Ep 72: Top 5 Public Misconceptions
Episode 72
Published Mar 18, 2024
Last updated Feb 18, 2026
Duration: 41:48
Episode Summary
Why did they do that? What’s taking so long? In today’s episode, we break down the top 5 misconceptions the public has about our response to Active Shooter Events.
Episode Notes
The public doesn’t always have a full understanding of what is involved in handling an Active Shooter Event. In today’s episode Bill Godfrey, Kami Maertz, Adam Pendley, and Mark Rhame debunk the top 5 misconceptions the public may hold regarding our response to these incidents. By establishing clear expectations and providing insights into our procedures, we can change public perception.
View this episode on YouTube at https://youtube.com/live/1nJQthWIMKg
Transcript
Bill Godfrey:A few weeks ago we did a podcast on the top five misconceptions that responders have about active shooter events. Today, the top five misconceptions the public has about how responders manage active shooter events. Coming up, stick around.
Welcome to the Active Shooter Incident Management podcast. My name is Bill Godfrey, your podcast host. I'm joined by three of the other C3 pathways and C instructors. I've got Kami Mertz sitting to next to my left. Hello. And across the table from me, we've got Mark Rhame and Adam Pendley back in the house. Thank you all for coming back in.
Adam Pendley:
Thank you.
Bill Godfrey:
So today we are going to talk about the top five misconceptions that the public has about how we as responders manage active shooter events. And so we surveyed a number of the instructors and had 'em kind of rank order list what they thought the top five. So we're gonna start off with number five and work our way up to the number one by the end of the thing. So the number five one, is it takes too long to do reunification. Why does it take so long to get reunification done? Adam, you had personal experience with this.
Adam Pendley:
I did. So I was in charge of reunification on an incident that we ended up with two deceased and then another, the suspect was deceased as well. And then anywhere from nine to 11 on a various types of injuries. And I went to the scene, followed the plan, set up our reunification area, had an area set aside, and then discovered that everyone impacted by the incident was from out of town, which added a challenge to reunification. But what we discovered was, getting information about those that were interviewed and getting information about those that were transported to the hospital was just working through the process and was relatively easy to get that information and get it to the right people. Unfortunately, with those that were deceased, it took a little bit longer. And from talking to investigators after the fact, I discovered that, in most homicide scenes they work from the outside in. So they don't get to those that are deceased until they've processed a lot of evidence until they get to that point.
And we may have an idea, witnesses and some other things, and that's what happened in our case. Witnesses may have an idea of who it was because they were involved in the original incident. But sometimes your local coroner or medical examiner's office, or the investigators are reluctant to saying a person's name as the deceased until they've been able to confirm it. And we may have an idea, witnesses and some other things, and that's what happened in our case. Witnesses may have an idea of who it was because they were involved in the original incident. But sometimes your local coroner or medical examiner's office, or the investigators are reluctant to saying a person's name as the deceased until they've been able to confirm it.
But even without those challenges not withstanding, if you have others that are in lockdown within the site, let's say at a school or something along those lines, there's a lot of law enforcement work that has to be done to make sure that you're ready to clear the scene, to make sure that you can get those folks transported to an area where they can be reunified and those processes take time.
Bill Godfrey:
So Kami, let's talk about that a little bit. 'cause I know you do a lot of work with the schools up in your jurisdiction. Why does it take so long? You know, the incident's over typically pretty quickly. And I mean 90% of the time these things are over in 10 minutes or less. Obviously we have to get in and rescue the injured and get them transported. But you know, on a typical school campus of a thousand kids plus or minus, why does it take hours before we can put 'em back with the parents?
Kami Maertz:
Well, another thing to consider is even after the rescue, then there comes a clear, and that clear can take a really long time when you're talking about a facility as large as a school, that could take hours just in itself. But just making sure that there, you know, especially when you're talking about school and small children and stuff, to make sure that everything is covered, that everybody's accounted for, and you don't want to overlook anything in that process. So you wanna make sure that everything is systematically done. And so sometimes that in itself can take a long time.
And then, like Adam mentioned is that this is a crime scene. So once we're done with the initial process and the initial rescuing clear and everything in that we have to slow everything down because now we have a crime scene. And so now we have to kind of switch hats into dealing with things on the investigation side, which is a whole nother element before everything can go into place and make sure that we are reuniting people with the right things or people and children and everything. And so all of that's a process that we have to make sure is done and done efficiently.
Bill Godfrey:
So Mark, you spent a lot of time not only over your career in command, but also just in the training working at the command post, working with the incident commander and the PIO. How would you coach them to either be prepared to answer some of these questions or to preempt some of these things about setting expectations for parents and guardians, friends, family about releasing the uninjured back to them, the accountability for where the injured had been transported. And ultimately if there has to be death notifications fatalities, how would you coach them to be prepared for those questions and and preempt them?
Mark Rhame:
Well, reunification is a process and it's not a simple process by any means. A lot of people would look at it from the outside and would go, well you just put people back together again. It's not that simple. 'Cause we have to have accountability on the people that were involved in the incident and making sure that, and using the example of schools, especially the little guys, that we put 'em back with the correct people. That is a serious issue. Obviously we don't wanna send them home with someone who has no custodial rights. But because it is a process, and because we're also looking at witness statements, you know, once we start that whole process, and by the way, we can't use generally the people who are involved at that crime scene, that active shooter environment as part of the process. Except with some exceptions, like give you an example. A teacher in a room who survived the event, who brought the children into her or his room, secured it, should be taken a roll call, should be figured out who's with them at that point in time. They still have a role in this, but for the most part, they have no role beyond that in the reunification process because they were part of the crime scene.
So we're gonna have to bring people from the outside teams come in there and be part of this process. So it's gonna take time to set it up, secure that environment where we're gonna utilize to move people to, so we can put them back with their loved ones. And so from a management standpoint, we gotta be prepared to tell the public and the parents, loved ones, custodials, that this is the process that's gonna take some time, our first priority is the people who are injured and the fatalities, making sure those notifications are made. But after that it is putting people back together the correct way, not the the fastest way.
Bill Godfrey:
Mark mentioned where we're gonna put 'em back. How difficult is it from a law enforcement perspective when you're having to do an offsite reunification and you're having to move, and let's stick with schools as the example? 'cause that's the one we typically worry about. You can have reunification in other instances, but schools is the one that we really worry about. How difficult is it from a law enforcement perspective to secure the facility where you're gonna conduct reunification and then securely and safely move the kids? Walk us through that.
Adam Pendley:
Sure. So I mean, again, that's part of the process. That part takes time. But, and it kind of adds to the misconception too, because parents are accustomed to coming to the school to pick up their child. So that's the first message you have to get out is the school is not accessible. We are going to have to move those people that have been impacted, the kids, to another area and then we're gonna start reunification there. So getting past that hurdle, you can't go to the school, we're gonna tell you where to go, and just be patient we'll get you to the information as soon as we can.
And then I would add to that, everyone's already been traumatized, we do not want to add to the trauma by making another mistake. By releasing someone who's been injured, or releasing somebody who needs to get their statement out, or releasing someone to the wrong custodial parent. Or letting them be exposed to the media. A number of things that can happen if you don't do reunification in a controlled manner. That's the message that we have to get out to make sure that we understand it's gonna take a little bit of time.
Bill Godfrey:
And Kami, when you've got a school campus and you're gonna have to move the kids in the clearing phase, what's that process? What does that look like? Are the kids getting marched out with their hands on their head at gunpoint? When do they get searched? When do they get checked? 'Cause that's always one of the... It's one of those shots that you see too often from the news helicopter camera of a line of people coming out, marched with their hands on their head, the cops are armed to the teeth. What should that look like in a perfect world? Or what would you ask people to train to as a standard?
Kami Maertz:
So what we would try to do obviously, we have to think about safety on top of everything else. So we have to make sure that everybody is searched and the dynamics of that, because we don't wanna put somebody into a reunification building or anything that is armed or anything like that. And so sometimes it can look a little harsh when people are... Their hands are, they're visible and stuff like that and searches are gonna happen. Those searches would happen though within that first room. So we would not move them from that first location, that search and everything would happen there. And then they would go through a transportation process to whatever, you know, typically buses would be called to the scene and stuff like that. And so prior to them ever being moved from that initial location, they would be searched and lined up and brought to that secondary location.
Bill Godfrey:
Gotcha. So from a incident commander's perspective, or the PIO perspective, the message upfront needs to be, we're at a stable state...
Mark Rhame:
All the threats been neutralized. There's no threat.
Bill Godfrey:
No remaining known threats. We still have investigative work to do, and it's going to take us some time. We need to first account for those that have been injured. Do you feel like we need to specify injured and fatalities or just say we need to account for those that have been injured?
Adam Pendley:
I mean I think at this point you can just say those that have been injured and we need to make sure we're treating everyone else well also.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah. There's some safety things involved with the movement, and this is gonna take a little bit of time. Our primary focus right now, is trying to provide notifications as quickly as possible to the families of those that have been injured, and then be able to say to everybody else, we've already notified everybody who's got somebody injured. So if you have not received a notification from us, your child is safe, your kid is safe. And of course, a lot of times they're texting their parents anyway.
Kami Maertz:
Absolutely. We have a lot of that.
Bill Godfrey:
Okay, anything else on that topic before we move on?
Kami Maertz:
The only thing I would say with that is... I'm sorry. Prior to an incident like this happening is to find a reunification spot. Don't wait for it to happen to find a spot that's gonna be available and that's gonna have the resources that you're going to need, especially for small children, you know, bathrooms, a kitchen, all of those kind of things that you're gonna need to consider beforehand to make sure that you can get there traffic, all of those kind of things. A distance away from different locations is to have those places already marked and ready to go for if that incident happened, then you already had those things set up.
Mark Rhame:
Can I step on top of that one and say, not only you need one, you need two. Because that one, that is your primary location preferable one may not be available.
And the other problem is, that we don't wanna release that information and that's one of the things that the public's gonna go, "Why don't you release that information out? Where's that reification spot?" We do do not wanna release that information until that location is secured, that we have all our pieces and parts there, our counselors, our law enforcement who's gonna interview the witnesses, security on the building. You know, all of that stuff needs to be in place before we have a single person show up. Because if they show up ahead of time, we're probably gonna be looking at our second reunification spot. It's not gonna be a usable place.
And the problem is that then they're going, "Well you're keeping secrets." No, we're trying to get this done in a timely manner, and this is the way to do it most efficiently is not to release the information until we're ready to do so.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, I think, you know, you remind me of our dear friend who had this very thing happen to 'em. The information about where they were gonna use for reunification leaked out of the command post very quickly. Their command post was too close to the outer perimeter and media had a shotgun. My directional microphone pointed at their command post and they heard the conversation, they announced it two parents independent of each other show up before the first law enforcement's officer there. They get into an argument about god knows what, one of 'em branches as a weapon and pops a round off and that's it. And now this reunification site we were gonna use is shot and then they had a second one, and then that went south on 'em, and they ended up having to go to a third site in order to get the thing stood up and all in, it just added hours to the confusion.
So, you know, these are very real issues. As soon as you think you've got a site, or two sites, or even three sites, get some law enforcement over there, get 'em secured, get 'em a presence there, because the likelihood that it's gonna leak is higher than we would all like it to be.
Adam Pendley:
And then just one last thing. If you're not doing so already, when you have those beginning of the school year, and officers may be visiting the school to talk, or the school officials are talking about their plans, it needs to be reiterated with the parents at that time that if a bad thing happens, the reunification part of it will take time to get that message out early.
Bill Godfrey:
Absolutely. Okay, so that was number five. Why is this reunification taking you guys so long? Number four. Body camera footage, we've got body camera footage showing the officers passing up or stepping over, sometimes literally stepping over injured and survivors. Why weren't they taking care of those survivors? Kami.
Kami Maertz:
Well, our first priority on any incident like this is to eliminate the threat. To stop the the dying, we have to stop that threat and that's gonna be our initial thing that we're pushing towards or we're looking for that stimulus and we're moving towards that threat to eliminate that threat. And so sometimes that is stepping over people who need our help, so that we can get back to them and get them in a safe environment where we can actually get rescue into them. So that's going to happen.
Bill Godfrey:
Certainly, because if we don't take care of the threat, they could create more injured for us. That's not the..
Kami Maertz:
And they will.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, they will. Mark, what would you say? Is it also not something we wanna say is, look, you're seeing one person, you're seeing the camera footage from one officer who had a specific job, and we had over a hundred officers that all had different jobs. You know, paramedics, firefighters, EMTs, there's a lot going on at the same time. How would you characterize that?
Mark Rhame:
Well, I would tell the public that first law enforcement officer, if they're following the plan, hopefully this is what they're doing is from a fire EMS perspective, we want them to give us counts. Tell us how many people are injured, and what they believe their criticality is. And I don't mean to stop. If you still get a threat, they need to go toward that threat. They need to take out, neutralize that threat. But while they're doing it, they can get on the radio and say, "I've got five down in the hallway, they all look critical. There's two down in room one. Both of them look critical."
From a fire EMS perspective, they are helping me get prepared. So on the outside of that building, we're standing up rescue task force based upon the numbers that they're telling me and my group, and I'm working with law enforcement to get prepared to go in there and start rescuing people as soon as they take down that threat. So it may look like they're bypassing and not doing anything for these people on the ground. And in fact, by passing on that information, they're saving us time, which is gonna save those people that are on the ground.
Bill Godfrey:
And Adam, I was gonna ask you, you've had to serve as PIO in a plethora of incidents. How would you, if you knew you've got body cam footage that's gonna be released, whether it's being released today, being released tomorrow, would you preempt it? Would you kind of talk about that at a press conference before the footage is released to kind of set the stage for it? How would you address it?
Adam Pendley:
Sure, absolutely. And I think you preface it with this, "This is a traumatic and dynamic event where the officers were following their training and you will see times on the body camera footage when they're having to take actions that are directed towards the threat. While others may come in behind and are focusing on treating the injured." which even treating the injured can sometimes be a very rough business. I mean, many of your viewers will have never seen this type of incident before, thank goodness. But even the action of applying a tourniquet can look very traumatic, but it is lifesaving. And those that have been injured...
Bill Godfrey:
And potentially painful.
Adam Pendley:
Right. Very painful. And those that have been injured and traumatized, they're in shock and you're having to give them loud commands even though they're an innocent injured person, you're having to give them loud commands to make sure that you can take those lifesaving actions. So you're gonna see a lot of things on the body camera footage that are not like visiting your local doctor's office. These are lifesaving actions after a traumatic injury.
Mark Rhame:
Hey Bill, I say one other thing in regard to the incident commander, the PIO in regard to body cam footage is that unfortunately, especially social media, they wanna cherry pick the information. And I think from an incident command standpoint, especially after the fact, maybe hours later when you're getting ready to release that information, maybe days later, or weeks later, whatever it happens to be, when you're getting ready to release that body cam footage, is that make sure the public knows that we're releasing the entire body cam footage and there may be people out there gonna cherry pick this to their own needs or, you know, mission or whatever it happens to be. So if you wanna see the entire picture, look at what we're releasing, not just that little snippet that someone put on their social media site.
Bill Godfrey:
So to that end, Kami, Adam, you are both law enforcement leadership positions. Do you also release the body cam footage of officers that were either directly involved in patient care or may have been the security detail on a rescue task force that has clear footage showing injured being cared for. Would you release that to, would you blur out some of it? Would you cut some of it? How would you address that?
Kami Maertz:
I think that's gonna have to be, that wouldn't be something obviously that would initially be, you know, released or anything like that. It would have to be through a process. There's different things with Sunshine law and everything else that we would have to take into consideration and privacy and you know, really with our public records and stuff like that, that would have to be gone through and made sure all those laws are being followed.
Adam Pendley:
Right. And we've said this before, is that even though the public has a right to know, some of the stuff that's being filmed is the worst days of their lives, of somebody else's life, right? So in that patient privacy and laws differ from state to state on when and how that information can be released. But again, making sure that everyone understands that there's certainly more than one perspective and those things that can be released, release it from all angles. So there's no misunderstanding of what can be seen.
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Bill Godfrey:
I think from my perspective, there's no getting round body cam footage, there's also on any of these responses, very likely gonna be some body cam footage of somebody that's doing something that we just, you know, we're like, "Oh, why did that person do this?" Or they looked lost, or they're back and forth, or, you know, they're getting stuck behind locked door. It's the silly little things... I say silly, that's the wrong word. It's the little things that happen.
And Mark, to your point, you know about the cherry picking, it's the little things that happen and you know, that's gonna be out there. To me, I think one of the best defenses on this stuff is to be on the offense and preempt it. And if you know you're gonna be releasing body cam footage in three days or four days to say, "We are gonna release some of the body cam footage, it is gonna take a few days to go through it. What we will be releasing first will be some key elements of these things. However, we're not gonna release body cam footage showing specific civilians were injured or people that were injured, we may or may not release the entire time of some of these things and begin to set the stage for why some of those things are. Now the conspiracy nuts, they're...
Mark Rhame:
Yeah, you can't do anything about it.
Kami Maertz:
Yeah.
Bill Godfrey:
You can't do anything about it and they're gonna go conspiracy on you no matter what. So to me, I think that's one of the best things to do is just to get ahead of it, not in an hour before you release it, or not as you're releasing it, but set it in stage and re-hit the point for a couple of days. So that's one of the things, you know, "We're awaiting this body cam footage that they're telling us is gonna show this, this, and this." So any other things on body cam footage before we move on?
All right, so number five is, why does reunification take so long? Number four, your body cam footage shows your people stepping over injured and survivors and not taking care of 'em. Then number three, which goes right to what we were just talking about, law enforcement is just trying to cover up, insert blank here and won't release the information. This is one we hear about a lot. Why is it so hard for law enforcement to just tell the truth? I'm sorry. I mean, to release the information.
Kami Maertz:
I think that's always one of the biggest misconceptions is that if we cannot answer something immediately that we are hiding something or being evasive. And this is an investigation and so things have to be released in order and we also don't wanna release anything unless we're 100% sure that that is the truth and that what we're putting out is factual information. These are people's lives, it's our community. This is very important information and you don't wanna get it wrong. So you wanna take that time to make sure that everything's been vetted, everybody's aware, and that we're also have one message between all the different entities that are there prior to us putting out that information. And so it may create a delay, but even as the public, you want to remember that you want the right information, you don't wanna be given wrong information and then it come back. And so it's not that law enforcement's lying, but it's a process.
Bill Godfrey:
Now when you say the wrong information, we're talking about moving targets on the number of injured, you know.
Kami Maertz:
Yes.
Bill Godfrey:
Where you said we had 12, it turns out you had 18, you said you only had two fatalities. Now there's a third fatality or fourth fatality. Is that what we're talking about?
Adam Pendley:
Sure.
Kami Maertz:
Absolutely.
Adam Pendley:
Any of those type of details are potential suspect information. You know, oftentimes the media through social media will uncover some information about a potential suspect or motive that law enforcement is not in a position to confirm yet. One, because it may sour the investigation, or it may not be fully vetted yet. So the level of confidence and information that law enforcement has to have is different than what early speculations might be from either the public or the media looking at certain things.
And so I think the two biggest tools in the toolbox are to be honest. So we will tell the truth Bill. To say either, we do not have that information at this time, or we have it, but we're not releasing it at this time. And I think that's better than saying, "Well, I can't answer that." Give them the reason why you can't answer it, either you don't know, or the investigation's ongoing, or we have that information, we're just not releasing it at this time. Be direct.
Bill Godfrey:
I think the other one I would say is, we're not ready to discuss that.
Adam Pendley:
Right, exactly.
Bill Godfrey:
It's too premature for us to discuss that or we're not prepared to discuss that at this point. I think those are all really...
Mark Rhame:
One last one is that when they insist or want the names of the people are involved, frankly in my eyes, the family's more important than the public in regard to getting that information. We have to notify family members of injuries and fatalities, before we put it out there in the public's eye and the public can wait. The the families are so much more important.
Kami Maertz:
Absolutely.
Bill Godfrey:
Completely agreed. And we all know of the one notorious case that all makes us angry every time we talk about it, of one of the national news entities, having a reporter that went to the hospital and pretended to be a family member to try to gain bedside access of a child, of a person under the age of 18 that had been injured of this. And so we do, I think as responders have a duty to protect 'em.
And maybe that's, you know... I had somebody I worked with a long time ago, I'll never forget this. It didn't have anything to do with active shooter event, but it was one of those things where you get the phone call, and they go, "Okay, I'm getting asked questions about this topic." And you go, "Oh God, here we go." You know, what are we gonna have to do to clean this up and play the defensive? And they said something said, "You know, sometimes you don't wanna be on the defensive. You wanna lean into it and step forward and go, you're damn right that's what we did and here's why." Because it doesn't necessarily leave 'em anywhere to go. And to say that maybe one of the tools in the tool book, or the in the toolbox, for the incident commander or the PIO is when they start getting accused. If you're not releasing any information, you're not telling us anything about the injured hospitals and you're like, "You're damn right we're not. Because our job right now is to protect those people that have been injured and their families and they're our focus, not the public. When the time is right, we'll release that information, but right now our job is to protect those that have been harmed."
Adam Pendley:
Yep. Absolutely.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah. All right. Anything else on that topic? All right, so number five. Why does reunification take so long? Number four, the body camera footage is showing you stepping over people. Number three, law enforcement's just trying to cover it up. Number two, why did they stop and take the time to put on fill in the blank gear, body armor extra go bag, extra ammo, long gun. Why did they stop and take the time? It's because they were afraid and they should have been running right inside to take care of business.
Adam Pendley:
Oh, that one is very interesting in the sense that, there are times when a law enforcement officer might have to face a solo entry situation that is thrust upon them because they're in the right place at the right time to try to make a difference. But if there are an extra few seconds that those officers are responding to a dispatch call, that is violent and dynamic, that equipment is made for a reason. And not only does it protect the officer, and it is in no way is the police officer trying to put their own safety above the safety of the public. We know that the priority of life is innocence, then law enforcement and so on from there. It's about being able to stay in the fight longer. If they're facing a dynamic violent situation, having the additional equipment that is issued for that purpose keeps them in the fight longer, allows 'em to to bring a resolution to a very dangerous situation and save lives.
Kami Maertz:
Absolutely. And there is gear, you know, when we think about law enforcement officers, there's different roles in law enforcement, some are detectives, some are street patrol, some are SWAT. There's different levels of protection that we carry with us that we may not be wearing day to day. And different levels of protection that we may be wearing or carrying different types of guns that are gonna be more efficient in those types of scenarios that we're not necessarily gonna have on our body that we do have to stop and get out of locked containers or, you know, those kind of situations that we have to prepare for before we go into a scene so we can stay on the scene longer and fight.
Bill Godfrey:
Now Mark, you know, you and I are both on the fire service side of this and so this is a pretty easy one for us 'cause we've dealt with it for years. But what are your thoughts on the officers stopping before they get to the scene? Stopping somewhere aware from the scene to gear up? Because there's been a number of incidents where officers arriving on the scene were immediately under attack in some cases before they got outta the car. For some cases before the car was in park. What are your thoughts on that?
Mark Rhame:
Well, statistically, and most people in the public don't know this and obviously most responders probably don't know it either. Statistically law enforcement officers are getting shot on the outside of the building more than they are on the inside. So the public may be in this perception that, well they're safe until they get inside. That's where they're gonna see the threat. No. In fact, when they pull up to the scene, and they're exiting their vehicle, and they're making their approach to that structure, wherever it happens to be, that's when they're in the most dangers statistically. So why wouldn't we put 'em in a position to protect themselves but also to stay in the fight as Adam said, you know, they should be prepared.
But again, who would expect an officer to ride around with all that gear on all the time? That makes no sense whatsoever. So I would think what makes perfect sense is, if they're a block away, they stop real quick, they throw their gear on, they get back in their vehicle, get up to that scene. By the time they do that, probably their team is already getting there at the same time and they can assemble a team approach into that environment. So I think it's perfectly defendable. As management, you gotta take that point. No, I would need my person to be protected, be safe, but also to stay in the fight. We don't want anyone to get shot, but I especially don't want my officers to get shot as they exit their vehicle. That just doesn't make any sense.
Adam Pendley:
Well Bill, I'm gonna turn the tables on you a little bit. What about fire folks? You know, we know, I think you men started to mention it that clearly you have to put on certain turnout gear before you...
Mark Rhame:
We ride approach a burning building.
Adam Pendley:
I know, I know.
Bill Godfrey:
It looks cool.
It looks cool, right?
Mark Rhame:
Yes it does.
Adam Pendley:
So I mean the public has a perception that that's acceptable and it has to happen. But second to that, what about equipment? We know we have mixed feelings about this, but what about a ballistic vest for EMS folks?
Bill Godfrey:
Well, let's take one thing at a time.
Adam Pendley:
Sure.
Bill Godfrey:
So I think all of have heard me say this in classes. I think the idea of law enforcement officers taking 30 seconds, 60 seconds to get gear, whether that's heavier body armor, long gun, go bag.
Adam Pendley:
Stop the bleed kits.
Bill Godfrey:
Extra ammunition.
Kami Maertz:
Absolutely.
Bill Godfrey:
You know whatever the case may be. Is the most defensible thing ever to shut down provided that your PIO or your incident commander has anticipated the question, knows the answer. 'cause it's this simple, it's this simple. So the firefighters went to the grocery store to get groceries, 'cause we're gonna make dinner.
Kami Maertz:
Of course.
Bill Godfrey:
And while you're out at the grocery store, you get dispatched to a structure fire, and you roll up and you didn't have your gear on 'cause you were riding to the grocery store. So you roll up and you got no gear on. And it's the classic, the mom's out in the front yard, my baby, my baby and the house is ripping in flames, well we wouldn't take the time to put our gear on, we would go rushing right in. And everybody that's a firefighter looks at you like, "What are you brain dead?" No, we're gonna put our gear on, we're gonna put our air packs on, because that is necessary for us to stay in that fight and conduct a rescue and save the life. Absent that gear, we can't be effective in saving lives. And it's the same thing for law enforcement.
So to me and Adam, I think this is where you were going. While it's not apples to apples it is. And it's metaphorically the same thing. And so if a PIO or an incident commander has anticipated that question, and has that prepared as an answer, I think the public generally gets, "Yeah. firefighters, we see 'em, they're normally in uniform, but when they're fighting a fire, they got all these heavy coats, and pants on and the helmets and these big air packs." You know, they can kind of generically get it. And I think that's really important.
Now in the case of body armor, I'm fully supportive of body armor for fire and EMS absolutely. Where I caution people is the ones that would sometimes take the notion that, "Well my department didn't issue me body armor, sir I'm not going inside." That I got an issue with. That's a different problem, with a different solution. But on game day, you know, we've got a game to play.
So to me, this is one of the most defensible things, but, we all watch this play out at a really notorious event. The event didn't go so well. There was video of an officer in their trunk. Granted it was not 30 seconds, it was a couple of minutes. But when the officer came out of the trunk, they had on every heavier body armor, they had a long gun, they had another bag presumably was a go bag of some type, you know, whatever. It was an explainable thing. But the organization had already taken so much backlash that they shut down. And the news in absence of anything else ran with the coward story. And that should have never happened. Should have never happened.
Okay. Anything else we wanna put on that one? All right, so number five. Why does reunification take so long? Number four body camera footage of people stepping over the injured or survivors. Number three, law enforcement trying to cover things up 'cause they won't tell us what's going on. Number two, putting gear on prior to going in. And the number one, that area where all the vehicles are parked and the people standing around AKA staging is for the lazy and scared.
Adam Pendley:
Right. Oh, again, this is one that needs to be talked about in advance. You know, understanding if you do invite media to your training and other events and whatnot, having them understand that "Hey, those initial responding officers are gonna go in and deal with the threat and begin rescue. And so are the initial fire and EMS folks. But there are so many other jobs that have to get done." One of the early ones we just talked about was reunification. We're gonna need a number of law enforcement, fire and EMS folks to run an effective reunification area. We're gonna have to have security on perimeters. And those jobs aren't all known right at the very minute that you're first there. We know that in those first few minutes we have a lot of officers going inside to address the threat. And then after that, if we don't control the follow on resources, then we end up with chaos and no other jobs get done. And so just the long list of other very important jobs that not only contribute to saving lives, but contribute to containing the scene, getting information to family members, preventing additional threats from going off. All of those sort of things.
Mark Rhame:
I would say that most people can visualize or remember a picture, maybe it was on the media that showed this massive amount of public safety response to this particular scene, and people sort of running in that direction. Do you see one cop standing there going, "I need three more officers, three more officers over here." Maybe holding a sign up. Three more officers to get, well no, that doesn't happen.
Bill Godfrey:
Like a ticket scalper
I got three, I need three.
Mark Rhame:
But no, staging is not about slowing down. It's about getting organized and prepared and getting ready to respond in an organized fashion. So when we stand up staging, it's about building those teams out as Adam said. We don't expect people to rush to a scene and all of a sudden everybody just goes to the big tree and starts building out teams. It doesn't work that way. So staging allows us to create that environment. Being said, management, especially in the press briefing, should be ahead of the curve. They should be up there and saying, these crews did an amazing job. That exactly what we said, staging is part of our practice and policies and training. And they did exactly what we told them to do and they got organized, and this was a timely response that took down the threat and rescued the people that need to be rescued.
Kami Maertz:
I think that's the best thing. And I think both of you hit on it, is it's perception. And so it's getting ahead of that and letting the public know the perception of it is that people aren't just sitting there, is that people have jobs to do, and that everybody has a task. And that making sure that people are going down range, or going to the hospitals or going to a different location for reunification, that everybody has a task and a job to do. And that that staging is where we're holding people so that it's not that mass chaos so that we don't see the over convergence on the scene where ambulances can't get in and out, and managing all of those resources effectively to make sure that the mission can get accomplished.
Bill Godfrey:
I think that's the key is staging is where we give teams a task and purpose. It's where we take people, individual singular resources, we organize them as a team, and then we assign them a task and purpose. And I think from my perspective, whether it's the PIO or the incident commander, you stand up and say, "Look, we need every gun exactly where we need it, when we need it, doing what we need it to do. That doesn't magically happen." And if everybody floods into the scene, we have a bigger problem, we have bigger confusion and we're not getting those tasks done.
The other challenge that we have, if that's left under control, you have 50, 60, 100 police officers running around with their guns out and their adrenaline up. The chances that they can shoot each other or shoot an innocent because they came around a corner and face-to-face with somebody they didn't expect, we train to avoid that, but if everybody's running around uncontrolled, the possibility, the probability of that rises. So we need every gun where we need it, when we need it, doing what we need it to do. We need every EMT paramedic ambulance doing what we need done, when we need it done, where we need it done. And I as an incident commander, I want more resources than I'm actually gonna need. The problem is, I don't know how many resources I need for about 30 to 60 minutes. And so in the meantime I want 'em all, but I don't want 'em in my scene messing things up. I want them waiting for me to give them a task and a purpose and then I want 'em moving quickly with that task and purpose to go get the job done.
Adam Pendley:
Absolutely.
Kami Maertz:
And that brings up a good point too, is 'cause you do have so many different entities coming from so many different locations, is that it gives them a location to go to, is that staging gives them a common place that this is where I'm heading. And so even if they're on the way there and you're going to re divert them to somewhere else, they have a commonplace of where they're going. And sometimes in any type of scene that's really important to just give them an area.
Bill Godfrey:
I think that's right on target. Anything else on this one? All right. It's funny we spent more time talking about the number five one than we did talk about the number one. But honestly, I think it's the top three of these, or at least the top two, the putting gear on prior to arrival and the staging are things that to someone who doesn't understand our business look bad, but quite honestly are very easy to explain. If the PIO has prepped their incident commander during the press before the press conference, "Hey, something you might anticipate is somebody may ask about this or they may ask about that. Or we're seeing these things trend on social media, so I want you to address this, or I wanna address that."
Adam Pendley:
And my final thought on that is exactly what Mark said, is that if you're prepared to say, "Hey, no, they did exactly what they were trained to do and we needed them there 'cause we needed them for this, this, and this."
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah.
Kami Maertz:
Yes.
Bill Godfrey:
And I think the other thing, you know, we talked about this in another podcast, I think it was a few weeks ago. We also want some resources that are standing by as a quick reaction force. In case there's something that happens adjacent to this that we weren't expecting. We're not sitting there with no resources. We've got teams that are geared up, ready to roll, ready to roll. And I'm gonna wrap us up with this thought that I really like, it's a saying from all the tactical folks, the SWAT guys and girls, who I affectionately call the Hutt boys and homage to the Blues Brothers. "Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.
Adam Pendley:
Absolutely.
Bill Godfrey:
And if that's good enough for the SWAT guys and girls, then it sure is good enough for us. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Thank you very much for coming in. It's been a pleasure to get through this one top five misconceptions that the public has about managing active shooter events.
If you have not liked or subscribe the podcast, please do so and please share it with the people that you work with. This doesn't really do any of us any good if we don't get the word out as we go. I wanna say thank you to our producer Karla Torres for running things behind the scene and making it look great. And until next time, stay safe. Thanks.