Ep 12: #4 How does each Discipline use ICS? - "10 Questions from the Mayor" Series

C3 Podcast: Active Shooter Incident Management

Episode 12: #4 How does each agency use ICS jointly and individually on a routine basis? - "Questions from the Mayor" Series

10 Questions for the Mayor to ask the Police and Fire Chief Series

Question 4: "How does each discipline (i.e. law enforcement, fire, EMS) use ICS individually and jointly on a routine basis (i.e. regular calls)?"

Bill Godfrey:

Welcome back to our next podcast. In this series, we're in the middle of talking about the 10 questions that the mayor or city manager should ask their police chief and fire chief together. Today we're going to take number four, which was how does each discipline use ICS individually and jointly on a routine basis? So the mayor, the city manager, county administrator, can sit down with the police chief and fire chief and say, "You know, folks, tell me, how are you guys using ICS on a daily basis? Where are you using it together? How does it fit? How does that work?
"My name is Bill Godfrey, one of the instructors with C3, retired fire chief. I have with me Billy Perry, a retired detective from Jacksonville Sheriff's office, also a bomb tech. Billy, welcome.

Billy Perry:

Thank you for having me, Bill.

Bill Godfrey:

And we have Tom Billington, retired fire chief, also Tom and Billy, both one of the instructors at C3. Tom, welcome.

Tom Billington:

Thank you very much.

Bill Godfrey:

So Tom, let's lead off. So you know, fire is known pretty well across the country for using ICS on a daily basis. So that's kind of a given. Where are the opportunities that you see on the fire side for wrapping that together, using it jointly with law enforcement?

Tom Billington:

Well actually I can give you a good example. When I did a stint as fire chief in Virginia, we had the annual horse races same day as the Kentucky Derby and they were attended by about 6,000 people. And before the horse races, we actually did a joint command briefing with state police, county sheriff, local police, EMS, fire, and again the city manager and county personnel also.
And then during the races we would implement ICS positions including the city manager and the county mayor as what their role would be should something go wrong. And actually one year before I arrived there, there was a tornado and they put their plan into place and it worked very good. So having the incident command system, everybody involved, not just fire, not just law enforcement, but everybody at all levels involved, very important.

Bill Godfrey:

So Billy on the law enforcement side, of course you hold a unique perspective, you've done it for a long time, you're very comfortable interacting with all levels in the ranks within the organization. As we travel around the country, we constantly run into law enforcement officers that they feel like they're too low on the food chain, ICS doesn't really apply to them, that that's something the major does or the deputy chief or something like that. What's your take on how does ICS fit on a daily basis for law enforcement, and where could you guys use it more than maybe you do?

Billy Perry:

You know, that's a great question, and basically where we can use it more than we do is everywhere. And I say that because I was forced to take it and I mean that, I was forced to take it, I was forced to take the NIMS classes, 101 and on up as a young SWAT guy and then as a bomb guy. They made all the specialized units take it and I really didn't understand why. And then as I started really exploring the professionalism of my career and seeing how it was used and where it was applicable, and when you realize what the main purpose of it is and it's to be more efficient, to be more effective, and to better serve our community. I don't say that lightly, I take that very, very seriously.
And I think that once you realize that the purpose of doing this is to be more expeditious in the utilization of resources and the implementation of tactics, and it makes sense. And to be a more effective and higher trained professional in what you do in your craft. I know that Tom being a chief and you and your time at the fire department being a chief and you treated it not only as your profession, but as a craft and I've done the same thing.
I think that we need to do a better job of teaching the lower echelons and rank of how important it is and how it is used. And even if you don't realize you're using it, you are using it. When you set up an emergency apprehension team and somebody takes command, that's ICS. When you recognize the brilliance of some of your leadership, like we had Michelle Cook that initiated putting rescue task forces in at special events and putting two firefighters with two officers for RTS for special events, for the Jaguar games, for Florida, Georgia games, brilliant. Brilliant. Because it just dovetails in, it cuts out a step of hesitancy, if that makes sense.

Bill Godfrey:

Yeah. It was a way to socialize the concepts into the organization and breed familiarity, breed the comfort.

Billy Perry:

Absolutely. And they're just dispatched there because one of our other instructors, Adam Pendley, says generally when you're at a situation like that, when you're sent to a fight, you generally need a medic, and if a medic needs to go to something, they generally need police officers. So if you're already there together, hey guys, then we're all there. We show up at the same time. We fix it, it's more expeditious, it's more efficient, and it's more economical frankly. Because we're ready to redeploy to another emergency or maybe a more important emergency or more vital. It's a better use of resources.

Bill Godfrey:

So Tom, and I think you'd agree with me on this, because Tom and I were both on the job when ICS began to come into the fire service and began to get adopted and there was some challenges in the beginning, there was some resistance. The thing that seemed to really kind of get us over that inertia and over that hump was when we started using it routinely, when we started using it on the every day. And Tom, I think you would agree with that as well. Where are the opportunities for sergeants out there working the streets every day, you know, the corporals, the FTOs, where are the opportunities for them to use ICS on a smaller scale for themselves in a way that can begin to breed that familiarity and that comfort with its use?

Billy Perry:

Well everywhere. I think... as my mind hearkens back, we were taking as a patrol squad, we're picking up a homicide suspect and the sergeant would put a technical officer in charge and say, "Listen, I want you to run this operation," because that's one of the tenants of ICS is who's the most qualified. So they would do that. And the same thing with scenes with specialized units, whether it's a bomb call out, whether it's a SWAT call out, who's got initial command. I think the supervision, the frontline supervision, just reminding this is actually ICS.
Because it's no different than community oriented policing. We were doing community oriented policing, we just didn't know it was called that. And I think that a really good patrol officer is actually doing ICS, just doesn't know it.

Bill Godfrey:

Yeah. We say that in the class all the time that law enforcement's been doing ICS for a very long time. When the first police officer shows up, they're the ones in charge. When the sergeant shows up.

Billy Perry:

He's in charge.

Bill Godfrey:

And when the Lieutenant shows up.

Billy Perry:

He's in charge.

Bill Godfrey:

And that's ICS.

Billy Perry:

In a nutshell.

Bill Godfrey:

It really is and I feel like in some ways the fire service bears some responsibility along with FEMA that we've presented it in this overcomplicated way and it really doesn't need to be that way. What about other types of calls that patrol is going to routinely do? Any other examples?

Billy Perry:

Absolutely. A great one is perimeter. If you set up a perimeter that's a great example, because everybody needs to know where everybody is to prevent blue on blue, not just to have a good perimeter but to keep friendly fire fratricide from happening. And you have an overreaching supervisor that's on that, that's the ICS command system. Realizing it or not, they're actually in charge and they're over that perimeter and that's their job. I mean it's virtually everywhere.

Bill Godfrey:

So Tom, from your perspective on the fire side, where are the everyday opportunities to do an integrated command where we've got fire and law enforcement working already a little close together? I mean for example, you know a car accident where you've got injuries, roadway obstruction. Is that a missed opportunity that we could begin to have everybody working together a little more closely than we do?

Tom Billington:

Yes it is. However we've got to remember one thing. We have to make sure we're training our people. We can't just tell our line people, okay start doing ICS. We have to tell them how to do it together jointly, or how to do whether it's a car accident, whether it's domestic, what are the roles of each person and how do you put it together?
I remember when we started ICS in the fire service, we used to tell people our paramedics, you're on a medical call, that's ICS. Who's in charge? The paramedic. Who's doing all the logging of the information on your command board? Well maybe the EMT. There's always some sort of chain of how things happen. There's so many opportunities out there, but we have to make sure we train our personnel. Like I've said before, the officer on midnight shift or the firefighter 30 miles away at an out station, he or she if they're going to buy into it, have to be trained and have to understand why they're doing it and how to do it.

Bill Godfrey:

You know, Billy, I sometime just said what made me remember, we did a class out in Texas, the three-day class and midway through the class there was a paramedic and an EMT that left class at the end of the day and went back on shift. And during the night, they had a call out to a shooting where the shooting suspect was not in custody, was believed to be at large in the neighborhood.
But the patient had been shot very close range with a shotgun in the belly, you know, fairly nasty, and they were calling for the medics. And the medic supervisor who hadn't been in the training was saying, you know, it's not safe, it's not clear. And one of the police officers who was also in the training had come back to where the medics were and said, "Hey, let's do an RTF so we can get you up and get this guy out." And the female medic who had been in the class said, "Yeah, we got this. We can do this." And the supervisor was like, "No, I'm not really comfortable with this." And she said, "No, we got this. We know what we're doing."
And on this kind of routine shooting call, they used the simple RTF concept to get the medics up in and out in a little bit safer fashion. Is that a missed opportunity in a lot of our communities that unfortunately are experiencing this violence, you know, the shootings and stabbings, the domestic calls? Is there an opportunity for law enforcement and fire to work a little more closely together, maybe use that RTF concept on a little more small scale?

Billy Perry:

Absolutely. And I think it even happens... I've been on a training exercise in the last year of my employment, which was just in 2017, where I had a captain that said, "No, we're not going anywhere until it's cool." And I'm like, you're a captain. You have to know this stuff. And I think that we do miss these training opportunities.
And I think that not just training opportunities, but I think we miss real world opportunities and I think the sooner we get this out and the sooner we make it uniform across the board, I think it's better. But I do think we miss that. And I think that the only answer from my minimal scope is more integration.

Bill Godfrey:

So Tom, bottom line, the mayor, city manager, county administrator, sitting down with his police and fire chief and asks this question, "How does each of your disciplines use ICS individually and jointly on a routine basis?" What's the answer that they want to hear?

Tom Billington:

Well, the answer should be Mr. City Manager or Mr. Mayor, you probably already know because we include you in this training. You're a part of ICS and here's our joint training, here's our joint procedures and how we do things and here's how we've done it and here's what we do to implement it.
If the city manager or mayor doesn't know what ICS is even, then it's not happening. It has to be top to bottom. Everybody should know what it is and practice it.

Bill Godfrey:

Bill, your perspective, bottom line. The sheriff's been called to sit down... The sheriff and the fire chief get called to sit down with the mayor's office and talk about this. What's the answer that the mayor should want to hear from the sheriff and the fire chief?

Billy Perry:

We actually had pretty good integration and I think that he would hear that frankly, and I think it happens. We've gone, we've enumerated in depth what happens on a routine basis from the specialized units, man it's really strong from the SWAT and from especially the bomb side from the hazmat with white powder calls, with WMD calls, with meth calls. That is ICS personified.
I mean, if you ever want to see what it looks like, that's it. Straight down to the whiteboard, you know that has a dry erase board up there and everything else. So I think what they're going to hear is... And I think that the current mayor we have now, Lenny Curry, is going to go, "ICS, yeah, absolutely." And same thing with the sheriff and the chief. With Sheriff Williams and Chief Wilson, I think they're going to know.

Bill Godfrey:

Fantastic. Gentlemen, thank you very much. We'll wrap this one up here today. Please join us for this continued series on our next one, which is to discuss the question of what joint training have you done and what is planned, which is separate from the question of what joint exercises have you done and what are planned? Thanks gentlemen.

Billy Perry:

Thank you.

Tom Billington:

Thank you.