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Command and Control in the Cities
Thanks to Carl Prine, I got a good look at Cerywn Moore's look at case studies of complex attacks in the North Causcasus. There is a lot of theory regarding swarming and complex attacks, but very little empirical work aside from Sean Edwards' dissertation on swarming in military history. Though John P. Sullivan and I like to use it, Mumbai is fast becoming the Algeria of swarming: an over-used case that has reached the culminating point of its utility to theory and practice. So I'm happy that someone has done a good look at these sorts of operations. Moore looks in particular at the 1995 Budyonnovsk Hospital raid and the July 2004 assault on Nazran. In the process, he gets at the core of what Sullivan has tried to get across in his writings on police and urban operations: it's about command and control.
The military has a C2 system that is--at least compared to many police systems--extremely robust and able to deal with dispersed tactical threats. The police have less resources and less experience, and face difficulty at times in managing situations over large urban expanses. In the case studies Moore reviews, Russian police C2 was severely strained at the point of impact. Of course, some major American cities also have engineered flexible systems that have successfully managed large and complex natural and human threats. More broadly, federal and local agencies train alike under the national Incident Command System.
As any reader of Mike Davis' work knows, Los Angeles is (to understate) a very demanding operating environment. LA's ecological fragilty is infamous and its municipal politics are very complicated. It is also a federally designated High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA), the birthplace of MS-13, and the stomping ground of a veritable United Nations of internationally networked criminal organizations. Finally, Los Angeles and its environs stretches over 502 square miles with a population of over three million. From urban riots to wildfires, LA keeps police and emergency response agencies very busy.
Sid Heal of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department helped create a disaster response framework inspired by the Marine Corps' Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF) concept as well as disaster response researcher Thomas Drabek's idea of Emergent Multi-Organizational Networks (EMONs). Heal was looking for a way to buld an disaster response ability that, like the Marine Corps he served in, could rapidly move with a comprehensive host of organic assets. This organization would also have to expand and contract rapidly based on operational needs during a disaster with clear lines of interagency command and control, and Heal seized on Drabek's idea as a means of accomplishing this goal. Sullivan himself also was involved with the Terrorism Early Warning Group (TEWG)--which he and I have often written about within the context of police C2.
I would be remiss in portarying this simply as an organizational or technical challenge. American municipal agencies exist within a unique political ecosystem very much shaped by local politics and needs. The Los Angeles Police Department's evolution since the 1991 Rodney King riots and the 1997-1998 Rampart scandals to the William Bratton era is a case study in the problems that can ensue when an municipal organization falls out of step with the public. The LAPD shook by the riots was predominately affiliated with the city's older and more established political interests and Bratton's chief innovation was to build a wider base of political support by overhauling its internal culture.
Other major cities have different, but equally valid emergency response frameworks. Urban attacks certainly pose challenges, but American cities have successfully adapted C2 and operations structures for complex contingencies and disasters.
California including LA use
California including LA use to have a lot of money too.
Even sleepy hollows got on the C2 bandwagon with their spanking new C2 trailers. One of the Command Post trailers for a population of 100,000 was stored in the alleyway of a neighboring 200 person community about 15 miles away from where it would be used and all I could think of was, "what the hay is that doing there". I knew what it was, all of the C2 posts have neon signage on their sides cause the town is sooo proud to be on the cutting edge and how else would you know the trailer's critical role. Guess there have been no emergencies lately and when there is an emergency the trailer's wheel bearings will be rusted from siting in the elements and the technology outdated. So goes C2 in the burps.
I did a double take yesterday, the 100,000 person town (same one with the C2 post in the alley) just created a new nickel gasoline tax to fix potholes, justified by a neighboring community recently adding a 4 cent gas tax. Reason I did the double take is the 100,000 person town just did a nickel gas tax about year ago, which is why the neighboring community had to have one too! Year before that was a retail sales tax increases which followed a retail increase the year before. The State just increase income tax by 70%. Sound like a circle jerk?
Think as communities put in layers of technology they are going to find that it comes at a cost (Yes, the 100,000 person community with the multiple tax increases is getting traffic cameras at intersections which will need replacement). Not sure if they looked at the cost of ownership, only the initial price tag was justified to the taxpayer (cause it was soo important to be on the cutting edge of technology). Case in point: Local State University of about 10 sq. miles just installed wireless access points, you know 802.11 stuff. Rebuilt the entire Ethernet backbone and have a communication staff to match. The access points were placed wherever students met. University was damn proud of their connectivity too. The new system "out of the wrapper" does not support 802.11 (n), ( Oops.) that is the latest MIMO standard that all the new tablet computers use. Think the freshmen will notice the difference in down load speed when they arrive to orientation with their new toy? I can only image the woody the marketing guy just got at Ciso Systems and Broadcom.
University will do what its been doing for the past ten years, raise tuition/student fees and increase the out-of-state/foreign student population to pay for it. Administrators get $300,000+/yr to come up with these plans. Profs get $100,000+/yr to teach one class per semester. Only one class/semester cause research is sooo important. The professors get 40% of intellectual property royalties from using State owned property. The Professor's children do not pay the high cost of tuition, they get it at a 50% discount with preference in college admittance (they get to live at home rather than be forced to an outside community to go to school). The rest of the taxpayer's children get the student loans to pay for the pleasure. Does higher education sound like a circle jerk?
It takes a purpose and critical mass to justify C2 cost.
For neighborhood policing, the prepared, responsible, and alert citizen will never be equaled. They are the ones to arrive first on the scene at every crime and they do not require a reboot or backup generator, that is about as organic as it gets. When 911 overloads in an emergency cause phone systems are only designed to a call load, the citizen is still on duty.
Do you carry a cop in YOUR pocket? I cannot afford that size of that pocket, I am too busy paying taxes for the cops that my call will never reach in an emergency at the C2 center !
BTW.....Secretary Rumsfeld thanks you for the complement on his transformation efforts. I remember walking through a battle field C2 trailer in the late 90's as it was being built, it was chalk full of technology which today is antique electronics.
No wonder we are having so many wars so often, technology obsolescence in three years is a b*tch.
I am still looking for the College Professor that cares about teaching more than pay. Local University is always telling me that the $100,000+/yr is not good enough to get good staff. Guess that is because the football coach gets $1,000,000+.
Yup, it is a b*tch and the C2 post is still in alley rusting and they will want a new one soon.
I feel another tax coming on soon.
VADM Limpet, I really agree
VADM Limpet,
I really agree with your point about citizen involvement. Also, one important to make too is that inevitably, whatever expensive equipment or elite units the city deploys it will always be the quality of first responder training, leadership, and command that carries the day. Sometimes those first responders will not even be city employees--they will be everyday citizens like the passengers that defeated the hijacking attempt in 9/11.
One key question for disaster response in the future is how they will adopt to a different fiscal environment. The mid-2000s benefited from a lot of DHS money that ain't always going to be there. Oakland just laid off a lot of its police and is moving more towards private security, which has C2 implications for disaster response all of its own.
aelkus on May 24, 2012 -
aelkus on May 24, 2012 - 12:32pm
Thank you for the response.
Looked back at the links in your post. The events are so different and the responses just as varied. I have inquire to the changes that the economy has made on police budgets in the past couple years. We are talking about a five state area around Chicago. The blanket response has been little if any. Then I look at local news footage and see SWAT teams doing things that make no sense, later discovery determined that to be a training and preparedness issue. State and community level discussion is happening about how Police Training Institutes will be funded which is a different revenue stream than a rank and file response previously mentioned.
Chicago's Police response to the NATO meetings a week a ago looked to be complete from a distance, I was not there to see it first hand. Usually what happens when a Federal meeting happens in a city there is a massive funding effort to to aid the city. The city benefits by keeping the new equipment. The political connection between the WH and Chicago are known. I would think that the same efforts would be enjoyed by the rest of the region, but will not get past the Cook County boundaries.
You'll get the printed response that the agencies are ready and willing for any response, but you really have to look deeper into their training and priorities. You have to remember that Police Chiefs are politicians first, then administrators, then police officers last.
Adam, looks like you have done a lot of research and have gone into great depth. It might be worth your time to separate your emergencies and categorize the required response to the emergency. If I had to connect a common thread to all emergencies and the response to them it would be, "getting the community back to normal". People like to use Katrina as an poster child, having been in the center of CAT 1-4 hurricanes I know the FEMA response which is not limited to but usually handing out money, food (usually MRE's), and water(and ice). New Orleans was completely flooded and there was little chance that any federal administration would make people happy while the city got back to normal, normal did not exist because the destruction was complete. The emergency response to a natural disaster can be greatly aided by the private sector and civilians. I would call what the power companies do "swarming" cause linemen from across the country gather for a common cause then dissipate afterwards. Hurricanes can turn a city power grid into a ball of wire, logs, and unset people. It is a lot easier for power companies to do that because the training, certifications, laws, and electrical codes are uniform. To use that model for a Policing response, it becomes more complex when crossing state lines because officers are certified by States and are limited. To apply a military response invokes the posse comitatus discussion, there is always the National Guard. Sometimes you have riots mixed with natural disasters (organized looting), but a response to a riot requires different training than what is needed in an emergency caused by natural events.
The timing of your discussion about budget impacts is good because we are only starting to realize the Federal Budget changes (the DOD cuts are really not cuts at all, there is still lots of fat). You might consider talking to Police administrators representing different city population levels to find out what is on their responsibility list and how your concerns rank on that list. This is why I suggest that you separate your emergencies and categorize the required response to the emergency, it might be easier to find synergy with the rankings on the Police Administrator's " need to do list". Region would be an important metric, Hurricanes on the east coast and earthquakes from the Mid-west to California.
Budget cuts are always about priorities.
You want riot control on the
You want riot control on the cheap in the US?
Do Leadership without the social agenda. It is the economy stupid !
Were is the growth plan? When people have jobs and pride, they do not riot. With jobs comes health care and Obamacare is someone's solution to a chosen problem.
Why are we shipping jobs overseas? What happened to the China currency and world protectionism discussion? You cannot export goods when Europe is in recession. If Greece goes Drachma, US banking and derivatives will not be unaffected.
I have not seen people this stirred up since LBJ.
Happiness, it is about leadership.
See also the London police
See also the London police response to the 7th July 2005 and 21st July 2005 bombings. Although the response on the day was good, the subsequent investigation resulted in the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, essentially due to a massive C2 failure.
"..D.C.’s version of the
"..D.C.’s version of the knowledge economy. Corbett heads a social-media marketing company, with corporate clients that have famous names. Most of his work involves nonprofit foundations that have flocked to Washington to be close to the fount of grants and tax breaks. He did a single project for the federal government and then swore it off for good. He describes his first meeting at the Pentagon. “There are 12 people sitting around the table,” he says. “I didn’t know eight of them. I said, ‘Who are you?’ They say, ‘I’m with Booz Allen.’ ‘I’m with Lockheed.’ ‘I’m with CACI.’ ‘But why are you here?’ ‘We’re consultants on your project.’ I said, ‘You are?’ They were charging the government $300 an hour, and I had no idea what they were doing, and neither did they. They were just there. So I just ignored them and did my project with my own people.”
Aside from its wealth, the single defining feature of über-Washington is its youth. Most of the people who have moved to Washington since 2006 have been under 35; the region has the highest percentage of 25-to-34-year-olds in the U.S. “We’re a mecca for young people,” Fuller says. One recent arrival says word has gotten out to new graduates that Washington is where the work is. “It’s a place where a liberal-arts major can still get a job,” she says, “because you don’t need a particular skill.”
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