In the spirit of “Never let a crisis go to waste.” I expect the Statists to begin clamouring for abolishment of “local” incident control.
Houston Chronicle——
Why was the head of a six-person force for Uvalde CISD in charge of the mass shooting response?
Uvalde police officers, Texas state troopers and members of the U.S. Border Patrol’s elite BORTAC squad all responded to the massacre at Robb Elementary a week ago. All were apparently brought to a standstill under the command of Uvalde CISD Police Chief Pete Arredondo, who officials say believed the shooter was no longer a risk to people in the school.
But why was the school police chief, who oversaw, by far, the smallest law-enforcement agency that responded, in charge of the situation response in the first place?
When it comes to who’s in charge, a department’s size doesn’t matter. In mass casualty events in which multiple agencies respond, the highest ranking officer from the agency that has jurisdiction over an emergency usually assumes control.
A CLOSER LOOK: Inside the delays and discrepancies of the Uvalde shooting police response
“People watch too much TV. They think whenever the FBI walks in, they take over,” said Galveston County Sheriff Henry Trochesset, whose department responded to the Santa Fe massacre four years ago. “You have the jurisdiction.”
Because the shooting occurred on school property, Arrendondo — the top officer at the school’s small police department — would have been in charge of coordinating the response, handling communications and making decisions about how to stop the shooter.
Law enforcement’s nearly hour-long delay in entering the joined fourth-grade classrooms and confronting the 18-year-old shooter who murdered 19 children and two teachers has been widely criticized. The days following the disaster have only added to the confusion, with reports that Border Patrol agents who arrived at the scene challenged the decision to wait; ultimately they entered the classroom and shot the gunman, killing him. Most of the updates about the case, meanwhile, have come from the Department of Public Safety.
MORE: Dan Patrick backpedals comment, says police inaction 'may have' cost lives
Last week, for example, DPS Commander Steven McCraw explained that officers waited for more heavily armed reinforcements from the BORTAC squad before they finally confronted the gunman. The delay was based on the erroneous assumption that the situation had turned from an active shooting to a barricaded suspect.
Public safety agencies across the United States use the “National Incident Command System” to respond to emergencies, said Harris County Fire Marshal Laurie Christensen. The federal government created the system after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, when police, fire, and EMS agencies struggled to work together to respond to the disaster.
The goal, she said, was to create a “nationwide systematic approach, a national standard — a set of principles meant for all threats, hazards and events.”
EDITORIAL BOARD: Where were the heroes? Police stood by as Uvalde students died, begged for help
“It was scaleable, flexible, and adaptable,” she said, meaning police or fire departments could use it for everything from a car fire on a city street to a mass casualty event such as a mass shooting.
In particularly challenging situations, it’s not uncommon for agencies to create a “unified command,” in which authority over the incident is shared by leaders of multiple agencies.
There is protocol for a transfer of command from the local commander to someone on scene with more experience or resources who was better equipped to handle the situation, law enforcement officials said.
During the 2017 Santa Fe massacre, officers from the small Santa Fe ISD Police Department found themselves under fire. The gunman shot former officer John Barnes in the elbow, causing hemorrhaging that nearly killed him.
Former Assistant Chief Gary Forward recalled feverishly working to staunch Barnes’ bleeding.
Then-Chief Walter Braun oversaw the operation initially, he recalled, but soon, “it really became a joint thing, with the chief and the FBI, the Galveston County Sheriff’s office, and DPS — it was a joint operation to manage the whole scene.”
RELATED: Uvalde schools police chief had extensive 'active-shooter' training
“After the thing started to mushroom, and the kid (accused in the shooting) was taken into custody, that whole incident command structure broadened exponentially,” he continued.
Arredondo apparently chose to maintain command as the minutes ticked by and pressure mounted.
“He was incident commander in charge,” said Charles McClelland, former Houston police chief. “It doesn’t mean it was wrong he was in charge — he just made a bad decision.”
It wouldn’t be unusual for a school district police force to retain command and request additional resources, experts said. The local officers would live close by, would know the area.
On the other hand, the local chief doesn’t have to retain command. He or she can turn it over to another agency with more expertise — or create a “unified command,” with agencies coordinating with each other directly.
Arredondo could have given control to the Uvalde Police Department — the school lay in their jurisdiction. Or he could have turned it over to DPS, which has law enforcement authority across the entire state. Or even to BORTAC operators, who are the Border Patrol’s most highly trained agents.
THE LATEST: Police union calls for Uvalde authorities to cooperate with inquiries
The key, experts explained, is that the best qualified person should be in command. That might not be the highest ranking person. It could be a deputy chief who has expertise needed for the incident.
“One thing interesting about incident command — one thing that’s taught, understood, is that you’re very likely to have your boss reporting to you,” one former emergency operations manager told the Chronicle.
Some who have been involved in such incidents said it was thus surprising that the school chief didn’t pass the command to people with more expertise and training.
McClelland said that while it made sense for the local school chief to be commander initially — “his people were first on scene, it was on the school campus” — he said that in complex and rapidly evolving scenes it sometimes makes sense for a commander with more experience to assume command. He recalled a shooting on the campus of Texas Southern University in 2015. His officers told him TSU officials said they were capable of handling it, a claim he shot down. His officers would handle the investigation, he said. It was a murder, at a location well within his jurisdiction. And he believed his officers were better equipped to handle it.
st.john.smith@houstonchronicle.com
http://twitter.com/stjbs
Why was the head of a six-person force for Uvalde CISD in charge of the mass shooting response?
Uvalde police officers, Texas state troopers and members of the U.S. Border Patrol’s elite BORTAC squad all responded to the massacre at Robb Elementary a week ago. All were apparently brought to a standstill under the command of Uvalde CISD Police Chief Pete Arredondo, who officials say believed the shooter was no longer a risk to people in the school.
But why was the school police chief, who oversaw, by far, the smallest law-enforcement agency that responded, in charge of the situation response in the first place?
When it comes to who’s in charge, a department’s size doesn’t matter. In mass casualty events in which multiple agencies respond, the highest ranking officer from the agency that has jurisdiction over an emergency usually assumes control.
A CLOSER LOOK: Inside the delays and discrepancies of the Uvalde shooting police response
“People watch too much TV. They think whenever the FBI walks in, they take over,” said Galveston County Sheriff Henry Trochesset, whose department responded to the Santa Fe massacre four years ago. “You have the jurisdiction.”
Because the shooting occurred on school property, Arrendondo — the top officer at the school’s small police department — would have been in charge of coordinating the response, handling communications and making decisions about how to stop the shooter.
Law enforcement’s nearly hour-long delay in entering the joined fourth-grade classrooms and confronting the 18-year-old shooter who murdered 19 children and two teachers has been widely criticized. The days following the disaster have only added to the confusion, with reports that Border Patrol agents who arrived at the scene challenged the decision to wait; ultimately they entered the classroom and shot the gunman, killing him. Most of the updates about the case, meanwhile, have come from the Department of Public Safety.
MORE: Dan Patrick backpedals comment, says police inaction 'may have' cost lives
Last week, for example, DPS Commander Steven McCraw explained that officers waited for more heavily armed reinforcements from the BORTAC squad before they finally confronted the gunman. The delay was based on the erroneous assumption that the situation had turned from an active shooting to a barricaded suspect.
Public safety agencies across the United States use the “National Incident Command System” to respond to emergencies, said Harris County Fire Marshal Laurie Christensen. The federal government created the system after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, when police, fire, and EMS agencies struggled to work together to respond to the disaster.
The goal, she said, was to create a “nationwide systematic approach, a national standard — a set of principles meant for all threats, hazards and events.”
EDITORIAL BOARD: Where were the heroes? Police stood by as Uvalde students died, begged for help
“It was scaleable, flexible, and adaptable,” she said, meaning police or fire departments could use it for everything from a car fire on a city street to a mass casualty event such as a mass shooting.
In particularly challenging situations, it’s not uncommon for agencies to create a “unified command,” in which authority over the incident is shared by leaders of multiple agencies.
There is protocol for a transfer of command from the local commander to someone on scene with more experience or resources who was better equipped to handle the situation, law enforcement officials said.
During the 2017 Santa Fe massacre, officers from the small Santa Fe ISD Police Department found themselves under fire. The gunman shot former officer John Barnes in the elbow, causing hemorrhaging that nearly killed him.
Former Assistant Chief Gary Forward recalled feverishly working to staunch Barnes’ bleeding.
Then-Chief Walter Braun oversaw the operation initially, he recalled, but soon, “it really became a joint thing, with the chief and the FBI, the Galveston County Sheriff’s office, and DPS — it was a joint operation to manage the whole scene.”
RELATED: Uvalde schools police chief had extensive 'active-shooter' training
“After the thing started to mushroom, and the kid (accused in the shooting) was taken into custody, that whole incident command structure broadened exponentially,” he continued.
Arredondo apparently chose to maintain command as the minutes ticked by and pressure mounted.
“He was incident commander in charge,” said Charles McClelland, former Houston police chief. “It doesn’t mean it was wrong he was in charge — he just made a bad decision.”
It wouldn’t be unusual for a school district police force to retain command and request additional resources, experts said. The local officers would live close by, would know the area.
On the other hand, the local chief doesn’t have to retain command. He or she can turn it over to another agency with more expertise — or create a “unified command,” with agencies coordinating with each other directly.
Arredondo could have given control to the Uvalde Police Department — the school lay in their jurisdiction. Or he could have turned it over to DPS, which has law enforcement authority across the entire state. Or even to BORTAC operators, who are the Border Patrol’s most highly trained agents.
THE LATEST: Police union calls for Uvalde authorities to cooperate with inquiries
The key, experts explained, is that the best qualified person should be in command. That might not be the highest ranking person. It could be a deputy chief who has expertise needed for the incident.
“One thing interesting about incident command — one thing that’s taught, understood, is that you’re very likely to have your boss reporting to you,” one former emergency operations manager told the Chronicle.
Some who have been involved in such incidents said it was thus surprising that the school chief didn’t pass the command to people with more expertise and training.
McClelland said that while it made sense for the local school chief to be commander initially — “his people were first on scene, it was on the school campus” — he said that in complex and rapidly evolving scenes it sometimes makes sense for a commander with more experience to assume command. He recalled a shooting on the campus of Texas Southern University in 2015. His officers told him TSU officials said they were capable of handling it, a claim he shot down. His officers would handle the investigation, he said. It was a murder, at a location well within his jurisdiction. And he believed his officers were better equipped to handle it.
st.john.smith@houstonchronicle.com
http://twitter.com/stjbs
SOURCE URL: https://apple.news/AkIAqZx6uSxi_sKpo9Ezjmw
The People will shout “Something MUST be done.” And the government will say “How about LESS self determination?” And the people will shout “YES!”
Here’s to Slippery Slopes and the inevitable Schadenfreude at the bottom.