Introduction
An emergency manager, at the county level of government, is a senior manager who is responsible for reporting to the Chief of Police during an emergency. An emergency manager has the responsibility of coordinating and managing all county activities in preparedness for an emergency, mitigation, emergency response, and lastly, recovery. The work of an emergency manager is done under the general supervision of the Chief of Police (Weaver et al., 2014). Besides, it is also done in line with well-defined policies, established practices, and functional precedents. However, the manager is granted a considerable leeway to exercise independent initiative and judgment. The manager must ensure there is a form of liaison between him or her, and emergency service providers, who are the emergency medical services, firefighters, and the police (Weaver et al., 2014). Other appropriate federal, state, and local agencies are also included in the job function of an emergency manager.
Contracts with government officials and the public are crucial to ensure productive and open communication for transparency in the department and the county. The job of a manager is to purchase, manage supplies, budget, process data, and manage files in the department. Therefore, a person in this position should develop effective working relationships with public officials, the public, and colleagues at work (Weaver et al., 2014). As an emergency officer, there are some elite groups in fire and the police that you should understand. Elite groups include specialized police (SWAT teams) or fire teams (Interagency Hotshot Crews) that are brought in to solve an urgent or challenging problem. The reason why an emergency manager should be in constant interacting with these elite groups is for disaster preparedness so that the impact of an emergency, such as fire, on vulnerable communities is lessened (Weaver et al., 2014). Disaster preparedness ensures that relevant stakeholders are ready for an influx of events, and they can come up with a coordinated plan that will save people, resources, efforts, and time.
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SWAT Teams
The type of elite unit in the police that an emergency manager should be familiar with is the SWAT team. SWAT stands for Special Weapons and Tactics (Petaschnick, 2018). A SWAT team is an elite unit in the U.S. police force that handles emergency cases in exceptional high-risk situations that require specialized tactics or increased firepower. Most SWAT teams have at least twelve members, who have been chosen from the local law enforcement agency or police department. Officers that are recruited by the SWAT team undergo specialized training and have more access to a pool of armor, surveillance devices, and weaponry above the standard-issue police uniform.
One situation which requires the call of a SWAT team is a highly risky warrant (Petaschnick, 2018). When the police are conducting a home arrest, and they are aware that the criminal might be armed, they can call the SWAT team to make the arrest. Snipers of the SWAT team have also been trained to kill an attacker who has retained a hostage in the situations that negotiations cannot happen. Thirdly, in a barricade situation, where offenders have locked themselves in a building and are firing weapons at civilians or police, a SWAT team can be called to carry out an assault and end the situation. Another situation where special police are needed is when transporting a criminal who has a history of assassination attempts on his life. Other cases include an armed terrorism attack and a riot.
The concept of SWAT teams was developed in the 1960s by the Los Angeles department of police. During the last decade, the United States had social and political turmoil, which proved that the police were not sufficiently equipped to deal with some violent situations (Petaschnick, 2018). The 1966 sniper attack and the Watts Riots at the Texas University in Austin also indicated that the police needed special procedures and equipment. Daryl Gates, an L.A.P.D. officer who later became police chief, is believed to have created the idea of adopting military tactics and weapons for units in the police department. However, the position of Gates did not make him push for the concept of the SWAT team. The SWAT team was initially perceived as a considerable skepticism by the department officials and politicians.
The original acronym of the SWAT team was the Special Weapons Attack Team. It was too antagonistic, and therefore, Gates changed its name to Special Weapons and Tactics. The 1969 barricade stand-off with the radical militant party of Black Panther and the 1974 Symbionese Liberation Army cemented the place of SWAT teams within the new police force (Petaschnick, 2018). According to Petaschnick (2018), after the S.W.A.T. television series, the concept of using paramilitary techniques in police units started spreading in America through significant cities which have violent gangs, and later to smaller towns. Almost 90% of today’s police forces in the towns with over 50, 000 people have SWAT teams. Besides, 70% of small municipalities have adopted this idea.
The efficiency of SWAT teams is what the emergency manager of every county should bank on when it comes to emergencies in their regions. Therefore, they must familiarize themselves with SWAT teams in and near their jurisdictions. Although most citizens agree that armed and specially trained officers are needed in high-risk situations, there is an increasing concern on how SWAT teams are being overaggressive and misused (Petaschnick, 2018). The groups, when called to serve arrest warrants, they attack non-aggressive offenders. Besides, they sometimes raid the wrong house with the information they have obtained from criminal informants. They also burst into homes without notice, terrifying people, who always react in defending themselves (Petaschnick, 2018). Therefore, it is also the responsibility of the emergency manager, together with other county officials, to control how these teams operate so that they do not cause chaos and harm to innocent citizens.
Interagency Hotshot Crews
An elite group in a fire that works in line with emergency management is the interagency hotshot crews (IHCs). County and state agencies, the US Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the National Park Service are responsible for funding over 100 hotshot crews, most of which are located in the western part of United States (Huber-Stearns et al., 2018). According to Huber-Stearns et al. (2018), the primary objective of IHCs is to provide a highly-skilled, professional, safe, and mobile crew that operates on all phases of incident operations and fire management. The groups are qualified, staffed, equipped, and conditioned to meet a wide range of tactical and strategic wildland assignments of fire emergencies. The history of hotshot crews can be traced back to Southern California. The groups began in the late 1940s on Angeles National Forest and the Cleveland. The name “hotshot” is symbolic, indicating that these groups are assigned to parts of the fire that are the hottest. The name can also mean a conspicuously successful or talented person.
The organizational framework of these teams allows them to function as small squads or modules that are assigned to different assignments (Grant et al., 2015). The groups can be pre-positioned for an initial attack or be set to perform ready reserve responsibilities, based on the requirements of the national planning level. With the qualifications and experience of IHCs, they can provide a disciplined, adaptable, and self-contained workforce that meets the specifications of incident managers in many situations, including hazard assignments. However, IHCs also respond to emergencies like disaster response and search and rescue. Members of these teams are required to meet equal stringent standards for leadership, training, qualifications, operational procedures, and physical fitness (Grant et al., 2015). However, hotshot positions in the crew are seasonal. Depending on the finances and weather, occasional recruitment is done during the post and pre-season.
Fire assignments are not a daily happening. Therefore, IHCs, when not on fire assignments, have a workforce that can do resource management jobs, such as prescribed fire operations, trail construction, thinning, and habitat improvement (Grant et al., 2015). Nevertheless, according to Grant et al. (2015), they still maintain their availability for mobilization of incidents. Besides, they can also conduct fire management training of high quality in their local geographical area, and also at the national level. An Emergency manager should be familiar with IHCs in the area so that it will be easy to provide funding from county agencies, and training of other aspiring IHCs can be successfully done in the local area. The team can also be used in mitigating emergencies, such as fires that affect a large city, and a standard firefighter will experience a challenge in putting out.
An example of an IHC is the Entiat Interagency Hotshot Crew that is composed of 20 members and is sponsored by the American Forest Service and Department of Agriculture of the Pacific Northwest Region. The location of this IHC is the north end of Wenatchee National Forest in Entiat Ranger District. The IHC has dedicated its existence to providing quality services to the Americas for almost 45 years (Huber-Stearns et al., 2018). Huber-Stearns et al. (2018) note that the crew is well trained and highly capable of wildland firefighting to promote excellence and dependability in a society that hostile and ever-changing. All members of the Entiat IHC are part of the crew’s traditions of providing superior work as efficiently and safely as possible to citizens. Teamwork and establishment of crew pride are the core competencies of this elite group. Through diversity and mutual respect, Entiat strives to uphold a work environment that has a right to free expression. Arduous work, spontaneous traveling to distant places of the country, and demanding conditions of living create an adventurous and camaraderie environment full of fun for the team.
Conclusion
It is the work of an emergency manager to ensure stakeholders involved in handing emergencies are prepared and qualified for the job. Therefore, an emergency manager should work with elite groups, such as SWAT teams and IHCs, to promote efficient emergency management in the county. Through working with experienced specialists, emergencies will be handled in the right manner and at the right time. In this way, the four phases of disaster management (preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery) will be achieved successfully in case of any emergency. However, they should also control the powers that these teams have access to, for instance, the use of weaponry and launching an attack on criminals. SWAT teams should not threaten citizens, but instead, help them to sustain a peaceful society free of criminals and chaos. IHCs should also ensure that the security of the wildland is maintained in case of fire outbreaks. It is the responsibility of an emergency manager to control the working of these elite groups.
References
Grant, C. C., Jones, A., Hamins, A., & Bryner, N. (2015). Realizing the vision of smart firefighting. IEEE Potentials, 34(1), 35-40.
Huber-Stearns, H., Moseley, C., Bone, C., Mosurinjohn, N., & Lyon, K. M. (2018). An Initial Look at Contracted Wildfire Response Capacity in the American West. Journal of Forestry, 117(1), 1-8.
Petaschnick, J. (2018). Calling out the Swat Team. Receivables Report for America’s Health Care Financial Managers, 33(12), 2.
Weaver, J., Harkabus, L. C., Braun, J., Miller, S., Cox, R., Griffith, J., & Mazur, R. J. (2014). An Overview of a Demographic Study of United States Emergency Managers. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 95(2), 199.
