Uniting for effective mass casualty response: Law enforcement, fire and EMS trade trainers

A Florida fire department is leading the way in bringing together first responders to train to respond to active shooter scenarios and other MCIs

May 23, 2023 01:42 PM •

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Top quotes from this episode

What many people don’t know [about the Parkland shooting] is that the 17 folks who survived that day, who were severely injured, who ultimately survived, all of them were treated by law enforcement. Many people think it was EMS who got there first and put on tourniquets and chest seals and stopped the bleed. But in fact, it was PD, it was SWAT.”

If you come to one of these drills, you cannot discern who is PD and who is fire and EMS because the relationship has gotten so close, the skillset has now crossed over.”

One of the keys to success I think is trading the trainers. Fire rescue should teach all police officers high-quality CPR, AED, Stop the Bleed, nasal Narcan administration and everything else the officers are doing out there.”

I would love to see police cars with a green light on top. Why green light? That’s establishing command. I would love for that first officer who doesn’t need to take scene action to say, ‘I’m going to establish scene command, turn on a green light on the top of my roof, and let FD know exactly where to park their command vehicle.’”

The future is that police officers have to be basically at the level of a high-performing EMT, where they have all the basics, they have that skill set.”

resources mentioned in the episode

About our guests

Peter Antevy, MD, innovator of the Handtevy Pediatric Resuscitation System, is a nationally recognized lecturer and expert in the field of pre-hospital pediatrics. He is extremely passionate about improving both adult and pediatric pre-hospital care and evaluating and improving upon currently accepted medical practice.

A board-certified doctor of pediatric emergency medicine, Dr. Antevy earned his medical degree from the St. George’s University School of Medicine and from the University of Miami School of Medicine. He completed his residency in pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and his fellowship in pediatric emergency medicine at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. Dr. Antevy currently serves as the EMS Medical Director for Davie Fire-Rescue.

AC Moran.jpg — Davie Fire Rescue Assistant Fire Chief Daniel Moran

Daniel Moran is the Assistant Fire Chief for Davie Fire Rescue, where he manages the EMS, Training and Special Projects Divisions. He is the SRT Medic coordinator with the Davie Police Department and for the past four years has led the Active Shooter Hostile Event Response training sessions along with PD’s training staff.

He is a passionate educator and trainer with over 18 years of instructional experience. He conducts lectures at the Broward College criminal justice program and strives to strengthen the relationship between police officers and firefighters.

His lecture on “World’s Colliding” that discusses PD performing medical interventions including CPR, AED, Stop the Bleed and nasal Narcan, along with firefighters wearing ballistics and entering warm zones, has garnished attention from multiple criminal justice programs throughout the state.

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Episode transcript

Jim Dudley: Welcome back. You’re listening to Policing Matters on Police1.com. I’m your host, Jim Dudley. And if you haven’t checked us out yet, check us out on the Police1 YouTube channel, and you could see our guests and me. Hey, law enforcement officers may be first on scene at a mass casualty incident or an MCI and depending on the size, it may be overwhelming. Are we prepared to see the unthinkable? Do we know what we should do? Do we know what our priorities should be? Do we know our opposite numbers in fire and EMS and other responding agencies? Well, our guests today may have the answers to all of those questions. My guests are Dr. Peter Antevy, EMS medical director for Davie Fire Rescue, and Daniel Moran, assistant fire chief for Davie Fire Rescue, where he manages the EMS training and special projects division.

Thank you both for what you do and thank you for your work in the mass casualty response policy and procedures training and implementation. Tell us a little bit about what the training you do called Mass Casualty Mondays.

Peter Antevy: I’ll start, Jim, by talking about my experience at Parkland back in February of 2018, which really made me understand very clearly what the role of police, fire and EMS are at these MCI events. And I can tell you that day, I’m so proud of what I saw from law enforcement and the actual work that they did. What many people don’t know is that the 17 folks who survived that day, who were severely injured, who ultimately survived, all of them were treated by law enforcement. Many people think it was EMS who got there first and put on tourniquets and chest seals and stopped the bleed. But in fact, it was PD, it was SWAT, and then we ended up receiving all those patients outside with all those items already placed. And so fast-forward to my work with Davie Fire Rescue and an incredible human being, Chief Moran, who really came up with this concept. I’ll let him describe it, but it’s that combination of police and fire and EMS together that really makes a difference.

Daniel Moran: Absolutely. And I appreciate that compliment, Dr. Antevy, but you know I have to pass that up. So we’re very fortunate in Davie. My fire chief has been a major advocate for the Stop the Bleed movement. She was actually recognized at the White House for a model agency in a model city because of her efforts to get the Stop the Bleed kits out there to the community. So between her efforts and her motivation, and Chief Gonzalez, who is our operations chief, and us coming together and saying, “Okay, look at all these mass casualty drills. Look at all these mass casualty incidents. What are the after-action items that are the common themes? What items do we constantly and consistently see pop up during these after actions that we can really focus on and turn into learning objectives for a training program?”

So as we began looking at that, the common items you see are communication, unified command. We started going through these one by one and saying, “What measurable actionable items can we look at today to really develop a program that we can deliver consistently to the entire fire department, to the entire police department, to make sure that when these incidents do happen, they’re all on the same page and we get those initial actions down perfectly?” So instead of looking at an entire mass casualty drill from the start all the way through to the last patient being transported, we really began to focus on those initial key action items. So we looked at communication. We know tactical command, unified command is so important. That link up between fire and police really sets the tone for the entire incident, and we know that shared communication is literally life-saving communication. So how do we get that chief fire officer to link up with that police officer who’s that commander?

We bridge that gap by looking at our dispatch centers and finding out that the police dispatch, where they operate their own dispatch, will actually allow the battalion chief en route to this call to talk to them so that we can learn where is the police officer that’s taking that initial command role and where can we get to safely to make that link up happen? Once that’s happened, then it really turns into, “Okay, what are our next priorities?” Well, really and sincerely, it’s what Dr. Antevy already mentioned. It’s getting police officers in the door. Not necessarily for the contact team, that role’s already been taken care of. Not necessarily for security and evacuation, that’s already happening. It’s really to get those officers in to treat and it’s to give the officers the confidence that they’re performing the treatments correctly, and to make them repeatedly do those skills so that they build that confidence where they can do it automatically.

And I really think that mindset culture change is so critically important that when you’re that seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, however many officers you need for your contact team, they’re already done. Those next in-route officers should be thinking, “I am treating victims. That is my role en route to this call.” And equipping those officers with the equipment is also equally as important. They need the tourniquets, the chest seals, the quick clot wound packing. They need all the same materials that EMS and fire rescue have access to with them in their vehicles, where they can make access to that scene quickly and begin treating the victims. I give huge credit to our police department and our training staff because they put together what they call a bailout kit that has all the life-saving equipment in it that I just mentioned, in addition to extra ammunition.

I think that makes a lot of sense, where if you’re going into an active shooter environment, you want that ammo with you and it automatically means you’re bringing the life-saving equipment that we really want them to have. We reached out to Dr. Antevy to say, “Here is our plan based on looking at the after-action items. What else would you like to see from our officers, and can you come out to these Mondays and be in the room while the officers are doing the treatment?” That way, they have the highest medical authority on scene telling them, “Hey, here’s the techniques. Here’s the little things to watch out for,” so I want to make sure we give proper credit to our medical directors. So Dr. Antevy, your thoughts on that?

Peter Antevy: Yeah, you’re very kind. I really appreciate that. What I remember very clearly, Jim and Dan, Dan and I would sit on these sessions at an old abandoned church, and you would see that police officers were very reticent to actually get involved. This concept of, “I’m going to be doing medical stuff,” was foreign to them. By the same token, our fire and EMS personnel were on the scene and they’re like, “Wait a minute. Hot zone, warm zone. You want me to go in there?” It’s taken some time, and we’ve been doing this for quite some time now. But if you come to one of these drills, you cannot discern who is PD and who is fire and EMS.

Because the relationship has gotten so close, the skillset has now crossed over the understanding of what’s important, who’s there first, PD, and then who ultimately ends up getting the patient secondarily, which is fire and EMS. That understanding doesn’t happen with a PowerPoint presentation. And so I have to give credit to Chief Moran and my entire fire department and my police department for bridging that gap. And to see that brotherhood and sisterhood that has developed over time is really something. It’s been magical and I’m just very grateful to be a part of it.

Jim Dudley: Yeah. Well, that’s great to hear, and you both said a lot about how important it is for communications. And you heard my introduction. Do you know who your counterpart in the other agencies are? It is so valuable to have those relationships before the MCI. So we talk about these things and we’re all sitting somewhere in a safe, comfortable environment. But as I said in the introduction, we may show up on a scene that is just unthinkable, and where do you start? Are we prepared enough for the unlikelihood or maybe the inevitable C-burn event ... chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, explosive ... or a mass shooting? Health and fire responders surely know what to do when it comes to emergency medical treatment. But you both talked about what you’ve seen and how you were surprised by the response of law enforcement officers. What gaps have you seen in law and public safety response, as far as training and capabilities, as first arrivers on scene?

Daniel Moran: One of the keys to success I think is trading the trainers. So what does that mean? I think fire rescue should be teaching all police officers high-quality CPR, AED, Stop the Bleed, nasal Narcan administration, and everything else the officers are doing out there. Again, you have our ultimate respect. It’s amazing how far we’ve come with what law enforcement is expected to do on these scenes, and how well they’re trained in them. To that point, also, I shouldn’t be training on ballistics. When we were issued ballistic gear, our protective vest helmets and everything, I’m not an expert in it. I’ve never worn it before. I reached out to PD and said, “Hey, I need officers over here to train my firefighters in proper sizing, proper wearing of it, proper care and maintenance of these devices.” And they were there in a heartbeat because to your point, Jim, we knew our counterpart. We knew exactly who we needed to call. We called them by their name and said, “Hey, I need help,” and they were there. So trade the trainers, get with your EMS, get with your fire rescue, learn who these people are. Because trust me, they want to bridge that gap as badly as you do.

So talking about those types of instances that you mentioned, I think one of the big important factors is unified command and early communication. It could be a medical call that officers are walking into. Let’s say it’s a pediatric patient that has a communicable disease where we want to protect the officer. That early communication with dispatch and having fire and PD talking is so important. Common talk, straight language appropriateness. Tell them what they need to be aware of. PD needs to stay in their lane as far as working on reducing exposure to them, the officers, working on evacuation perimeter control, looking out for POV evacuations and being aware of where they’re parking their cars.

On these instances, you’re having fire rescue show up in large apparatus, hazmat trucks. And police officers are amazing when they get there in tackling those initial scene priorities. But one thing that we do see as a common theme is where’s the vehicle parked? Are you blocking the fire apparatus from gaining access to these scenes? We jokingly talk about the fire calls, and where’s the fire hydrant? Right behind the cop car. That is a common theme that we talk about and we focus on during our training.

Peter Antevy: Yeah, that’s a great commentary. Jim, what I’ll also add is something we’ve learned in EMS, which is everybody goes to the scene, but it turns out that the patients are going away from the scene. I’m sure everyone knows the Vegas shooting. And when you look at the cell phone pings, where those patients went is basically like a concentric circle outward. And they went by POV, they went by a police car, they went by Uber. They just got to the place, one of those places. Well, people are seeking care and they’re going to end up at your local emergency department that’s not even a trauma facility, but they just showed up there first. So it turns out now that when we deploy, we have to deploy assets to those facilities. Sending a medical director, sending a whole EMS team to the hospital.

And the folks in Vegas gave, recently, a great presentation that they sent an entire team of people to the hospital who set up shop right outside the emergency department, and they started to triage. So you need PD out there, and you need fire and EMS out there. Speaking of the unthinkable, it was a year ago today that I was sitting in a room with medical directors from all over the world, and we were getting a presentation on dirty bombs and nuclear weapons and the possibility that they may even land here stateside. So when you look at all these incidents that have been happening, I think that the MCIs ... the active shooter, active killer type of incident ... I think people need to have that down pat.

With what Chief Moran was talking about, all those items are very important. But we do have to think outside the box to think that if there is something larger. We saw that the chemical spill that can impact an entire community. I mean, we have to be ready to be able to think a little bit more broadly, think as a community, as a whole, rather than on one little, specific location. So if you’re listening to this, you really have to think of, “Where do I deploy my assets around the community to actually make it work?”

The last thing I’ll say is, and I’m going to go back to Parkland here, there were a lot of mistakes made in reunification, okay? There’s one family member who’s a good friend of mine, I went to elementary school with him, Max Schachter. He did not find out that his son had died until 2 in the morning. That’s 12 hours later when he was notified, and it was by a phone call. He was sitting in a hotel lobby where, one parent at a time, they were being called in. And those parents just started crying publicly in front of a lot of different people.

So there’s things beyond the event, also, that I think everybody needs to focus on. And I will say that the federal government has put together a task force. The name is escaping me right now, but it just came out where if a city or a region has an event, they will send all of those experts, a group of maybe 10, 15, 20 people who have been there, done that, to help with all these things that it’s almost impossible to think of all the things to think about. These folks will come and help. At no charge, they’re just going to come in and provide their services. So that’s available out there today as well.

Jim Dudley: Yeah, that’s great. Great support, great to have. We’ve had some guests including K-9 search dogs and, actually, comfort animals as well to go to those scenes.

So different agencies. So Chief Moran, you mentioned unified command, and we all train in our silos. And then when we get together, inevitably, at a unified command, there is a difference of priorities. How do you reconcile a unified command from different staging areas? So in the past, I’ve worked with my friends in fire and they want to get right up on it, put the wet stuff on the red stuff, and we are several blocks away at another command post. How do you reconcile those?

Daniel Moran: We see it on calls. We see it in training drills. PD will have their command post. FD has got their command post. Everybody’s huddled up. We’re not talking to each other. And even worse than that is I’ll hear the fire incident commander saying, “I need a PD rep. I need a PD rep. Somebody needs to come to the command post,” and nobody goes. So I would actually speak more for a fire audience listening and say send a firefighter to the police command post if you have to. Remember, as a fire incident commander, you’re in charge of all the firefighters on that scene. You can assign one of them to go to a PD command post to bridge that gap. Ideally, what I would say is a best practice though, speaking more for our law enforcement, is to practice this on every call that you’re on.

So if PD and FD are on a call together, you really need to get into the habit of making that link-up happen, get the command where everybody’s talking to each other, everybody knows what the other party’s doing, and make that your routine, whether that’s a hazmat call, a structure fire, a bad vehicle crash. In the fire world, ICS is practiced regularly, every day. Even for a fire drill, fire alarm, you’re hearing incident command being established. You’re hearing the initial scene actions being called for. In the police world, from my knowledge, a lot of departments do not do that. That is not a part of their normal culture. It’s not something that you’re going to hear.

Everybody’s NIMS compliant. Everybody’s taken the ICS courses. But when it comes to real-world calls, you don’t necessarily see it happening on a small scale. You have to practice it. It has to be something that’s embedded into your culture. I would love to see police cars with a green light on top. Why green light? That’s establishing command. I would love for that first officer who doesn’t need to take scene action to say, “I’m going to establish scene command, turning on a green light on the top of my roof, and let FD know exactly where to park their command vehicle,” and make that a part of your normal culture.

Jim Dudley: And of course, for those extended MCIs, we might fire up the EOC, the command posts where we do have public health and EMS and fire and police all in one spot. We break it down into ops and plans and administration and staging and all of that. So we do have some common operating platforms where we can all talk, and that would be the best bet, right? Other than our own independent DOCs. We often are continuing to add duties to law enforcement officers. And over the last three or four years, we’ve started to reassign some of those duties maybe to civilian operators. But realistically, cops are first on scene. They’re the only ones inside active shooter zones or hot zones. Shouldn’t we be doing more EMS training for law officers? Doctor?

Peter Antevy: 100%. And as Dan alluded to earlier, and in my experience in my other agencies where we’re very blessed in South Florida to have really forward-thinking fire chiefs, city managers, we learned the hard way, unfortunately. And I can say to you that the only reason that we were so prepared at Parkland is because there were several events leading up to Parkland that didn’t go well, that didn’t have incident command. There were errors made. We put our heads together, years before Parkland, and we started training up our PD. We started kind of working in unison together. It turns out that on February 11, just a few days before Parkland, myself and some others, we were actually putting on a Stop the Bleed course. It was a Saturday morning. And who did we have there? We had the city commission from five different cities, mayors, commissioners.

I wasn’t cutting open the cars. I wish I could. But they were putting in bunker gear, cutting the cars open, we were doing Stop the Bleed, wound packing. We did all of that just days before Parkland. So we had already moved to, “Let’s get the civilians involved,” right? And then a moment that was very interesting to me is when Scott Pelley was asking me questions on “60 Minutes” and he said, “What do you see as the future?” This was back in 2018. I said, “There’s going to be a tourniquet in every classroom. There’s going to be a tourniquet in every glove box.” He took off his glasses and he says, “Is that really the future that we live in?” and I said, “That’s exactly the future we live in.”

So the future here is that police officers have to be basically at the level of an EMT, if you think about it. Of a high-performing EMT, where all the basics, they have that skill set. And I think as we move forward, that’s just going to have to be a standard that we apply to PD because of how important their role is in these types of situations.

Jim Dudley: Chief, anything to add to that?

Daniel Moran: Yeah, I’m just going to go back to my initial comment. Law enforcement officers are such true professionals, and my experience with them has been if you give them the tools, you give them the proper training, they become so involved on these calls. It’s not that officers want to stand back or stay away from a medical call or medical treatment. It’s just what has their training and experience been up to this point? I think that the “trade trainers” concept is so important. Have that fire or EMS person teach the medical skills to the officers, give them the experience, give them that practice time to actually be able to use the skills in front of you and get them confident so that when they show up on these calls, they’re able to provide the same level of care as any EMT or paramedic would on those scenes. Because at the end of the day, they’re basic life support skills that can be taught, they can be learned and they can be applied by anybody, and definitely the true professionals that law enforcement officers are.

Peter Antevy: And actually, Jim, I’m going to mention one more thing because this just reminded me of it. I was at the City Commission Meeting the other day in Coral Springs, and they were awarding a police officer who saved the life of a citizen who was cleaning out his gun. He shoots himself in the arm. This guy was bleeding out, and this officer came on. He put a tourniquet on, he did the packing. This guy would’ve died were it not for the actions of this officer. And we’ve had that at Davie. Remember, Chief Moran, where we had Florida Highway Patrol, who had just learned Stop the Bleed?

A lady goes right into one of those metal medians, and that metal kind of sliced right through her car, right into her femur. Massive, massive wounds. And this officer, with his fresh new bleeding control kit, put on that tourniquet and saved her life. We actually had the news cameras come out after she got discharged from the hospital. But that’s all a testament to the fact that, yeah, we’re talking about these big bad things and nuclear war and active killer, active shooter. But there are people every single day who are bleeding out on highways and byways across our communities that could be saved by our incredible law enforcement officers.

Jim Dudley: What are the challenges to creating a system to get aid to those injured at a mass casualty scene? What would you say to an agency if they’re thinking about starting up such a program? Doctor?

Peter Antevy: Yeah, I’ll start. I’ll say that there are some very important things that for many years, people thought that fire and EMS were the first people on the scene. Well, it turns out that we’re fourth. So who’s first? It’s the people who are right there, who are in the buildings, who are on the scene. There’s a bleeding kit accessible very easily to them. That’s number one. Second, is our dispatch telecommunicators, right? So you call 911, and if the person on the other end of the line understands bleeding control, knows to tell you what exactly to do, that’s extremely important. They’re the second most important people as far as in order. Third, we just talked about it. PD, right? Our police officers are going to be there. They now have the capability of doing that. And then fourth is fire and EMS.

So if you have an RTF, and that RTF is able to even enter into the building, that’s great. However, that shouldn’t be what you’re relying on. That should be the fourth backstop, if you will. And I think everyone needs to focus on getting these devices out to the masses. Similar to now what we’re doing, Jim, with Narcan, where we’re now just making Narcan massively available because of the opioid problem that we have in this country and a number of people dying. We’re now distributing the actual fix, if you will, whether it be a tourniquet, a dose of Narcan, out into the community.

Daniel Moran: Yeah. I mean, just to add to that, again, my fire chief is a passionate advocate for the Stop the Bleed program. May 25th is National Stop the Bleed Day. We’re going to be doing training here at the fire department to teach first responders.

So my fire chief actually changed an ordinance. So we have a law in the town of Davie that actually if you have an AED required in your location, you will have a Stop the Bleed kit in your location as well. I’ve written State of Florida EMS matching grants where we’ve given brand new kits to every business in the town of Davie. So it’s not just these larger places. It’s any location that’s required to have an AED will have a Stop the Bleed kit in it. So not only do you have to train the community in it, but you also have to give them the equipment that they need. And I think together, that is definitely life-saving information that we have to get rolled out to everywhere. It’s very much needed.

Jim Dudley: That is such a great idea. And when the AED roll-outs came, I don’t know, 15 years ago, we had to privately fund to get them in places. It’s a great idea. And actually, I’ve gone through my own neighborhood CERT, my community emergency response team training. And I’ve been retired for 10 years now from the police department, but I took the Stop the Bleed sponsored training. I bought a couple of tourniquets afterward and threw a pack with some compresses in the trunk of my car. Shouldn’t we be training civilians more as a force multiplier, and what should that look like?

Peter Antevy: That’s a great question. It’s very interesting that you say that. My personal opinion is and again, is it possible through high schools? I’m not so sure. But I think that everyone really needs to kind of understand some basics. So we already know about CPR. If you look at the statute, Florida, unfortunately, we’re one of the last states in the union to approve this. But now, in most states in this country, Jim, if you’re a high school student, in order to graduate, you have to go through CPR training. Period. I think that now needs to be expanded because you have so many items. So now, we talk about Stop the Bleed. That’s something that’s also very important. That should be a requirement.

So we live in an environment nowadays where you can walk outside, you could walk to the mall, and you may be involved. You may be someone like at the Boston Marathon who’s just there to help, and all you have is a belt that you can put on. We’re talking about issues that are, what I call, in the seconds to minutes category. And we cannot expect police and fire to be there within a minute or two minutes, or within seconds. However, there’s pretty much always a civilian around. I know that today, every single day in this country, there are people dying because there’s a civilian who either wasn’t prepared, wasn’t taught properly, or didn’t have the right tools to do the job. And we, as a community, as a society, need to get to that place. And I would start with the schools, to be quite honest with you. It should start in the high schools, and it should be a requirement so that as our young kids get older, it’s just an expectation and they’ve had the training to go along with it.

Daniel Moran: Yeah, I completely agree. Everything Dr. Antevy said is so important. The one word of caution I’ll use is about the tourniquets. Always, please, buy them from a reputable company. And the reason I stress that is there’s been a lot of studies that have actually shown counterfeit tourniquets failing when they’re actually being utilized to save a life. Same thing with you shouldn’t practice with that tourniquet that you plan on using during the emergency because that has a higher likelihood of failing as well. So buying an extra one for training is very important. Going up to your fire stations and practicing with them. Very important.

We try and create an environment where our fire stations are a safe place for our officers. So when PD needs a bathroom break, when they need to get coffee, when they want to come by and have food, they’re always welcoming the fire stations to go there. And hopefully, everybody listening has that same relationship. And if you don’t, start to bridge that gap. I think the majority of public safety needs to be on the same page. Working close together, having a good relationship with each other, and getting to that point where you’re there so you can practice these skills is very important. Getting the community involved and having public events is very important as well.

Peter Antevy: And Jim, I want to add one additional thing because I just did it at my company. So we have about 40 people at my company, and we spent 90 minutes, and then we had lunch afterward, but we went through AED, Stop the Bleed, CPR training. We had three different areas where we did this, and we just cycled people through – 30 minutes, 30 minutes, 30 minutes – and we had lunch. So within two hours, we trained up. There were a few medical people in the room, but for the most part, lay people. So I think businesses around this country need to at least do that as well. That’s just another way of getting our civilian population informed and getting them ready to be involved.

Jim Dudley: Yeah, I know. It was a great experience doing hands-on and using the tourniquets. And I’ve heard the complaints, Chief Moran, about even on websites that we all shop on every day selling these tourniquets. They’re pretty flimsy and the elastic is no good, so I hear you there and I back you on investigating where you’re getting it from. I think the American Red Cross sells them and I think they’re probably pretty good. So I want to wrap it up, respectful of your time. Thank you so much, both, for showing up. How can our listeners and viewers find out more about training?

Daniel Moran: Well, I’ll begin with, courtesy of my fire chief, NFPA 3000, which is the National Fire Protection Association, has developed an online training course for learning what that’s about for active shooter/hostile event response. I think that’s the best practice. And just before a lot of officers immediately say, “The fire guy’s pushing fire stuff,” let me just stop and say this is a multidisciplinary board and technical committee. There’s everybody from ATF, FBI, DOJ and state law enforcement. I mean, this is a heavy law enforcement-represented committee. And the intent of that is to roll this out correctly to say, “Let’s all get on the same page for how to best respond to these incidents.” So they have a three-part online module that you can go through to learn NFPA 3000 and become more familiar with it. Stop the Bleed, definitely. Great website, great organization to learn from. They have their full PowerPoint accessible, so you can download everything you need to actually teach this information and learn it.

I’d also like to brag about what Florida accomplished with the active assailant response policy. They just passed a house bill to make this a requirement. So now, every law enforcement in Florida is required to have an active assailant policy and to train in that annually. So I think that’s going to force a lot of agencies to bridge the gap between FD and PD, if there is one, and really get on the same page for how to trade trainers, start working with each other, and know how to respond. ALERRT would be my final recommendation, and I’ll provide all these links to you, Jim, just so you have them. ALERRT is another great organization that has course catalogs online, so you can look at all the training programs that they offer. We highly advocate for that as well.

Peter Antevy: And also, Jim, Chief Moran mentioned some amazing things, and I think that Florida is leading the way, and really because of Parkland. There’s now the Guardian program, also, that law enforcement needs to be aware of in the state of Florida where lay people can now go. They have these rigorous background checks, but the state of Florida is now allowing there to be guardians on school campuses after a rigorous training program. There are also programs now that require teachers to go through programs where they learn what to do and how to do it on those scenes.

And then, the last thing that I mentioned earlier. I just found it. It’s the Mass Violence Advisory Initiative, the MVAI. I would encourage everyone in law enforcement to look at that and to understand that it’s just a pool of very experienced people that they have access to. What’s very interesting, I’ll comment, is that when I asked Max, I said, “How’s that going?” I said, “There’s been a number of recent shootings.” He said, “It’s interesting. When the MVAI called up and says, ‘We just heard what happened. We’re here to help,’” he says, “100% of the time, they get, ‘We’re okay. We got this covered.’” So I would like to see, in the future, not just training that we’re talking about, but for people to understand that there are collaborations that have to happen. It’s OKto reach out for help. For those of us who have been through it, we can see around some of the corners that other people can’t, not having gone through it before.

Jim Dudley: Absolutely. Good points, good resources. I would like to add that FEMA, of course, has free training, and gets you up on your ICS civilian training for $400, $700, $800. TEEX for law enforcement, fire and public health, where you could train as a team. It’s also free. Yeah, great stuff. Thank you so much, Dr. Peter Antevy and Assistant Fire Chief Daniel Moran. Appreciate your time today.

Peter Antevy: Thanks, Jim. It was great to be here.

Daniel Moran: It was an honor. Thank you.

Jim Dudley: And for our viewers, let me know what you think. Check out the links in our show notes and take a look and see what they’re doing in Davie, Florida. They’re doing some really good stuff with their Mass Casualty Mondays, and they’re getting the whole band together. So take a look and see what they’re doing and check it out. All right, take good care and talk to you real soon. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. I’m Jim Dudley.

Policing Matters Podcast

Policing Matters law enforcement podcast with host Jim Dudley features law enforcement and criminal justice experts discussing critical issues in policing