Page 23 - TPA Journal January - February 2019

could drive fast in response to a “subject with a gun; shots fired” call and believe me, I get it. We
all want to be on an assault team tasked with locating, isolating, containing, and neutralizing an
individual threatening the public with a deadly weapon; however, its very difficult to make LEO
understand that equally as many lives can be saved by implementation of sound command and
control strategies simultaneously with threat neutralization tactics. These are no longer conflicting
schools of thought with one having more merit than the other. Instead, they must be given equal
weight when developing Operations, Logistics, and Intelligence Sections within your Incident
Command platform at critical incidents. One of your first responders must assume the role of
Incident Commander, liaise with other agencies to establish Unified Command at a Command
Post, and begin the process of resource acquisition, staging, and deployment. Most after-action
reports I’ve read about previous active shooter responses (Columbine, Sandy Hook, Aurora, Santa
Fe, Parkland, etc.) identify one specific strategic error they have in common: the failure to
immediately establish Unified Command at the onset of the emergency to insure effective
response and prevent further loss of life, escape of the suspect, or both. Establishing key ICS
facilities such as command posts, staging areas, triage areas, bases of operation,
helispots/heliports, and others cannot be accomplished unless one of the first responders on scene
makes it happen, and that means someone must accept responsibility for saving lives in a manner
different than getting in the gunfight.

The Position-Power v Referent-Power Leadership Dilemma – Ranks second only to failing to
establish command and control protocol simultaneously with threat neutralization in terms of
strategical errors made by LEO first responders. During post 9/11 development of NIMS the
Department of Homeland Security’s training headquarters, known as the Center for Domestic
Preparedness, specifically addressed an error nearly all LE agencies make when assigning key
critical incident response rolls – they assign commanders with the highest day-to-day rank to
Incident Commander and Operations and Logistics Section Chief positions. It is frequently
assumed that because a LEO attains the rank of senior or executive commander, he or she is
automatically ordained the best candidate to command a critical incident or unusual occurrence.
In most cases nothing could be farther from the truth but we as a discipline seem destined to
repeat this mistake in perpetuity. Position-Power leaders rarely have the training and operational
experience necessary to manage a mass casualty incident because most of their time is spent on
administrative details rather than field operations. Conversely, Referent-Power leaders are those
who lead from the front based on experience, and they are typically “informal” leaders, meaning
they have no day-to-day supervision or management authority. Their ability to respond to chaos is
typically forged in down-range experience or “baptismal by fire” and to put it bluntly, they know
more about the strengths and weaknesses of their brother officers, and which tactical assets will
solve the problem, than their commanders do (in most cases). As a rule, always assign the most
qualified and experienced personnel to emergency management roles which provide the best
chance at successful outcomes, and those personnel are likely to be patrol officers rather than
supervisors or commanders. If the best asset you have is a six-month probationary patrol officer,
put him in your command post and give him the support he needs. Egos will have to be checked
and pride swallowed occasionally; however, the smartest move we can make is putting the right
assets in the right places at the right time. Additionally, agency executives must fight the urge to

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