The Crucial Cooperation Between Schools and Law Enforcement

Sept. 23, 2019
In a two-way street of communications and response, increasing information from schools to call centers can have a dramatic benefit to the dispatcher's efficiency of getting data out.

Beyond any doubt, the biggest delay in response to an emergency or active shooter situation is usually the time it takes for the first officer to get on the scene once the call has been dispatched. In the case of many schools, the first officer might already be on the property: the assigned school resource officer. That time delay is sometimes completely wasted with travel. What else could be done?  

When 911 gets called, we all hope that someone reasonably calm, armed with good information and the ability to clearly communicate is the person who calls. We are also all well aware that isn’t usually the case. When an actual incident of this type occurs, usually the emergency call center gets an overload of calls and 99% of the callers are near hysteria if not fully enveloped in it. Some of the “calls” in today’s world aren’t calls at all, but are texts or other messages via various social media platforms. Almost perfectly in parallel with the calls to an emergency operations center are the calls, texts and other messages to friends, parents and social media. It’s an entirely different conversation to be had about how people in duress or under stress will sometimes post to social media and not even think to call 911. As if their friend six states away can help them.

In some locations there have been “hotlines” put in between the school offices and the local emergency communications center. 

The call comes in, basic information gets gathered—however long this takes to accomplish depends on the hysteria level of the caller—and then units get dispatched. All too often, the public is unaware of and officers forget that there is no pause at this point. While the officers are on their way, the dispatchers are not just sitting, waiting, twiddling their thumbs. There is an on-going intelligence and data gathering effort that aggressively continues in the emergency communications center. It’s rarely a single call that comes in, and every call can contain different bits of highly valuable information. Quite often those bits of data seem to conflict.

For example: Caller One calls in a single shooter in a given location with an unknown number of injured or shot.

Caller Two calls in “a couple people shooting,” in a given location “I think,” with dozens dead or wounded.

Caller Three calls in a single shooter in a specific hallway in the given location, moving in a particular direction, and even specifies it’s semi-automatic fire. He sounds reasonably calm and the dispatcher can hear him directing people to take protective actions or seek cover during lulls in the direct conversation.

In addition to these three, there are another ten or more providing nothing but pleas for the police get there, and help them survive, or save them from being killed. All of the intelligence gained has to be filtered and fed to a single dispatcher that is the point of communications for all officers on scene or responding thereto. How could the accuracy of intelligence gathered be increased while potentially decreasing the amount of calls that take resources away from an efficient response?

Cooperative design

This is where the clear communications and open access of information between the school and the local law enforcement agencies comes into play. In some locations there have been “hotlines” put in between the school offices and the local emergency communications center. Many of us assume that a middle-aged mom of three who is working as the school’s attendance officer will be more calm and clearer in her communications than the hysterical 15 year old and we’d be right the large majority of the time—but it’s an assumption that won’t always prove true. We need to remember that.

There are two big pieces of cooperative design that can be put in place to increase both ends of the communications and response connection: information flowing from the school to the emergency communications center, and efficiency of response from the officers empowered by clear flow of data from the dispatcher(s).

Preparedness is the first big piece. To be prepared for the worst means planning, preparing and practicing. It means having policies in place, training delivered, responses and communications practiced, evaluated, and trained. It’s a never-ending and repeating process that should be completed at least twice each school year. It involves meetings between the assigned law enforcement personnel, the school’s administration, training for staff, faculty and the potentially responding officers, and the students too.

The second piece is a direct link between the school’s video monitoring systems and potentially the access control systems. When the emergency communications center has access to the video feeds direct from the school in a crisis situation, it’s like having the dispatcher in the school, gathering data and reporting it to the responding officers. This can create a big logistical challenge when it comes to connecting all the schools in a given jurisdiction to the emergency communications center, but we have to attack that challenge like we would any other that threatens our children: aggressively. Actively pursue policy and support from the local elected representatives to provide the budgeting to make such an empowering circumstance a reality.

The more efficiency that exists in the working relationship between schools and responding law enforcement the faster the response and neutralization of the threat will be. Having “eyes” in the school and clear communications coming out to the emergency communications center are both ways of increasing that efficiency.  

Sponsored Recommendations

Build Your Real-Time Crime Center

March 19, 2024
A checklist for success

Whitepaper: A New Paradigm in Digital Investigations

July 28, 2023
Modernize your agency’s approach to get ahead of the digital evidence challenge

A New Paradigm in Digital Investigations

June 6, 2023
Modernize your agency’s approach to get ahead of the digital evidence challenge.

Listen to Real-Time Emergency 911 Calls in the Field

Feb. 8, 2023
Discover advanced technology that allows officers in the field to listen to emergency calls from their vehicles in real time and immediately identify the precise location of the...

Voice your opinion!

To join the conversation, and become an exclusive member of Officer, create an account today!