 30 total officers. Bill Godfrey: From 1,200 to 30. Michelle Cook: 30. Bill Godfrey: So something tells me we're going to be coming back to some stories there about the difference between large agencies and small agencies. But in this episode we are going to be talking about tactical training for leaders, both on the law enforcement side and the fire department side. Michelle, you've been on the job for 27 years so you were around when Columbine occurred in '99. And as we all have so often pointed to this kind of watershed moment of, "Wow. Things need to change here. We need to make an adjustment," give us a look back from your perspective on the changes that you've seen both in the tactical training for line officers, for patrol officers, and then also the training that went with that for leadership on the law enforcement side and how to manage these incidents differently. Michelle Cook: Sure. So Columbine happened in 1999 and in that year, and the previous couple of years prior to that, I was working part-time at the police training academy. So when Columbine happened, I was there when we evolved our tactics. We knew that, at that point, surrounding the building and calling the SWAT team was no longer going to work. People were dying because that was our strategy, and so we knew that wasn't going to work. So following Columbine a series of evolutions came out, tactical evolutions, that saw the introduction of contact teams. You know? First they were diamond shaped with five people inside, and then it went to three people, and we've evolved so far today that a lot of agencies are pushing the solo officer entry, if that is the best route for that officer at that moment, at that event. So tactics have definitely evolved since 1999, and they continue to evolve. Up until C3, what I haven't seen is the evolution of, "How do you manage these incidents or events?" So pre 1999, I'm a patrol supervisor on the street; an active shooter call goes out. I tell my officers, "Surround the building. Wait for SWAT." SWAT shows up. SWAT command does their thing; they take charge of the building. When tactics change for a patrol officer to make entry, we never trained the supervisors on how to lead or manage that entry. So as tactics have changed, leadership and management of these incidents and events hasn't evolved, and that's really where we have a training gap now. Bill Godfrey: It's interesting the way that you've put that. I think in a lot of ways, we have a very similar gap on the Fire-EMS side. Of course, the fire service has been using ICS for years, and in some ways that has grown a level of self-assured confidence that we can kind of manage or handle anything. And one of the things ... You know? You mentioned C3 beginning the work in this area quite a few years ago now. One of the things that led us to that was kind of the "whoops!" moment where we went, "Okay. The way we manage a fire applied to an active shooter event is not having the kind of outcome that we want, and we need to perhaps look at this and see if there aren't some things that are different." And of course, there were, and there are some things that we train to very, very differently on that front. It reminds me though ... You know? Sheriff Kevin Barry in one of our previous podcast episodes was talking about the challenges of being the chief, that the higher level leadership ... You know? You're inundated day to day ... And I remember this from my time too. You're inundated day to day with budget meetings, and paperwork, and HR issues, and purchasing stuff. It can be very difficult to say, "I'm going to take an entire day and go to training. I'm going to take a week and go to training and set that time aside." It's very easy to push it away. And Kevin was making the point that sometimes as a leader, you've just got to suck it up and get it done and recognize that it's a priority. Do you think that that is impacting, in a negative way, our ability to get leadership across the country prepared to manage one of these events? Michelle Cook: I think that's part of it. I think there's a couple of other things that are happening too. You know? We have the busy schedules. We also have this, "Well my guys will handle it. My guys will go in there and kill the bad guy, and my guys will handle it and it'll be taken care of," and what we've learned is active shooter incidents are much bigger now than just going in and killing the bad guy. And up until C3 Pathways, there was never a template of how to manage these incidents so that the tactics guys were knocking it out of the park with the evolution of how to go in there and mitigate the bad guy. What wasn't happening prior to C3 Pathways, there was nobody saying, "Hey, this is a way to manage it. Here's a template for you to use. This is how you, as leadership, can manage this large event that is going to expand very rapidly. And within minutes you're going to have hundreds of resources there." There never really existed a template for leadership so the combination of being really busy, passing the buck to your guys to handle it, and a template being out there, I think, all led us to where we have found ourselves, which is a lot of leaders have been caught on their heels, so to speak, not understanding what's happening or how to manage it. You know? I'm not going to point out any particular recent event but if you look at them as a whole, how many times did you hear on the radio we had line level officers, Fire-EMS trying to do their job and somebody in management was saying, "Well hold on. Wait a minute. Wait until I get there. You guys don't go in yet"? And that's because that leader failed to understand the tactics that were occurring, and failed to prepare themselves to manage those tactics. Bill Godfrey: That's a really interesting point. When you think about some of the exercises that both of us have done and been involved in, we've seen that occur just in exercises and training, where the command post ... And I've seen it happen on the medical side as well, in Fire-EMS. There's this challenge of, "When is the warm zone really warm?" or, "When is it warm enough?" and hesitation from the command post in wanting to let the rescue task force go downrange, or wanting to let them move downrange, and I always kind of found that interesting. Because you're trying to get your head wrapped around something that you can't directly see and observe, as opposed to the police officers that are already downrange who are saying, "We're ready for the medics. Send me the medics. Send the rescue task force." And they know what that means. They understand what they're asking for ... Michelle Cook: But the leadership doesn't. Bill Godfrey: Right. Michelle Cook: Because the leadership has not attended any training, looked into what their guys are actually practicing, or attended any training themselves. So if my guys are using terms downrange, and describing things that I've never heard before - warm zone, hot zone, cold zone, red, greens, casually collection points - if I don't know what those mean as a leader, the natural tendency is to say, "Well hold on, guys. I need to come look at this before I let anything happen." Bill Godfrey: "I need a minute." Michelle Cook: "I need a minute." Because, you know? You have to prepare the brain for the actual event. And if you as a leader have failed to prepare your brain for what can eventually happen, then you're going to get caught off guard. And that's the lapse that we're seeing. That's the, "Hold on, guys. Wait a minute. Wait till I get there," that we've seen in recent events, and unfortunately people die because of that. Bill Godfrey: And I think that's my frustration in trying to communicate the challenge sometimes. It's not about right or wrong. Michelle Cook: Correct. Bill Godfrey: It's not about right or wrong. It's not about, "There a right way to do this and a wrong way to do this," or even a best way. It's a question of the clock. You've got two things that are going to kill people: the bad guy and the clock. I mean, law enforcement, last 10 years - you can look at the numbers and look at the data - historically, putting the bad guy down very quickly. Michelle Cook: Correct. Bill Godfrey: That active threat is ending in minutes. It's very quick but yet we keep managing to fumble the opportunity to quickly get medical care in to patients, and then quickly get them transport. That's the other thing of this, is ... You know? It's not just enough to get the RTF downrange; we've got to get those patients out again. And so that whole hesitation from the command post that says, "Oh, I need a minute to get comfortable with this ..." Michelle Cook: Correct. Bill Godfrey: We're just burning clock. Michelle Cook: Sure. And we haven't trained with our counterparts on the Fire and EMS side. So not only have I not trained to the tactics that my guys are using and understood those, I haven't trained with the Fire-EMS guys. So when the guys downrange are talking about rescue task forces and I have an EMS person walking up, I don't know what they're talking about because I have failed to prepare myself. Bill Godfrey: I think the fire service as a whole ... EMS as well, but I think the fire service kind of takes the brunt of this. We've missed an opportunity to make it welcoming to the Incident Command System. You know? Between the fire service being very rigid- Michelle Cook: Sure. Bill Godfrey: Very rigid. Very black and white, very rigid, very dictatorial about how ICS is supposed to be, and have to do it this way and have to do it that way. Michelle Cook: And policemen think ICS is a bad word. Bill Godfrey: Yeah, exactly. Michelle Cook: Right? Bill Godfrey: Which is largely our fault, and FEMA played a part in that a little bit too. Somewhere along the lines, law enforcement, they not only think ICS is a bad thing, is a bad word, they think a tractor trailer full of paperwork is going to back up to your scene and dump 10 tons of paper on you scene. That's not what it's about at all, and I think we've got some work to do there, but I think even on the fire side, there are some gaps for us as well because the functions and the command posts in an active shooter event are very different than what they typically are in how you run a fire. In a fire, it is typically a fairly flat hierarchy. It's the, the battalion chief is in command, and he is directly ... All of the troops that he's directing are direct reports. We don't see a lot of these where there's a bunch of divisions and branches. It happens sometimes, but it's not very common, and the incident commander, as that battalion chief in that fire, is actually providing not just strategic directions but tactical direction. That doesn't work in an active shooter event. No, that tactical direction has got to come from the tactical and triage level- Michelle Cook: Who are at the scene. Bill Godfrey: -at the scene, at the edge of the warm zone, and the command post has a whole host of other issues that they've got to deal with and manage, and I think that from the fire side, there's just a failure to understand that not only do we need to implement those layers, but we really ... These things are a bottom up driven event. You have got to trust the eyes and the ears, and the judgment of the people down range and support what they're trying to accomplish rather than trying to dictate the tactics that they're going to execute. Michelle Cook: Sure. Sure, and that goes back to if you understand and train with the guys at the line level on what they're doing and what their competency is, and you have a trust in them, and you trust your fifth man, you trust that tactical person to be making those calls. If you're at the command post, and this is another interesting thing about police work, is in many cases, for years, the police command post has been at the scene, like on top of the scene. I know firemen are guilty of that as well, but the closer we can get to it, the better, and that's just not going to work here because if you trust your line level officers to be handling the job, and you trust your tactical to be working with triage and transport to get the injured off the scene, there's a whole host of things that need to be happening at the command level that you cannot do if you're in the weeds at the scene. But because we haven't trained on what's going on, we resort to what we know, which is getting back into the weeds. I've listened to audio clips where you have captains and police officers of higher rank trying to dictate line level tactics at the scene, and they're not even there. That's another kind of cultural change in the industry that we have to see. Bill Godfrey: Officers, you trust them with a gun and with bullets, and on the fire side, we're trusting the medics with drugs and a defibrillator and an advanced airway, but somehow, now all of a sudden, in this environment, we're hesitant to trust their judgment a little bit. It's interesting. Michelle Cook: Well, I'm not sure if it's hesitant to trust their judgment. I think we're hesitant because we don't know what they're doing, because we haven't been there to train ourselves. It goes back to, "Well, I'm too busy. My guys can handle that. It'll never happen here. I'll send my guys to the training." We've hosted several training events over the past year here, and I'm getting line level officers, which is great, but we're trying to teach incident management here and they're sending line level officers. I think it's hesitancy because they don't understand what's happening, and they're not prepared because they haven't engaged in training. Bill Godfrey: Meanwhile, the sergeants, lieutenants, captains are going to be the ones there that are going to be expected to put their arms around the thing and there's a gap. Michelle Cook: Sure. Sure. Bill Godfrey: So, given this gap that we've so eloquently discussed here, what's your short list? What are the things that a leader ... What's a modern day law enforcement leader need to know about managing an active shooter event? What's your short list? Michelle Cook: I think you have to research active shooter incident management. C3 Pathways is a way. For me, it makes sense. It works, so I think you, as a law enforcement leader, have to find some active shooter incident management training out there somewhere and you have to attend it. Don't send your people. You've got to go yourselves. I think you also need to attend active shooter tactical training that your officers attend. Number one so you understand it and number two, there's a chance, especially for somebody like me who works at a small agency, there is a chance that I could be a first responder, and so you have to understand what tactics you guys are training to so you don't muck it up the day of. I think those are probably the biggest things. Then, you've got to make nice with the firemen and EMS that work in the area. I think you've got to do that, and you've got to talk these concepts with them so that game day, everybody is on the same page. Bill Godfrey: If I were to have a short list on the fire/EMS side, similar in many ways, I think that leadership of fire/EMS needs to get to the training that the line people are taking. They need to see it, they need to understand it, they need to go through it and have the opportunity to ask some questions. I also think at the command post, they need to understand that where you normally in your role of leadership in the fire service are very tactically driven. You're very operational and hands-on, that in the command post, that's not going to be the role. That role is instead going to be handled down range by the tactical triage and transport officers that are operating at the edge of the warm zone, and that it has got to be a bottom up driven event. This idea, and I think the other piece of this, and they're kind of tied in together, is the idea of over-driving it, or what I'm going to call micromanagement from the command post has got to stop- Michelle Cook: Got to stop. Bill Godfrey: You've got to get that out of there, it's got no place, and then the other thing is this false security blanket of unified command is going to solve everything. We, of course, know you were part of the research that we did when we had some gaps that came up because of relying on that. If you stovepipe through the top and try to run everything operationally through the command post- Michelle Cook: It's not going to work. Bill Godfrey: -through unified command, it's not ... Well, in fairness, it's just not going to be fast. Michelle Cook: Right, it would be slow. Bill Godfrey: You'll get there. It's slow. Michelle Cook: Yes. Bill Godfrey: It's not going to get the job done quickly, and I think what has happened is we've confused, in the fire service, unified command, which is a very specific term with a very specific meaning, and as an old guy who was on the job when we invented it and added it to the ICS vernacular, it was developed to deal with this situation where more than one entity had a legal authority to be in charge of the incident, and we've confused the idea of unified command with what I think we really should be talking about, which is unified management. Up and down the food chain, we need to have line level law enforcement officers and line level medics that are trained and know how to work together on their teams, be it rescue task force or other functions. We need first level supervisors, sergeants, in some cases lieutenants too, or corporals or advanced level officers on the law enforcement side, and company officers on the fire and EMS side who understand the role of tactical triage or transport, and understand how that fits together. Then, the leadership, the executive level leadership, needs to understand that the role of the command post is to support those missions but also the much larger community impact, the messaging, if you're dealing with one of these- Michelle Cook: Sure. Bill Godfrey: -events at a school, you and I have had these conversations so many times. Michelle Cook: Sure. Bill Godfrey: It used to be you could wait 30 minutes before you started putting the message out. Your parents are going to be at these schools before your full response shows up. Michelle Cook: Sure, and I want to go back on something you just said. I was recently invited to a law enforcement panel discussion with the community, and there was probably about 100 citizens there. There was three law enforcement leaders there, including myself, and a citizen asked "If an active shooter happened at XYZ location, who has jurisdiction?" My response to that citizen was, "If we're all training together or working together, until the last injured person is transported off that property, it doesn't matter who has jurisdiction because we're all on the same team, and the team is there to stop the killing and stop the dying. Then we'll talk about who has investigative jurisdiction." I think that lends to the value of leadership training and leadership relationship building with those jurisdictions around you, both police, fire and EMS. Bill Godfrey: Fantastic point. Travis Cox, who you know, a lieutenant with Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, one of our other instructors on another episode, he made the point that if this comes to your hometown, it doesn't matter what patch is on your sleeve. It doesn't matter whether it's a law enforcement patch, a fire department patch, an ambulance patch, a hospital patch. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what jurisdiction. We are there to save lives, and we've got to work through all of that. The other point that he made that I thought was really very critical is that the ability to work together doesn't happen automatically. Michelle Cook: No. Bill Godfrey: You've got to make an effort. Michelle Cook: You have to make an effort, and as a leader of an organization, you have to lead by example. If you expect your line level guys up and down your chain to be making relationships with the other agencies around them the other officers around them. You as the leader need to be leading by example and they need to see you having conversations and training with both Fire, EMS and other police organizations. Bill Godfrey: Interesting. So I'm gonna come back to this size shift from the Jacksonville Sheriff's office of 1200 down to Atlantic Beach police Department of 30 officers. Michelle Cook: That's 30 including me. Bill Godfrey: 30 inclu ... well you know, we actually have had a number of active shooter events across the country where the police chief was one of the first ones in the door so you're right it's not unheard of but it does make me think. In law enforcement ... I mean across the country aren't most law enforcement agencies smaller agencies as opposed to these gigantic metro organizations? Michelle Cook: Absolutely, absolutely. Most ... about 90% of law enforcement agencies have 25 officers, 50 officers or less. So most are small and it's really recognizing that has really made me step up my tactical game because I understand that being one of five or six people who may be on duty during the day, there's a good chance that if something happens in my community or on one of the neighboring communities, I'm gonna be a first responder. Bill Godfrey: Interesting. So you are in what I would consider to be a very unique position to have the perspective from a large agency down to a small agency. We just talked about what was on your hit list of leadership training. For the chiefs of police, sheriff's of rural communities and the leadership at the larger ones. What do you think are the differences? So we talked about the things that you needed to hit but tell me a little bit about how that impacts the large agency versus the small agency. Am I asking that? You're giving me the puzzled look. On the scale of the leadership of these large agencies, what are the things that they need to focused on versus- Michelle Cook: Leadership of a smaller agency. Bill Godfrey: The leadership at a small agency. As you're moving down the scale and size, what are the differences and challenges? Michelle Cook: Well I think with the larger organizations you've got to stick with the tactical training and you have to make sure that your line level supervisors, sergeants, lieutenants, assistant chiefs or captains, whatever you have. All have both tactical training as well as management training, active shooter incident management training and can fill those roles. When I was at the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office being the number three in charge there was probably very little to any chance that I would ever be out and about near an active shooter scene in fact- Bill Godfrey: Did they even let you carry your gun back then? Michelle Cook: I got to carry my gun but I was usually 30 to 45 minutes away so all the good stuff had happened by the time I got there. So I was really more in the management lane so to speak on those. The smaller agencies, you got to know from top to bottom. I got to know everything from tactical ... being a contact team. First person in the building all the way to briefing the governor an hour later when he calls. So I've got to be prepared for all of that. Both the first responder role to the command role and everything in between and it's ... the training's a lot more fun 'cause you get to engage some more of the hands-on training but especially if you're in a rural area and you don't have a whole lot of resources you need to be on your A game, all the time. Because there is ... you're it, you're it and if you don't know how to respond that's gonna be a problem and if you don't know how to manage it. To me the problem is going to be worse because in Jacksonville if 600 policemen responded they worked for me. So they all knew my language, they all knew the codes, they all knew what to expect, they knew me. Something that happens out here in Atlanta beach, I've got probably six to 10 different agencies responding. They don't all know Michelle Cook so if I'm not making an effort to get out there and tell them what I expect in Atlantic Beach. Tell them how we're going to respond in Atlantic Beach and they understand what's gonna happen when they come into our jurisdiction then that adds to an already bad problem and I think you've seen that in a lot shootings. So many jurisdictions show up and they haven't trained together. So that is a problem that I think smaller, rural communities face is not only are a lot of resources coming but a lot of resources who have no idea what to expect are coming. Bill Godfrey: Interesting. So let me ask you this one from these different levels that you've been at from large to small. For your contemporaries out there on the law enforcement side, law enforcement leadership. What are the suggestions or tips that you would give them about working with their fire services EMS counterparts? How do they engage, cut through politics, budget talk, hard feelings left over from 20 years ago of XYZ thing. How do you get the job done? Michelle Cook: Persistence. We're very fortunate we have a fire station next door that is affiliated with the county not with the city and there are ... when I have a few minutes I walk over there and I start talking to them and I'm dealing with three different shifts so I got to hit them three times. I'll walk over there with diagrams, with a list of definitions and I'll just leave it on the table where they eat and hope they look at it. I invite them to every single training that we have and encourage them to come over even if they can only stay a few minutes. At least they're getting something out of it. And just persistence of, "hey guys" in fact this week they were watching the fire truck and I said, "Hey guys, what's the status of your body armor." And so they were talking about how their agency is gonna handle body armor so we had some conversation about well what if something happens out here at the beach? How are we gonna handle it? And so even those little informal touches I think all lend to the relationship. It doesn't have to be formal meetings. It can be, "Hey I'm gonna come sit down with you while you're eating, hey let's talk about this." But I think you have to be persistent about it. You can't let it go, it's so easy. It's so much easier to just let it go and think, "Okay it will never happen here." But I don't wanna be that guy who's named in an after-action report or who's face appears across national news as failed to do her job. And I don't wanna let the kids down, the people down, the community down or my agency down and I think that if you're not looking at this realistically. If you're not making any effort to address this at your level then you're letting your community down. I'll just be point blank about. You're letting the community you serve down by not preparing for this. Bill Godfrey: I think that's very well put. On the far side I think it's part of just going to have the conversation. Making a deliberate purposeful effort to say to the Police Chief or to the Sheriff or to the Commander or whoever you've got the relationship with. To open the door and say I really wanna talk about this. We need to talk about this some more and start small. You mention inviting them to training, I think anytime you can do joint training between law enforcement, fire EMS and include the dispatchers it's a game changer in getting things done but I think the other thing on the fire services, we also need to not overstep our area of expertise. Active shooter events are essentially a murder in progress. Michelle Cook: Absolutely. Bill Godfrey: And at no point is a fire department going to have legal authority to be in charge of a murder in progress. Not while somebody is trying to murder and while yes, we may be in charge of patient care. We can't do that patient care without access to the patients that is limited and controlled by law enforcement in an unsecured scene and certainly we're not gonna be in charge of the investigative stage. So I think a little bit of this, I don't wanna say, it's not so much a hat in hand approach but a knowing where we fit. That this is a type of incident where we are a supportive role. It's an important part of it but if we're going to save lives we have to work together. We might have the best medics in the world but if you can't physically get access to the patients because you haven't trained with you law enforcement officers, it isn't gonna do any good. Michelle Cook: Correct. Bill Godfrey: If you're transporting patients in the back of a police car there's not patient care going on in the back of that police car. Michelle Cook: Or you're taking them all to one hospital because we haven't prepared to manage this. Bill Godfrey: Exactly, exactly so I do think it is very much a two-way street but you make a really interesting point. Wow the time really flew by. Anything else that's on your mind that you wanna talk about as we wrap up here? Michelle Cook: ICS is not a bad word. No this has been good. I just ... I encourage police leaders. Make the effort, make the effort because lives depend on it. Bill Godfrey: Michelle thank you very much for taking the time to do this today. I look forward to the next one. Michelle Cook: Thank you. Original Source: https://www.c3pathways.com/podcast/tactical-training-for-leaders

Episode 05: Casualty Collection Point and Ambulance Exchange Point Discussion of Casualty Collection Points (CCP) and Ambulance Exchange Point (AEP) in Active Shooter Incident Management (ASIM) Bill Godfrey: Hello, and welcome to this next installment of talking about some of the challenges that we see on active shooter incidents. Today we are going to talk about Casualty Collection Points. My name is Bill Godfrey, a retired Fire Chief and one of the instructors at C3 Pathways. I have with me part of the Instructor cadre team, Adam Pendley, Assistant Chief with Jacksonville Sheriff's Office. We've got Travis Cox, Lieutenant from Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, Kevin Burd, Lieutenant with the Huntington County Prosecutor's office. All three of them are law enforcement, obviously. Then also with me we've got Robert Lee, retired Battalion Chief, Paramedic and Tom Billington, also a retired Fire Chief and a Paramedic. Welcome guys, thanks for taking the time this afternoon to talk about this. So the subject today is Casualty Collection Points, and some of the challenges, what makes a good Casualty Collection Point, what doesn't, how do we manage them, how do we work them together, how do we deal with some of the law enforcement issues and then some of the EMS issues. Adam, you want to kind of set the stage for us on what we're talking about as we move into a building. You make entry, we've presumably dealt with the threat, or there's a team in process of dealing with the threat. But the first ones through the door are going to be law enforcement. Law enforcement officers, in some element of a Contact Team, it may just be two or three guys, or it may be four or five. Set the stage for us of what this looks like as the Contact Teams are working in the building and making a decision about where they're going to set up a Casualty Collection Point, and what they're going to pick. Adam Pendley: Sure. I think we're all familiar from the law enforcement perspective that there's this push towards dealing with the threats, stop the killing. But along the way, those first Contact Teams are going to identify areas where there are Casualties, where there are injured folks that need to be cared for. It becomes important to ... whether it's the initial Contact Team that is no longer being driven by some sort of move towards the threat that they have to make a decision to go ahead and establish a Casualty Collection Point, or communicate that there's injury in a particular place and a follow on team is going to establish a Casualty Collection Point so you can quickly or simultaneously both deal with the threat and start worrying about your second priority, which is the rescue, dealing with those folks that are bleeding and need immediate care. I think it's important for law enforcement to understand that initial team that is going to establish a Casualty Collection Point so you can make it to your next priority. I think Kevin can probably talk a little bit about what that team is going to do when they enter a room that has a number of Casualties in it that we need to move towards. Kevin Burd: Okay, so once we've identified in an area where we may have multiple Casualties, regardless of the tactics that are used to enter that room, once we get into that room we want to establish points of domination. They'll mention we may only have two or three officers, maybe we have four or five at this point. But once we enter that room we want to have points of domination so we can put folks that are in that room in an area that's Tactically advantageous to us. What we're trying to look to establish is obviously securing that room, and also looking at is this room advantageous to us where we can eventually set up an Ambulance Exchange Point. Maybe that room, if it happens to have exit doors, or an exit door, some place where we can eventually get to move those patients out, we want to make sure that we've secured that entire area. If we have multiple Casualties in that room, we're going to put them in an area where there're no issues from the law enforcement side in that we could be putting them in a position where we could have cross-fire issues where it may be near an exit door where they could possibly get away from us. We have to identify who they are first and foremost. One of the important things to remember, too, is once we establish those points of domination we have to control and secure that room and make it defensible because others will be coming in eventually to provide assistance. When you're in that room and you're in that area, a couple of things you want to be cognizant of is what could be used against us, if you will. If there are areas where we can't secure that area, we may have to look at collapsing other Casualties in the room into our area, or possibly setting up secondary Casualty Collection Points. But primarily the first room we go into, if we have several of the Casualties, or a majority of the Casualties there, we want to establish those points of domination, make sure that we have enough resources there, we may be calling out requesting additional resources because we want to secure that area so any follow-on resources that come in to assist us, it's completely secured. In dealing with the Casualties themselves, I think Travis, you can touch in on that. Travis Cox: Absolutely. One of the responsibilities of law enforcement inside a Casualty Collection Point is to do some type of Triage of the victims or the patients that are inside that room. One way the law enforcement can do that very rapidly is basically by addressing the folks that are inside that room and asking those that can move, ask them to move to one side of the room against the wall. Once you have that one group against the wall, you still may have some people that are injured that can't move, and they'll still be on the floor. Obviously, you're going to use good law enforcement commands, tell them to keep their hands where they can be visible for all of law enforcement to see, but you want them to move against one wall. Once you separate that group, you have one group on the ground still, and you have one group against the wall. Once you have that group against the wall, you're going to give a second command to say those that are standing against the wall, if you're not injured, or you've not been hurt in any way, move to a separate wall ... a second wall. So now you've basically separated that room into three groups. You have the injured folks that are on the ground that cannot move, you have a second group that did move but they're injured and they're standing on one wall, and then you have a third group that has moved to a second wall but they're uninjured. You have now did a quick Triage of that room so you can call those folks using the medical terms of the "reds" which mean people that are injured that could not move. You can even classify them as a "red patient". Those people that are injured but can move are also known as a "walking wounded." Those would be your green patients. And then your uninjured folks that you would not assign them a color, they're just people that have been involved in the incident and they have no injuries. So you separated the people in your room into three different groups, and that's a quick way that you, as a law enforcement officer, can Triage a room and help you manage that room until your medical counterparts arrive. Bill Godfrey: Let me kind of summarize and see if I've got this right on what you're saying. You identify the room that you want to use, or the room that you're going to make entry to. You use some tactics, depending on their training or local policy, to do the room entry, I guess the numbers of the team affect that as well. They get in the room, they look to take control of the crowd, take control of the people that are in the room, get them up against a wall, the ones that can, screen off the ones that aren't injured so that you've got the uninjured that can't move that are on the ground. We call those the "reds", the injured that are up against the wall that move, those are the "greens", the uninjured are on another wall. Then, what Kevin was talking about, the points of domination, to post your people up where you could control the room, control access to the room, and basically have that be a safe ... maybe the wrong word, but a reasonably safe room to work in. Am I describing that right? Did I miss anything? Travis Cox: Yes, you described it perfectly. What this allows you do is you can then identify people that may need medical treatment right away, and as law enforcement officers, if we have security measures in place in that room, we could then begin doing some of those life-safety measures on those folks that are injured and cannot move. So this is our opportunity to start those life-safety measures until our medical counterparts arrive. Bill Godfrey: So if you've got a team of four or five officers, a couple of them can hold security and a couple of them can start getting into the medical care, try to do some life-saving stuff? Travis Cox: Absolutely. Absolutely. That's one of the things that we're there for. Obviously, we know there's a threat in the building. Once we address that threat, our next priority is to start addressing those injured patients or those injured victims inside this crisis site. Adam Pendley: And I think it's worth adding that it's really not that different than typical level one training that law enforcement has received all over the country. We know that if we address a threat in a room that as soon as that threat is neutralized, you go into a SIM, a Security, Immediate Action Plan, Medical. Well, a team that may be assigned just to go to a Casualty Collection Point and secure a Casualty Collection Point is also putting together a SIM. They get security of the room, they put an Immediate Action Plan together as far as how they're going to deal with additional injured, how they're going to sort the room, where they're going to evacuate patients from, what additional resources they need, and then they start addressing the medical. So a team that may not have addressed the threat, they may just be a follow-on team that's assigned to deal with Casualties in a particular area. They're going to put together a SIM for that room as well, Security Immediate Action in Medical. Travis Cox: Let me add one more thing to that, Adam. One of the critical things that those law enforcement officers are going to do when they do Triage that room in that manner, is it allows them to give the number of injuries and the type of number of injured folks that they have to the Tactical person, or that person that's on the outside that's setting up the management aspect of an active shooter response. By doing these things, we can let Tactical know, "Hey, we have this many injured. This is how critically are they injured," and it gives them information to know how many Rescue Task Forces we may need, how many medical personnel we're going to need, how many rescue units or ambulances we're going to need, based on what we're seeing inside the crisis site. Bill Godfrey: So that provides us an interesting transition point to talk about it. Once you kind of get all that stuff set, you call out to Tactical and you say, "Okay, we're ready for a Rescue Task Force." So at this point we've got a law enforcement team that's inside. They've secured the room, they've got a Casualty Collection Point, if they've got enough numbers to hold security and do medical, they've started that. We've called Tactical to say, "Here is what we've got, our location and numbers. We need a Rescue Task Force." So then the RTF goes Downrange. So, Tom and Robert, talk a little bit about that first RTF through the door that's going to dump into that Casualty Collection Point. What are their responsibilities? What do they need to do when they walk into this room full of injured? Take us through that and paint the picture. Tom Billington: Okay, well piggy-backing off what my law enforcement counterparts have said, right off the bat they've painted a picture for me as an RTF. Before I even get into the room, I know kind of what I'm going to be seeing. So if there's more than three patients, I know right off the bat I'm going to need another RTF, or maybe two to three more RTFs to help me. When I enter the room with my security contingent, it sounds like as Travis said, I'm going to have personnel that are green in one area that are standing, or walking wounded, and then I'll have the other patients that are more severely injured. Since we are the first RTF we cannot use tunnel vision. We have to get in there and start sorting and arranging which patients need to be treated, do some quick interventions while we can, some life-saving interventions, and then make sure we're setting up the room for the next RTFs to come in. The first RTF when you get in there, if possible, you want to stay in there and kind of control the room and work with the law enforcement counterparts. That way, one person familiar with how the room is working and what patients need to be Transported, etc. Robert, what do you think? Bill Godfrey: Yeah, Robert, what are some of the challenges that you see the RTF teams running into and the mindsets? What are the things that people that need to be prepared for? Robert Lee: The first thing is we've got to make sure that our folks don't get the tunnel vision like Tom said, and concentrate on one patient. We need to scan the room. Those critically injured that we call "reds", we need to assess them, start to treat them, and prioritize them according to the severity in which ones need to be Transported. Priority opposed to the other one, so that makes sure we get the patients that need the care the soonest to the hospital first. One of the things that a lot RTFs tend to do is they find a patient that's critical, and they start providing that care, and they don't focus on the big picture -the whole room and all the patients that we have. When the other RTFs come in, those patients that we've identified as priority, we can start providing that care right off the bat and get them ready for Transport. Bill Godfrey: So the coordination piece of it is huge for that first RTF coming through the door. Robert Lee: Yes. Yep. Bill Godfrey: When they ... I guess from what you're saying, one of the first things we want to see that RTF do is to re-Triage these patients. I mean, law enforcement presumably has done a dirty red/green split just to give us a sense of the bigger picture numbers. But we need to re-Triage them and is start enough, or does it need to be more than start Triage? What does that Assessment look like that needs to go on there from the Rescue Task Force? Travis Cox: Yeah, we need to concentrate on making sure we're doing a full Assessment of these patients once the manpower is in the room, and we've identified who we need to start with first. That full Assessment is important. Instead of just doing the Triage itself and maybe just a quick treatment, we need to do a full Assessment like we would anybody else. Bill Godfrey: Yeah, and I know, Tom, we've talked many, many times in a lot of the classes we've taught where the start Triage is used. I don't know about you, but I certainly seem to have run across a lot of active duty folks in the EMS community that kind of feel like ... I get the sense that they don't realize that they need to do more than start. They think the greens can sit and wait for an hour. Tom, talk to me a little bit about some of the challenges in dealing with the severity and the different color groups, prioritizing the x-field, to whose going to go first, the mix of severities, and the implications for that for our ambulance loading. Tom Billington: In this situation we're dealing with trauma, gunshots usually. Right off the bat we need to decide which gunshots need surgical intervention as soon as possible. We need to be able to decide which patients we want to treat and Transport first. The other issue making sure that although some patients may be listed as green, remember, that may change. The numbers will continually change. The main thing is just making sure you're communicating with Triage about what hospitals you can utilize, what care various patients are going to need, a chest would versus a head wound, depending on the facilities you have, and being able to coordinate those patients out accordingly. Bill Godfrey: One of the things that I hear are Tactical and Triage, and Transport group supervisors talk about frequently in the scenarios that we run, is their frustration that they don't feel like the RTFs necessarily are giving them the information they need. They're not very quick to relay it to them how many reds, yellows, and greens they have. How many black tags. Again, it is difficult with a moving target, because the numbers ... As you begin to move patients out to Transport, law enforcement may be bringing some additional patients in. You may have a green that goes to a yellow, or a yellow that goes to a red. It is going to be a moving thing. What is the best practice for RTFs? What should be expecting from the RTFs in terms of keeping Triage informed of the numbers? When do they do that, and how often do they need to redo that? Tom Billington: Well obviously when we get into the room we want to double check on the counts that law enforcement gave us, and then do a thorough Triage again, and make sure they're color coded correctly. That would be a good time to let Triage know what we have and what color type patients we have. Again, remembering that by the time they get to the ambulance, the ambulance may have to change those color tags with Transportation so Transportation will get a good number at the end. Again, just keeping the number as fluid as possible, keep getting the information going. Again, that's another reason why the first RTF in the room may want to be the primary room proctor, stay there, and be able to monitor the patients as they change and add numbers or change numbers accordingly. Bill Godfrey: Tagging on to what you're saying about that, Tom, one of the things that we talk about in class sometimes is the Field Triage Score, which of course was a Triage system validated in a military study. Basically, it has two measurement points. You check the Radial pulse. If it's present and it's normal, they get one point. If it's absent, it's weak, thready, tachycardic, they get zero. Then you check your Glasgow Motor Score, not the whole GCS scale, just the motor score. Basically, do they obey commands. If they obey commands, they get one point. If they don't obey commands or are unable, they get zero. You add it together, zero, one, two, red, yellow, green. It's a nice, simple system, again, validated in a military study. It gives us some sense that it's a good, quick, easy way to get a good Triage of the patients that we're moving. So we get these patients packaged up, let's assume that we've got more patients that one RTF is going to handle, and we've got two or three other RTFs that are coming into the room. What role, Tom, does the first RTF need to take on in relation to the other ones coming in, or is it just a free-for-all, they all come in and take their own patient? Tom Billington: As I discussed earlier, that first RTF is sort of the lead, and hopefully they will be staying there for the duration. When the next RTF comes in, that lead wants to look at the RTF leader and the medical leader, and say, "You two go over there. You have this. You have that. You have a red. You have this injury. You take care of that." When the next RTF comes in, same thing. So you're kind of coordinating the whole operation. Again, making sure that if it's a red, which red do you want treated first? Which one needs that surgical intervention? Again, being in charge of that room and being able to direct the medical resources when they come is imperative. Bill Godfrey: So we get them lined up, we know whose going to go first, we kind of lay them out in order in the room, then we've got to coordinate the evacuation over to the Ambulance Exchange Point. Of course, the challenge there is we want to get the ambulance as close as we possibly can, but that kind of creates some security issues for it, doesn't it? What are we ... So we're back over to the law enforcement side of this in having to kind of coordinate our movements and behavior. What does that look like when we say, "Hey, we want to use this exit door over here that goes right out to the parking lot as our Ambulance Exchange Point." Adam Pendley: Well I think it's important to keep in mind that there is a security element with the RTFs, and they remain there the whole time. Again, their first priority is to provide that security element for the folks that are doing the medical care, but they also have communication with Tactical, so if there is a particular door that based on its location looks like that it would lead out to a good Ambulance Exchange Point, the security element can communicate with Tactical, and make sure that that area is secure so you can use that space efficiently. But I also feel like it's important to remember that if the security element of the room is doing its job, and there are extra law enforcement resources available, so much of law enforcement across the country has received additional training on some direct threat care, and may be able to assist with the medical element as well. So, there's a lot of resources in that room, but everyone has to realize that it is an integrated, cooperative response to make sure that the room is sorted, that the room is Triaged, and that medical care is happening, and when the RTFs are ready, that secured ambulance exchange points are happening. It's kind of a continuum of care that starts from the point at which law enforcement initially makes entering into that room, sorts the room, communicates to Tactical and Triage the numbers that they have. RTFs are brought into the room to start the medical care, and then continuing with law enforcement, there's a good security element to move them out to an Ambulance Exchange Point that would also coordinate with Transport that's there with Triage and Tactical so ambulances can come Downrange and get people to the hospital as quickly as possible. Travis Cox: If I can add to what Adam said, which is very important, you know a lot of us in emergency services and law enforcement, we have that built-up immunity where we try not to get too involved, and there's people bleeding around us that sometimes we have to step over them. But when the killing has stopped, [inaudible 00:22:32] is so important in law enforcement can save so many lives and help with the medical as far as just putting that tourniquet on and just getting the position where the patient can breathe just until they get more intervention. So, a lot more lives can be saved working together. Adam, good point. Bill Godfrey: Yeah, so we get them packaged up, we figure out where we're going to do our Ambulance Exchange Point. Assuming that you're spread too thin on the inside, who's going to take care of getting security over the Ambulance Exchange Point? How does that play out? Tom Billington: Well, one of the things that needs to happen, is there needs to be good communication to whoever that medical leader on that Rescue Task Force is, speaking with the law enforcement element within that Task Force so that medical person needs to give a heads up to the law enforcement counterpart, "Hey, we'll be ready to move in two to three minutes." That's the que for law enforcement to start communicating with Tactical, whose managing everything moving in the warm zone to start setting up that security perimeter around where the Ambulance Exchange Point's going to be. Again, also that law enforcement security personnel on the inside needs to request the location from Tactical because the location that they want to use as the Ambulance Exchange Point may not be the most optimal spot based on the information that Tactical has. So, if the place where the rescue responders on the inside want to use as the Ambulance Exchange Point is a viable location, then they'll set up security there. If not, they may have to re-route them. They may have to go to a different location for reasons not known to them. Bill Godfrey: So, Kevin- Kevin Burd: Yeah. Bill Godfrey: Paint the picture on the Tactical side. Let's say we're dealing with a school, two, three story building, we're going to use an exit door on the rear side of the school. What does that Contact Team that gets sent to secure the Ambulance Exchange Point ... what do we want them to do? What do they need to be looking for? What's their job? What does that look like? Kevin Burd: Really, what we're looking for, again, just like the room management part, the room security part, is to provide almost like a security bubble, if you will, outside that door where we've determined this is going to be the Ambulance Exchange Point. We're looking for that 360 or 540 degree coverage, and want to ensure that we have unimpeded egress for the ambulances to get into that location. It almost has to be a ballet act, if you will. We are looking for communication coming from the RTF, or the medical team leader, that "Hey, we're ready to move patients in two or three minutes," the law enforcement counterparts are ensuring that, "Hey, we've got security at the Ambulance Exchange Point." We don't want to put the Casualties out in an area where they're waiting for an extended period of time for those ambulances to come. So, we want to ... like that ballet act, if you will. The RTFs are moving the patients down to that Ambulance Exchange Point, security is making sure that, "Hey, it's safe to come outside," the ambulance at the same time is coming up, and it's a coordinated effort between all the disciplines to get the patients on to that ambulance as quickly as possible, as safely and securely as possible, and off to more advanced medical care. Bill Godfrey: You know, it's interesting. I think your comment about it being a ballet is really an appropriate way to think of this. It's very much an integrated piece on how we all have to work together. Law enforcement has that initial role to kind of get control of the room, set up the security, do some initial Triage, even if it's just a gross Triage to split the room between the walking wounded injured and the ones who can't move, make it a warm zone so that we can get a Rescue Task Force in. They can come in and re-Triage, do some ... whatever emergent advanced stabilizing care they need to, and then coordinate a place that the ambulances are going to come pick them up. It is very much a ballet, but the winning part of that is we take time off the clock. It saves time, and that's our goal is not just to put the bad guy down quickly, but also to take time off that clock for the people that have been shot and bleeding, and get them into the back of an ambulance faster. So I love your analogy of the ballet, and I think like this, if you practice and train it, and beautifully orchestrate it, it is something that can really make a difference and save lives. Well guys, thank you. I think you really did a nice job of painting the picture for the process of a CCP, and kind of crossing over to the other [inaudible 00:27:15]. Thanks for taking the time this afternoon. Take care, and we will talk to y'all soon. Original Source: https://www.c3pathways.com/podcast/casualty-collection-points-and-ambulance-exchange-points

Episode 01: Common Misconceptions Discussion of common misconceptions in Active Shooter Incident Management (ASIM) Bill Godfrey: Welcome to our discussion of active shooter incident management. Today, we've got with us Stephen Shaw, sergeant from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Adam Pendley, assistant chief with Jacksonville Sheriff's Office. Mark Rhame, retired fire chief from Deltona, Florida and Orange County, Florida. And Joe Ferrara, also retired fire chief from Martin County, Florida. My name is Bill Godfrey, also retired fire chief and your host this afternoon. And our question today is what do you think is the biggest misconception that people have about active shooter incident management? Adam, why don't we start with you? What's on your mind about the big misconceptions that you seen on the law enforcement side or the dispatch side? Adam Pendley: I think one of the misconceptions is this idea that it's entirely the first responder, the police officer, fire, EMS and that is definitely an important role. But I think it's important to remember that all the active shooter incidents start in the 911 center. That initial recognition of an active shooter event is so important and that initial intelligence gathering. And getting the right resources dispatched is so important to the ultimate success of managing an active shooter event. Not only does it start there, but as the first responders arrive on scene and they're giving those initial report backs, and follow on responders are dispatched. In a lot of training that you see for active shooter incident management, you don't see dispatch integrated into the training and response. I just think that's an important thing that must be addressed as we move forward to try to manage these active shooter events. Bill Godfrey: Steve, what do you think on the law enforcement side. Adam obviously addressed something near and dear to all of us on the comm side. What jumps out at you on the law enforcement side? Stephen Shaw: I think the biggest thing after Columbine, the focus was so much for law enforcement. The focus was so much on going after the threat and neutralizing the threat. I've actually been told in active shooter training that the incident management aspect of it will take care of itself. Someone will come along, a chief, a captain, someone like that who will come along and take care of that. So your average first line supervisor, especially does not put a lot of thought into there needs to be a command and control aspect within the first five minutes of an active shooter event that's set up very quickly. I think that's one of the things that as ... on the law enforcement side, during training, we focus so much on going after the threat and neutralizing the threat and then we just kinda stop our training there. We don't get into reunification. We don't get into press briefings. We don't get into where are we gonna send all of our injured people. I think that's one thing that's missing from the law enforcement side is just the ... we don't practice that incident management side of it enough. Bill Godfrey: It kinda stops with the bad guy down? Stephen Shaw: Correct. Bill Godfrey: Yeah. Joe, what's your perspective on the fire EMS side? Joe Ferrara: Well, I think, from a fire and EMS perspective, we do command really well. We do incident management well and we assist our law enforcement brethren with that. The part where I think fire and EMS has a hurdle and we need a paradigm shift is we're all trained that the scene is not safe. So we're gonna stage and wait for law enforcement to clear the scene. That doesn't work in active shooter incidents. People are gonna bleed to death. We need to get in there. We need to work with our law enforcement partners. We need to form our rescue task forces, go in as a security bubble and get the job done. We don't need to wait for a half hour, an hour. People don't have that kind of time. So, the shift that's occurring in the industry is that we as fire and EMS professionals, we need to train on the rescue task force concept. Work together with law enforcement to move in, get the patients together. Get them on ambulances and get them to the hospital. Bill Godfrey: Mark, what about you? Mark Rhame: I agree with Joe. If you went back 30, 35 years ago in my career, we used to go into scenes that were today considered unsecured. We literally would just go in under the belief that we could handle anything. Even without law enforcement presence, we would just respond into the scene and then we went. We flipped it 180 degrees where we started staging out. And it got to the point that we were staging out for so long that you were kinda wondering is the scene actually still active or not? Because we would be out there for 20 or 30 minutes, just sitting so far away. Not knowing what's going on. With little to no communication. This program that we're in right now with active shooter incident management allows us to get together very, very quickly. Develop those game plans. Not put our fire and EMS people in harm's way per se, but to get them in there as quick as possible, so we can save those lives. It's a better process than what we've been doing for the past 10 or 15 years. Bill Godfrey: That you brought that up is kinda interesting. This kind of parlays into some of the challenges with integrating the response. Each of the disciplines, law enforcement, fire, EMS, they do a good job in their own right, but in active shooter it gets kind of challenging for us to execute our missions because we have to so closely rely on each other. What do you think are some of the things that you've seen, the trends on the integration side or the challenges that lie there? Tag that into your thoughts. Mark Rhame: The problem is that nationwide, as we travel around the nation, you're seeing it's not ... we're not up to that point where we are integrating. There are some departments that are practices on a regular basis. We have some people here with their own department that do that whenever they do stand bys. They'll actually put rescue task force together and it creates a great environment for those events that are planned. What you're seeing out there is you still have that silo effect. You have firefighters, EMS departments and law enforcement that believe they do an excellent job on their own. But when they put them on the same page or put them together, they don't play well with each other. That's what we need to bridge. We need to get these people in there where they can at least start talking about how we can get together and form these teams and form a command structure that is us working together instead of apart. Bill Godfrey: Adam, he mentions the silos and we've had some incidents where because the responders on the scene didn't get together in a command post, they ended up siloing their communications and actually using dispatch as a go-between. How big of a challenge do you think that still is in the country? Where are the gaps? What's the road we still have to cover? Adam Pendley: Well, I think one of the things that Mark pointed out is that the responders work well together. Police and fire and EMS if you put them in the same room, they work well together. What I think, where I think we fail is that as that moves up the chain of command, you lose something in policies that allow that integration to really work. And you lose a command staff presence where there's ... it starts getting managed in different directions. The silos happen at a higher level. It's like where most incidents fail is at the management level. Not so much at the ground level. The first responders, they want to save lives. If you don't have policies and you don't have conversations and you don't have a command element that works well together and all moving in the same direction. I think that's where it fails. On the communications side, again, I think if all levels train together, both from the first responder level, through dispatch and then all the way up to the command level, I think you start to bridge some of those gaps. Bill Godfrey: So what Adam is talking about, Stephen, kinda flows with some of the challenges we've seen with people kind of feeling like unified command is the magic bullet. We're gonna operationally direct the troops from the unified command post. Do you still see that as a problem out in the field. Do you see that that's an area that we need to work on? Stephen Shaw: I think it depends. You certainly see on big scenes, police, fire, EMS really want to work together in a unified command. On smaller scenes, people still tend to do the silo thing. Police are off doing their thing. Fire is off doing their thing. Maybe fire and EMS coordinates a little bit or police tell the firefighter, "Hey, I need you to come over here and help me out with this." But I think where we would start turning a corner real world is if we started working together on even smaller events. If police and fire are at the same place, then the police and fire commanders need to be hooked up. And that's something that I see in my area a lot. We still tend to do the silos a lot rather than working together. When we have these big events, like I said. Large structure fires, large crowd management events, you see them working together but on smaller events that we do day-to-day, I think we could definitely use a little bit more integration. Bill Godfrey: So, Joe, how do we fix it? How do you think we address some of those challenges and get people to see a better path forward? Or a quicker path forward? Joe Ferrara: As Stephen said and I certainly agree. In the fire service, when we started doing incident command, we did it on every incident. No matter how minor the incident was, we set up command. We named the command. We used the titles. But it didn't happen overnight. It took years and years of conditioning to do that, to do that sort of training. So I think together with law enforcement, like Stephen said in his jurisdiction, they're doing that on the smaller incidents and the law enforcement leadership is getting together with the fire and EMS leadership. They're running a unified command. Really, that's the only way. So as an industry, we need to push that with our partners so that when fire goes back and they leave these classes. Law enforcement goes back to their respective jurisdictions, then they sit down and they go, "Okay." Maybe you're not gonna do it every time. Pick a Tuesday, like we used to do in fire. We'd pick triage Tuesday. On triage Tuesdays, everybody got a triage tag. So if we're gonna do that with these, let's pick a day. Let's pick a time when on an incident where law enforcement is there and fire is there, we're gonna get together on incident command. And we're gonna run this incident. Adam Pendley: Absolutely. I just want to extend on what he said is that it's in addition to the command element. It's a unified effort. So as you get closer to the life-saving in the area around the warm zone and tactical and triage and transport issues that happen so close to the life-saving, that is a unified effort. As you get into the command post, when you're talking about the misconceptions for active shooter, law enforcement is gonna remain in command of the scene probably longer than people realize. That's okay. As long as the fire EMS element is there, standing shoulder to shoulder with the incident commander that is most likely law enforcement for a good period of time when the incident starts. But there's still a unified effort there. There's still a medical branch happening. There's still other things happening that move in the same direction. What's interesting about that is, we mentioned large fire scenes. We've done that for years on a large fire scene, the fire commander is the incident commander for a lot longer into the incident than law enforcement would be. We're not really in a unified command mode when we roll up on a large structure fire, let's say. We're doing the law enforcement branch. It's still a unified effort and it's just the roles are reversed a bit in an active shooter. I think it's important to realize that the actual incident command may rest with law enforcement a little longer than we realize. Eventually, once the unified effort is in place and the incident slows down a little bit, then we move more into a unified command element. I think that's kind of important to recognize. Stephen Shaw: I think too, talking about the command post being there for a long time, especially on the law enforcement side. As law enforcement officers, just as a nature of the culture of our job, we tend to really get down into the weeds. And we really want to. We have trouble letting go of any sort of responsibility. So if you're an incident commander, it's important for you to delegate some of that responsibility off to ... if you're a captain and you show up, you're the IC. Delegate some of that stuff off to your sergeant or your lieutenant so that you're not doing everything by yourself. If you're too far down into the weeds, you're not doing your job right as an incident commander. It's your job to look big picture. Eyes up. We talk about a 30,000 foot, 50,000 foot view. But you have to keep your eyes up and forward, looking at challenges that may come down the road, not just ones that we're dealing with right now. But anything that we can foresee, that we can easily foresee down the road is something that's an incident commander's job is to look at those events rather than focus so much on what's going on in the present. Bill Godfrey: Yeah. It's an interesting point that Steven raises, Mark. When we teach in the active shooter incident management course, we divvy up the roles and responsibilities. There's the command post has some significant roles and responsibilities but the actual running or the management of the down range stuff is really done at that tactical triage and transport level. I know you're frequently one of the incident command post coaches. Why do you think that that matters so much? That splitting up of those roles and responsibilities. Why isn't it okay for command to just run everything from themselves directly? Mark Rhame: I think what a lot of people don't realize even in our industry, in public safety. They don't realize that there's a lot that's gonna happen on that command incident command level. They're at that 50,000 foot level and they're handling a lot of issues. Anything from dealing with their own bosses, with politicians. Dealing with school administrations or public safety ... or public place management. They gotta deal with those people. They gotta make sure they got the right resources there to be successful in this event. When you get down to that tactical level, where you have a triage and a transport stood up, those people are worrying about that hot zone. That immediate threat area. That's what they're dealing with. Unlike incident command, who's really looking at such a bigger picture and they're dealing with those big events that they have to deal with on a regular basis. Bill Godfrey: Adam, what do you think? With what Mark is describing there, how does that become impactful for law enforcement? Because they obviously have, as Mark said, you've got the hot zone. You've got the warm zone. You've got that immediate scene down range where you have to neutralize the threat. We've got to provide rescue to the injured and get them off the scene. But from a law enforcement mission, there's a whole lot more to it? Adam Pendley: Absolutely. A lot of your active shooter training is all that down range stuff. We teach a lot about how to neutralize threats and to begin rescue and do those sorts of things. But we forget the fact that everyone is coming to this event. City leaders, other stakeholders, other agencies, federal agencies, so I think it's command's most important job is to be that next layer away from the scene to act as a buffer against all of that stuff that may interfere with the actual life-saving that is happening down range. If you allow everyone that's responding to this terrible event in your community to make it all the way down to the edge of where the life-saving is happening, they're going to get in the way. There's going to be ... you're gonna interfere with the actual life-saving. So let those first responders who know what they're doing. Have a unified effort of life-saving at the tactical triage and transport level. And then the command post should be that extra layer of management that's gonna be looking outward to everything else that's gonna be pouring in on you because you've had this terrible tragedy in your community. Like Stephen said, it doesn't just stop at when the patients are transported. You're looking at days if not weeks' worth of management that's going to continue and you start that early at the command post level, looking outward. If everyone's focused on trying to do the life-saving job, then you have an entire incident management team focusing on one objective. You have many, many more objectives that are falling in on you. Bill Godfrey: That really sums it up pretty well. I think, paints the picture pretty nice. Guys, thanks for taking the time to sit down this afternoon and kinda talk about this. As we've been discussing, we're gonna grapple with this and a lot more questions as time goes on. Adam, Mark, Joe, Steve, thanks for taking the time. Hope you all enjoyed it. Original Source: https://www.c3pathways.com/podcast/common-misconceptions

A local veteran has used sonar technology in the search for Kerry Jones after her disappearance in February 2016, revealing an item of interest to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.

Podcast Episode #60 is the second part of a two-parter with retired Lt. Randy Russell of the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, an innovator in the use of Lean methods for improving law enforcement (Part 1, Episode #51 is here). In this episode, Randy discusses some really interesting examples of how Lean methods are helpful in law enforcement and how 5S or standardized work can help save a life. Very powerful stuff. Randy’s company, Hyperformance Enterprises, LLC, operates a Lean consulting and training division that can be found online at www.improvementors.com. Randy's interests include waste identification and elimination, process improvement, transactional systems, and strategic alignment. His hands-on experience with Lean in a broad array of settings as the former Chairman of the (47+ member) Jacksonville Lean Consortium and his two decade career as a law enforcement commander and lead security planner for a Super Bowl provides valuable added experience and insights when it comes to dealing with sensitive and complex projects. If you have feedback on the podcast, or any questions for me or my guests, you can email me at leanpodcast@gmail.com or you can call and leave a voicemail by calling the "Lean Line" at (817) 776-LEAN (817-776-5326) or contact me via Skype id "mgraban". Please give your location and your first name. Any comments (email or voicemail) might be used in follow ups to the podcast.

Podcast Episode #51 is the first part of a two-parter with retired Lt. Randy Russell of the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, an innovator in the use of Lean methods for improving law enforcement. Starting in 2004, the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office began using Lean as a continuous improvement program. In the podcast, Randy describes their journey and the improvements that have greatly contributed to providing more time and resources for the officers to use in protecting the community. As in healthcare, the real opportunity for Lean is not using isolated tools in a trivial way, but rather in ways that save lives and provide more time for officers to be out on the streets adding value, instead of dealing with waste. It sounds like a nearly direct parallel to using Lean in hospitals to free up time for nurses to care for patients. Randy’s company, Hyperformance Enterprises, LLC, operates a Lean consulting and training division that can be found online at www.improvementors.com. Randy's interests include waste identification and elimination, process improvement, transactional systems, and strategic alignment. His hands-on experience with Lean in a broad array of settings as the former Chairman of the (47+ member) Jacksonville Lean Consortium and his two decade career as a law enforcement commander and lead security planner for a Super Bowl provides valuable added experience and insights when it comes to dealing with sensitive and complex projects. If you have feedback on the podcast, or any questions for me or my guests, you can email me at leanpodcast@gmail.com or you can call and leave a voicemail by calling the "Lean Line" at (817) 776-LEAN (817-776-5326) or contact me via Skype id "mgraban". Please give your location and your first name. Any comments (email or voicemail) might be used in follow ups to the podcast.