Commanding is Not Communicating During Chaotic Incidents
“Shooter is halfway up, halfway up in the Mandalay Bay Hotel” was the radio transmission from a Las Vegas patrol officer seconds after the shooting started at the Route 91 Harvest Festival. At the street level, there was nothing this officer could do to stop an elevated shooter in a high-rise hotel room other than share critical information over the radio. Sadly — but predictably — this important information went unnoticed as other officers frantically called in wounded victims and erroneous information about the location of the shooter (and even multiple shooters during the initial confusion). More than 6 minutes and 40 seconds passed before police supervisors identified the location of the shooter and directed officers to the 32nd floor of the hotel. We will never know how many killed or wounded victims could have been spared if the first officer’s message was not lost in the noise.
The Vegas Shooting After Action Report published in August 2018 includes 6 recommendations focused on incident communications:
- The Incident Commander was unable to leave his command vehicle because he needed to monitor radio traffic on multiple channels simultaneously.
- Congested radio traffic made coordination difficult for response agencies.
- Communication and coordination shortfalls among officers delayed their ability to locate the shooter and clear the venue.
- The Las Vegas police 911 center did not assign a dedicated dispatcher to monitor the Route 91 Harvest Festival police radio channel which contributed to delayed and disorganized communications.
- The 911 center also did not have a policy to guide dispatchers during a mass casualty incident.
- Individual responders circumvented command and requested resources to the scene without Incident Command’s knowledge or approval.
These findings show breakdowns at every level of the response as incident command and communications failed between responders on the scene, their supervisors, the 911 center, and the incident commander.
This is a tragic story that has been told before with different circumstances. After planes crashed into the World Trade Center towers, firefighters and police officers bravely climbed the stairs toward the fire. When the first building collapsed, the responders in the other tower were unaware of the situation. The radio waves were flooded with so many random communications across multiple different channels about the status of the elevators, who was on which floor, and location of units that were arriving that responders couldn’t hear the critical messages to evacuate.
The 9/11 Commission Report cites: “ a critical lack of communication and coordination between the fire department and other agencies, especially the police, and no effective unified command center that could take overall control and coordinate all of the agencies involved. Each had its own command system and information that was critical to informed decision making was not shared among agencies.”
It seemed like the solution to all of the problems during the 9/11 response was establishing a standardized Incident Command System and having a single incident commander during every response. Unfortunately, 17 years after the 9/11 attacks, the same problems continue to occur over and over. It appears that command is not the solution to the issue. Failures occur because police, firefighters, and EMS providers need to be able to communicate.
What’s the difference?
When a crowd is taking automatic gun fire from a shooter, what does a police officer need? The officer needs to know where the threat is, what to do, and have the ability to ask for more resources (e.g., other officers, EMS). Herein lies the failure of thinking about incident command as the primary solution to this challenge.
Command: To direct authoritatively, to exercise a dominating influence over, to have at one’s immediate disposal, to demand or receive as one’s due.
The police officers in Las Vegas and the firefighters in the World Trade Center didn’t need a singular authority to exercise dominating influence — they needed to know the building was going to collapse or the shooter was on the 32nd floor of the casino.
How do they get this information?
Communication: A process by which information is exchanged between individuals; a technique for expressing ideas effectively.
There is nothing about commanding that requires the commander to communicate.
Incident responses are continuing to breakdown because the definition of incident command does not include the fundamental principle that responders need to be able to effectively communicate what they are experiencing and what they need.
Incident Command: A standardized approach to the command, control, and coordination of emergency response by providing a common hierarchy within which responders from multiple agencies can be effective.
Shortfalls of Centralized (Incident) Command
The military has a longer history and deeper understanding of command and control than domestic first responders. In his book, Extreme Ownership, retired Navy SEAL commander Jocko Willink explains how the principles of managing units in combat environments can be applied to corporate executives. These same lessons are applicable to fire and police chiefs managing complex incidents.
The SEAL commanders follow 4 simple “laws of combat”: cover and move, simple, prioritize and execute, and decentralized command. Jocko explains:
“During the first few days of Task Unit Bruiser’s MOUT training, my SEAL leaders tried to control everything and everyone themselves. They tried to direct every maneuver, control every position, and personally attempted to manage each one of their men-up to thirty-five individuals in the Task Unit. It did not work.
In a striking realization that military units throughout history have come to understand by experience, it became clear that no person had the cognitive capacity, the physical presence, or the knowledge of everything happening across a complex battlefield to effectively lead in such a manner.
Instead, my leaders learned they must rely on their subordinate leaders to take charge of their smaller teams within the team and allow them to execute based on a good understanding of the broader missions and SOPs. That was effective Decentralized Command.”
Decentralized command relies on units being able to effectively communicate location, resource needs, objectives, and progress. These are the same needs that first responders have on major incidents.
Need for an Incident Communicator
What if there was a dedicated role responsible for helping police, firefighters, and EMS providers communicate by sharing critical information?
Here is a video that explains the concept:
Technology allows supervisors to communicate with units anywhere in their jurisdiction. There is no longer a need for every supervisor involved with an incident response to be responding directly to the scene. The Navy SEALs already understand this through their use of decentralized command.
A remotely located supervisor can be designated as the “incident communicator” and have a sole duty of attentively listening on the radio without the distraction of all of the other stimuli involved in a response. When the incident communicator hears important information, he or she can repeat that information and provide direction to units on the scene. Even though this supervisor is not physically responding to the scene, he or she is trusted with that decision making authority on other incidents.
The incident communicator can:
- Record, track, and analyze the incident radio communications from a remote location without distraction
- Utilize remotely located supervisors who are currently unused resources that already exist, are trained, and have decision making authority
- Provide an extra quality control layer to identify important messages (e.g., this is the location of the shooter or the World Trade Center is collapsing)
The incident commander can’t do it all and the communicator provides a necessarily capability without needing to be physically present at the incident scene to provide that help managing and coordinating the response.
How to Make It Happen
Major incidents from shootings to fires to plane crashes all result in the same breakdown in responder communications. The units on the scene can’t effectively communicate what they need and responding units aren’t aware of what actions they need to take. The solution to this problem is focusing on improving communication.
Acknowledging the lack of emphasis on communication in the incident command system is the first step to solve this significant incident response failure that occurs over and over. Creating a dedicated incident communicator role in local police, fire, and EMS agencies can have an immediate impact on saving lives by more efficiently responding during the next major incident.
David Riedman is an expert in critical infrastructure protection, homeland security policy, and emergency management. He is a co-founder of the Center for Homeland Defense and Security’s Advanced Thinking and Experimentation (HSx) Program at the Naval Postgraduate School.
