A Nation Prepared_Hooper

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Benchmark- A Nation Prepared: Improving Emergency Planning and Practice in the U.S. A Nation Prepared: Improving Emergency Planning and Practice in the U.S. Casey L. Hooper Grand Canyon University: EMM-301 April 19, 2020 1

Benchmark- A Nation Prepared Part I July 20 th , 2012 started as a normal morning for the town of Aurora, Colorado and ended in devastation. The final movie to The Dark Knight Trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises was premiering and expected to draw in a huge crowd. There had been a four year wait between The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises being released. This movie was the movie to not only end the trilogy, but be the highest grossing movie of the weekend. It was off to a very good start for Warner Brothers and the lifelong Batman fans, bringing in $161 million during this weekend. Opening weekends are a very prevalent thing for many Americans and movie goers across the world. They are also high value targets for people who are looking to cause mass amounts of damage. Unfortunately, on 20 July 2012 James Holmes was looking to cause such an incident. This incident shook a small Colorado town and flooded people with memories of Columbine. On July 20 th there was an active shooter incident that killed twelve and injured 70 people (CNN, 2019) as well as wreaking havoc across Colorado, it also threw the emergency response agencies into a frenzy. Over the last decade we have had an average of 11.4 active shooter incidents per year. These shootings have left a death toll of over 486 people (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2013). Colorado emergency agencies have had active shooter drills incorporated into their training since the shooting incident that occurred at Columbine High School in 1999. This training allowed for the successful response times and coordination between dispatchers and emergency responders. The first patrol car response time was within two minutes and no more than five minutes for the first fire and rescue truck. These response times are also credited to the time of day, location of the theater, and it being during shift change (TriData and System 2

Benchmark- A Nation Prepared Planning Corporations, 2014). Even with all of the mitigation plans put into place the Aurora emergency responders still ran into issues that caused confusion amongst the ranks. TriData Division System planning completed an after action review (AAR) on this incident to point out the aspects to sustain on and where they could improve. One of the major improves with this incident was for the emergency responders to “establish a unified-joint-command.” This would establish better communication from the top down and through all entities involved. Communication was an issue noted by TriData Division Systems they stated, “critical messages were [misunderstood] between police and fire commanders.” Emergency vehicles had issues maneuvering through the crowded parking lot and this left medical personnel at an idle and caused a delay in being able to treat victims (Pelley & Orr, n.d.). The city of Aurora reviewed the AAR conducted by TriData Division Systems and implemented changes to further improve their preparedness for handling disasters. It brought to their attention, The Office of Emergency Management and outlined what an asset they had with the OEM and that they should be incorporated early on. The OEM could have assisted in establishing a unified command and helped “city coordinators with resource allocations” (Scott, 2014). Communication has been identified as the cause for the majority of the confusion. Police and Fire were working on different channels and not directly corresponding with each other. Aurora has implemented different training exercises for fire and police to include a high-risk extraction protocol for active shooter incidents, they have also pre-programmed radio channels from the fire department into police radios and vice versa, and incorporated psychological help for first responders (Scott, 2014). PART II . 3

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