The murder of a police officer is both a community and personal tragedy. Better equipment and improved training are helping to improve survivability, but society's criminal element has access to the same equipment and the result has been an increase in law-enforcement fatalities.
First responders & emergency managers must make many difficult decisions. One of the most consequential involves choosing between the field testing of potential biological agents at the scene of an incident & the safer but slower option of waiting for verified lab results.
LPR systems are resented by drivers who are caught speeding and/or running stoplights. The same technology can be used, though, to quickly identify stolen cars and for other equally important law-enforcement tasks.
The 2004 Chechen massacre of almost 400 students, parents, and teachers at Beslan School Number 1 shocked the entire world. The United States learned numerous lessons from that horrifying incident - but has yet to translate them into its own preparedness plans.
When a firefighter, hazmat specialist, or other responder reports for duty at a possibly contaminated mass-casualty scene, he or she must be properly dressed - in a well insulated space-age ensemble that keeps out toxic fumes and particulate matter.
Most U.S. ports are now safer from sabotage and terrorist attacks than ever before in recent years. The safety imperative will soon be upgraded even more when the new Transportation Workers Identification Card regulations become SOP at all of the nation's ports.
A first-person report from a veteran firefighter and incident-management professional tells how the Town of Sandwich, Mass., and local military units joined forces to synergistically enhance their individual and collective disaster-response capabilities.
The escalation of drug-cartel violence in Mexico is rapidly becoming a clear & present danger to the United States itself and, if not checked, will soon evolve into a major national-security challenge for the Obama administration's homeland-security team.
An expeditious start, clear directions, and a detailed road map to the future augur well for an ambitious new slate of initiatives, both domestic and international, for the overworked and not always adequately funded Department of Homeland Security.
The swearing-in ceremonies, the parade, and the celebrations that followed were major successes. An even greater success was the behind-the-scenes preparations that ensured that nothing happened that was not supposed to happen.
