By Scott Finazzo
In the summer of 2012, I was traveling through Denver, Colorado, and decided to divert from my planned route to make a stop in the suburb of Aurora. The country was still reeling in the aftermath of a mass shooting that had occurred five days before. On July 20, a gunman entered a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises and opened fire, killing 12 people and injuring 70 others. It was more than morbid curiosity that drew me to the Century 16 movie theater where it all occurred. It was my career, a career spent responding to emergencies and years as a shift officer in command of them.
After spending more than an hour walking around the grounds of the movie theater and among the makeshift memorials of the victims, I left Aurora with an overwhelming feeling of grief, vulnerability, and concern. My grief was certainly for the victims, but my concern was for the firefighters, medics, and police officers who are responding to an unprecedented number of hostile events. That feeling was exacerbated weeks later when I heard the audio file of the radio traffic from that night. The men and women who responded did an amazing job managing many unknowns, such as the number of patients, the location of the gunman, and the location of the injured, amid sheer chaos.
I put myself in the shoes of that first-arriving officer and felt a knot in my stomach. How would I handle that situation? Am I prepared? Is my department prepared? To every question I asked myself, the answer was a resounding no. Would we handle the situation if it occurred in our city? Of course. But, would we be prepared to safely and effectively coordinate a response to an active hostile event? It would necessitate tactics unlike any that we typically employ, and we would not have a plan.
I played a sample of the audio from the Century 16 theater shooting for my battalion chief. I told him I was concerned that we, as a department, were not ready for a coordinated, multidisciplined response that would be needed for a hostile event and that I wanted to change that. With his input, I wanted to preplan a hostile event response and conduct training for our battalion.
He completely agreed and brought the idea to the fire department senior staff, who put him in touch with a division chief of the ambulance service that serves our city (and surrounding county) and a captain with the police department. We scheduled our first meeting.
It was decided early that we were talking about more than just training a few fire crews. A hostile event response has many moving parts and would have to be coordinated among police, emergency medical services (EMS), and fire.
On the surface, it seemed like a relatively simple task, considering that we all work alongside each other in the same geographical area. We quickly learned that, although we all operate under the umbrella of public safety, there are fundamental differences in objectives, tactics, and communication that need to be addressed. Police would approach a scene with the priority of neutralizing a threat in an offensive posture. During a hostile event, fire and EMS tactics involve setting up a command structure and providing patient care.
Over the course of two years, we discussed, argued, evaluated, and ultimately created a multidisciplined response plan for our city and the surrounding jurisdictions. We gathered as much information as we could from departments that have experienced large-scale incidents such as the Century 16 theater shooting in Aurora and the 2014 shooting rampage in Las Vegas, Nevada, that left five dead. We used their experiences to help us create a model procedure that would work in our system.
The Process
Following is a step-by-step account of how we established our process and a summary of the challenges we encountered and overcame.
- Acknowledge the need for a hostile event response plan.
Evaluate your current standard operating guidelines (SOGs) and update them to include an active shooter or bombing event. Our standard procedure for any event involving gunfire was to stage a safe distance away until the police cleared the scene; that was basically the extent of our action plan. That response may be sufficient for the vast majority of shooting incidents, but it does not address mass-casualty events, which are becoming more and more prevalent.
To follow procedure, we brought the issue to the department staff table. Our “group” was given the green light to develop a document to present for approval. There are inherent hurdles to this part of the process, one being differing procedural opinions. One school of thought is that there was already a procedure in place for any kind of “behavioral” response-to stage until police cleared the scene and it is safe for fire and EMS crews to enter. That is great and works just fine right up until the minute that it doesn’t. Even scenes that are deemed “secure” aren’t always secure.
A second school of thought is that there is no need for a separate SOG. Even though a department may not have a hostile event response SOG, the action of the fire department is the same: to stage a safe distance away until law enforcement has cleared the scene. Feedback we frequently encountered from the members of the department was, “We’re not going to send firefighters into an area where bullets are flying.” Hazmat, bombing events with secondary devices, and active shooting incidents have dictated that simply staging for police to thoroughly clear a scene isn’t always an option. Fortunately, our administration saw the potential benefit of this project and allowed us to proceed.
- Assemble a committee.
Because, as noted previously, a hostile event response necessitates a coordinated effort among fire, police, and EMS, all three disciplines must participate in developing the plan. It cannot be assumed that because fire and EMS respond together or that police and EMS respond together that one can adequately speak to another with regard to tactics and logistics.
Committee members were representative of multiple levels of rank. I, a shift officer, represented the fire department. My goal was to speak for the people on the rig. I am trained and well-versed in incident command, but my place was to see this plan through the eyes of the first three or four firefighters who show up on an engine. My battalion chief, also on the committee, added the perspective of an incident commander while also keeping the crew members in mind. He focused on a big-picture view that encompassed communication, logistics, unified command, and public information.
The EMS committee representatives were a division chief and a transporting unit officer. A veteran captain who was familiar with all levels of a law enforcement response represented the police department. Department senior staff members were invited to attend the meetings. “Guest stars,” such as an EMS chief or a risk management officer, attended sporadically.
- Plan big.
The National Incident Management System (NIMS) was established to effectively manage incidents of all sizes. It can be used to control large-scale incidents and a single-alarm house fire. We used the same thought process as we set out to construct a plan that would cover a worst-case scenario and yet that could also be scaled down to a much more simplified response plan. Statistics show that between 2000 and 2012, on average, an active shooter event lasts 12 minutes and that a little more than a third (37 percent) last less than five minutes. (See “Active Shooter Events: 2000-2013.”)
The initial meetings were cumbersome. We offered ideas and suggestions, trailed off on tangents, and basically did a lot of talking but took no real action. I wrote the initial document from a fire department response standpoint based on a combination of our current mass-casualty procedures, our everyday response to law enforcement scenes, and NIMS so that we had a baseline from which to build. Rather than creating their own response documents and trying to combine all three, the EMS and law enforcement members agreed to use the initial document and plug their response plans and requirements into what would eventually become an all-inclusive response plan.
We determined that a hostile event response would require all three disciplines but that the vast majority of times the incident would require law enforcement and EMS services more than fire. The fire department, though, brings three critical assets: the most people, equipment, and unified command experience. Keeping our incident priorities in mind (life safety, incident stabilization, and property conservation), we needed to develop a plan that would keep life safety as the top priority, especially for our responders.
Initially, it was decided that two actions must be performed as early as possible: (1) identifying the scene as hostile and (2) declaring that fact to dispatch and other incoming units. This notification could be the most important part of the initial response. Dispatch can label the event hostile based on caller information, or first-arriving units can determine it based on a rapid but thorough evaluation of the possible threat and the number of patients.
Response levels were classified according to the number of possible patients. (Law enforcement response is based on the size of the venue; the larger the structure, the greater the initial response.) Level 1 is for the potential of one to nine patients, Level 2 is for the potential of 10 to 24 patients, and Level 3 is for the potential for 25 or more patients. Each level receives a response of a specified number of law enforcement officers, a full-alarm fire assignment, five ambulances, and a full complement of accompanying chief staff.
The Response Plan
The response plan is divided into four phases: Initial Response, Establishing Unified Command, Evacuation and Patient Care, and Scene Stabilization/Post-Event Investigation. Within those phases, multiple issues had to be addressed. Law enforcement needed a bit of a culture change. Its response to a hostile event was basically an all-hands call to go get the “bad guy.” The police representatives on the committee acknowledged that because of the potential size and complexity of a large-scale hostile event, later-arriving officers would need to be disciplined enough to remain outside to help with unified command, secure perimeters, accompany EMS crews, and perform other tasks. Fortunately, our police department was very receptive to its role in the bigger picture.
As each phase of the plan was discussed, new issues and needs revealed themselves-for example, how to get rescue personnel safely to the victims, how to get the patients out of the danger zone, what to do with the removed patients, where to direct incoming family members, and where to direct the press. To meet the demands of a large-scale incident, we built into the plan task forces, as used in the hostile event response plan in Arlington, Virginia, to perform recon and rescue. We outlined triage, treatment, and transport operations. We defined the expectations of casualty collection points, a morgue, a reunification location, and the media reception area.
Most importantly, we clearly defined and differentiated several terms that are crucial to a safe and efficient operation. We needed to differentiate “staging” from “base,” for example. They are not the same. We used hazmat terminology-cold, warm, and hot zones-to provide structure to a scene. The cold zone is a safe area where responders can assume minimal threat to personal safety. The warm zone is a secure area that surrounds the area of greatest threat. Fire and EMS can access it to do tasks, but they must have a law enforcement escort. The hot zone is the location and immediate surrounding area where a threat exists. Consider this area immediately dangerous to life or health.
Another distinction made was to differentiate between safe and secure areas. These words are often used synonymously for fire department purposes, but in law enforcement they are significantly different. “Safe” is an area that is free from threats, such as the cold zone. “Secure” is an area in which law enforcement has performed a primary search and has deemed it accessible for emergency responders as long as there is a security presence, such as in the warm zone.
The plan also explains the duties of all responders beginning with the first-arriving individuals on the apparatus and objectives including long-term logistical goals for unified command. Not all incidents will necessitate the level of structure established in the plan, but, as in the case of a structure fire, the plan can be downsized and customized to fit the scenario, and the same playbook can be used.
Communication
Any time a fire department performs a postincident analysis, one area cited as being in need of improvement is communication. In most municipalities, fire, EMS, and police use separate radio frequencies. In our system, fire and EMS use the same dispatch center and radio frequencies, but the police department has its own. This setup became a major obstacle. We needed to devise a plan that would allow fire, EMS, and law enforcement to communicate with each other and not overload a single tactical channel. Representatives from our communications center restructured a bank of radio channels that allowed all three disciplines to speak on the same dedicated channels. This was only the first step in organizing communication. Before finalizing the communication plan, we scheduled a walk-through. The test group was made up of one individual for each function. We then made the needed adjustments, most notably channels by tactics and for command’s assistants who would monitor and maintain communication with their respective tactical operations.
Building “Buy-In”
As with most committees, inside the walls of the meeting room, the brilliance knows no limits. Once outside the room, however, things change. Opposing opinions are expressed, mistakes are found, and your once impeccable document has holes shot in it from every angle. Before releasing your document to the masses, invite others in for their input. We brought in a select group of people from all three disciplines and a variety of ranks. We walked them through the document step by step, answered questions, and clarified and tweaked the document.
Word got out about our hostile event response plan long before we had finished creating it. There was a vast array of preconceived opinions; very few were positive. Generally, they fell into the following categories: “Why do we need a big, elaborate plan? We stage until police have the scene secured; then we go clean up the mess. Simple.” “I’m not going into any situation where bullets are flying. I’m a firefighter, not a cop.”
Not all hostile events involve an active shooter scene. Because public discharge of guns is one of the more prevalent situations lately, we tend to focus on that, but our plan is inclusive of differing types of call scenarios. But even in the event of an active shooter, your response plan should not include sending fire and EMS responders into a scene that is not secure. Our plan, as with others around the nation, calls for the experts (law enforcement) to secure an area and then allow fire and EMS task forces to come in and begin triage and treatment WITH law enforcement escort. We have no intention of putting body armor on firefighters and sending them into the warm or hot zone. Initial law enforcement teams will do a sweep of an area; declare it to be secure; and then, with an armed escort, medical operations can begin.
Can the situation change and put responders suddenly in harm’s way? Absolutely. The same can be said for most house fires where firefighters push each other out of the way to enter the structure. Our jobs are inherently dangerous. Our goal with this response plan is to ensure that risks are minimal and calculated.
Once we sat down with representatives from adjoining jurisdictions and explained what we had done, answered any questions they had, and quelled any concerns, they saw the value of the plan and agreed to participate. Some took more convincing than others, but now our city and all nearby municipalities have the same playbook for a hostile event response.
Training
It took nearly two years from the conversation with my battalion chief to having a full-scale, all-inclusive plan. It took the effort of the highest-ranking official from each discipline to reach out to other chiefs, explain what we were doing, and invite them to be a part of it. Much of the credit should go to the medical division chief, who really took over the document and did much of the legwork. With that document in hand, “trainers” from every organization wishing to participate were asked to come in and help teach. This helped create ownership from adjoining departments that weren’t involved in the creation of the plan but that would need to be a part of it if a large-scale incident were to occur.
There was classroom and practical training. Over the course of several months, dozens of police, fire, and EMS crews were given a four-hour introduction to the plan. We have scheduled practical training where a scenario will play out and all the working parts will come together. At the completion of training, scheduled for the fall of 2016, everyone in our system, including all departments with which we have automatic and mutual-aid agreements, will be operating from the same playbook during a hostile event.
Unfortunately, hostile events are occurring more often in big cities and small towns all over the world. No geographical location is immune. It is dangerous and naive to assume that your department is ready simply because your SOG states you should wait for law enforcement to clear a scene. Hostile events need levels of coordination and communication that most departments have never experienced. Be proactive rather than reactive.
SCOTT FINAZZO is a 17-year veteran and a fire lieutenant/EMT with the Overland Park (KS) Fire Department. He has an associate degree in fire service administration and a bachelor’s degree in management and human relations. He is an instructor and has authored several books including The Neighborhood Emergency Response Handbook and The Prepper’s Workbook.
Active Shooter Events: 2000-2013
Following are statistics from a 2014 Federal Bureau of Investigation report covering active shooter events from 2000-2013:
Source: https://leb.fbi.gov/2014/january/active-shooter-events-from-2000-to-2012.
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