Practicing Against Terrorism, Just In Case...

MASSIVE PUBLIC SAFETY EXERCISE
Around 10:00 p.m., Thursday night, May 1st - shortly after South Coast Plaza closed - more than 250 public safety members from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, local police jurisdictions and fire personnel participated in a multi-agency emergency response exercise at that venue.

THE FBI TOOK THE LEAD
According to the press release issued by the Costa Mesa Police Department, the exercise involved a hypothetical terrorist-type attack scenario at South Coast Plaza - the second largest, highest-grossing shopping center in the country.  The FBI oversaw the event, partnering with local law enforcement, fire, emergency medical services and the private sector in the execution of the training exercise.

COORDINATION AND TEAMWORK
This exercise provided an opportunity for the various agencies involved to demonstrate their ability to work "shoulder-to-shoulder" with each other in an effective, coordinated response.  According to the press release, this involved cooperative planning by a unified command staff, as well as collaboration amongst involved police S.W.A.T. and Fire rescue teams from different agencies.  Participating agencies managed various threat and rescue scenarios during the exercise.

LONG HOURS PRACTICING PREPAREDNESS
The overarching goal of the exercise was to rehearse mutual agency preparedness, and response and recovery efforts to effectively address a complex attack scenario.  The exercise lasted into the early morning hours of Friday, May 2nd and provided a practical venue for individual agencies to assess best practices as well as areas for improvement.

MULTI-AGENCY PARTICIPATION
Personnel from the following agencies participated in this massive drill:

• Costa Mesa Police Department
• Costa Mesa Fire Department
• Newport Beach Police Department
• Orange County Sheriff's Department
• Orange County Fire Authority
• Irvine Police Department
• Huntington Beach Police Department
• South Coast Plaza
• Federal Bureau of Investigation

MULTI-VENUE EVENT
Simultaneously, as similar joint training exercise was conducted  in Mission Viejo, at the Shops at Mission Viejo.  Command Staff at both locations coordinated with a unified command staff overseeing planning from a remote location in Orange.

KUDOS TO ALL

I'm grateful to those agencies involved for working together to prepare for such a scenario.  We live in a troubled world, so these kind of exercises are, unfortunately, necessary.

A Downside of Outsourcing Police

AN ILLUSTRATIVE TALE

In a very interesting article behind the pay wall of the Orange County Register today, HERE, titled "Mission Viejo gets creative to fill vacant deputy spots",   Staff Writer Brooke Edwards Staggs presents a disturbing view of what can happen when the Orange County Sheriff's Department provides law enforcement under contract to a municipality.  Read it if you can.

SOME ELEMENTS FROM THE ARTICLE
The high, or low, lights of the article include the following:

• Retirements and promotions have left many contract cities with an unusually high number of vacant deputy positions.
• Mission Viejo has had as many as eight or 10 of its 47 patrol positions vacant at one time because of retirements throughout the county and local deputies being promoted to fill those positions.
• In the article Mission Viejo Police Chief Brad NewMyer indicated that working excessive overtime to cover shifts can lead to injuries, illness and mistakes on the job.
• By trying to cover shifts with officers from outside Mission Viejo, unfamiliar with the terrain and streets, response times have increased.
• Sheriff's Department trainees are typically assigned to Jail duty following graduation until there is an opening on a patrol beat, when they are teamed up with another officer for a five-month tour as a trainee.  They cannot work alone during that time.
• All but one of their vacant deputy positions is assigned to a current trainee.
• Without fully trained officers shifts must be covered by overtime.
• Mission Viejo plans to add two new trainee positions to pretrain deputies to be ready for anticipated vacancies.  It will cost $103,830 for the remainder of the fiscal year.
• Apparently Mission Viejo was reimbursed $700,000 by the Sheriff's Department last year because of vacancies.

YAPPING LAP DOGS HAVE IT WRONG
Some local politicians and their yapping Pit Yorkie sycophants have been screeching for the Orange County Sheriff's Department to take over law enforcement in Costa Mesa because our staffing levels are approaching dangerously low levels. 

SOLID, PROFESSIONAL ADVISE IGNORED
If those politicians had listened to their own consultants, Management Partners, and/or former Interim Chief Steve Staveley and allowed the authorized staffing levels to be more appropriate for a city the size and complexity of Costa Mesa we likely would not be in this fix.

RECRUITMENT DELAYED
If those politicians had allowed Chief Tom Gazsi to begin recruiting for anticipated vacancies when he wanted to instead of stiff-arming him for more than a year we might not find ourselves in this situation.

HATCH'S "PLAN"...
At the last City Council meeting Chief Executive Officer Tom Hatch mentioned a "plan" to help resolve the staffing issues in the CMPD and we were told that he and Chief Gazsi would be working on it.  It will be very interesting to see what kind of plan results.  In the meantime, the men and women of the CMPD continue to work long shifts to keep our streets safe.