Open Source Homeland

A stinging, detailed critique showing what the downtown heat emergency related to the LaSalle Bank Marathon has to say about emergency preparedness in Chicago

Second City Cop: Who’s Culpable?
The inefficiency of City agencies to coordinate a large scale response to an emergency situation run by a private entity should really bring pause to anyone who thinks this town is anywhere near ready for an Olympics or a terror attack.

 Chicago received cash today to help solve the problem identified in recent interoperability reports. Got to get less turf war between county and city.

City to get $16M for police, fire communications upgrades | Crains
Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said the money will answer “the urgent need for firefighters, police, and other first responders to be able to communicate effectively with one another.”

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the money should get the entire country up to a basic standard of effective emergency communication by 2009 — but only if the local authorities coordinate with each other and avoid turf fights.

The CTA has announced that Chicago police will soon be able to tap into the buses on the street and see what’s going on inside them. This kind of idea sounds great on the surface, but you can see that’s overly tight and a little unpractical. Second City Cop points out that the cameras are useful after the fact and notes some practical issues in viewing the feeds in the car.

Seems to me that if a cop is driving near a bus and wants to see what’s going on inside, they’d board the bus.

Tech Upgrades Allow Police To Tap Into CTA Cameras – News Story – WMAQ | Chicago
CHICAGO — Chicago police will soon be able to see what is happening on a Chicago Transit Authority bus without getting on board, NBC5 reported on Thursday.

New computer upgrades will allow officers to electronically tap into video cameras already installed on city buses.

Video images viewed in real time will let police dispatchers issue immediate alerts about criminal activity.
Last month, after a gunman opened fire on a CTA bus, killing 16-year-old Julian High School student Blair Holt, and police looked at videotapes to identify a suspect.

 Second City Cop is one of my favorite weblogs in the world. Tons of valuable info on what’s really going on in my town. Here’s SCC sounding off about the latest Chicago story on emergency preparedness.

By the way, has anyone gotten their updated orders on how to operate in a terror attack zone? How radio communications will operate? What will happen if a biological, chemical or nuclear device is detonated? How gang, tact or incident teams will be mobilized? Whether or not Detectives will be put in uniform and if they will be used in a support capacity for the Feds?

As usual, the gold is in the comments.

Here’s a set of videos and other materials I found via the Official Chicago Police Blog and the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

Volunteers in Police Service VIPS – Resources

• Volunteers in Police Service: The Executive Perspective (7 minutes)
• Introducing Volunteer Activities to Law Enforcement (12 minutes)
• Introducing Law Enforcement Volunteerism to the Community (13 minutes)
• Engaging Youth Through Volunteerism (10 minutes)

Seems to be Old Skool/ CAPS/Top-Down Model of collaboration.