PAX Centurion - May / June 2013

www.bppa.org PAX CENTURION • May/June 2013 • Page 31 for lunch-this was an important criminal investigation then a hard perimeter to contain a dangerous fugitive. Someone had to be there. Water and snacks are easily deployable. Make sure you have enough. I saw the water truck Monday at 8am Roll Call. I didn’t see it again until Thursday when Obama visited. It was stocked with leftover Marathon goodies fresh from the crime scene. I don’t like to see food wasted either, but really? Bathrooms. You can’t urge Officers to hydrate, then provide no relief – literally. InWatertown, we were lucky (Once again I can’t thank the O’Donnell’s enough) that a private home was opened to us, later a church hall. These are resources , and should be in place before or along with deployment. With all the news cameras around, most of the good will we earned would be squandered with vidoe of some cop watering the bushes. Radios and phones. Officers were left on post with no communications after call phones and walkie-talkie batteries died. This is dangerous and unacceptable. Batteries and chargers eventually made their way down to the line, but again, deployed before or with would be better. Look into putting aW/T charger in the canteen truck-swap a battery, have some chow a real win-win! Open a second radio channel. Have the Command Staff use that to communicate among themselves, report availability of men and equipment, chart it and report to logistics. That way the primary channel remains clear for Officers on scene. Make use of a dispatcher on each, monitoring so assets can be deployed as needed. Have all or as much as possible communications go through the dispatcher. If there are multiple commanders in the ICP, there is no need for all of them to be on the radio, it only confuses the troops. We know you’re there and trying to look out for us, but some times less is more. Better use of outside agencies. You could put a cop on Mars, ask him to do traffic, and he would. Outside agencies could have been Captain Paul Ivens, the Commander of Area D-4, was in charge of the “Boston Marathon” and was at the finish line (he was also the Commander of the “BPD Bomb Squad” for many years. There wasn’t a better man to take control of that situation!) Here he is with actor Kevin Spacey (“Keyser Soze”) who flew into Boston unannounced and visited the Marathon Bombing site. He then visited victims in the hospital. All this was done out of the spotlight (the way he wanted it), until the press recognized him at the hospital. He said he couldn’t watch it on the TV anymore, and just felt like he had to be here, and that if he could comfort only one victim and make that person smile, that it would be worth the trip. A great gesture by a “trueAmerican hero.” Hollywood star comes to Boston to comfort victims and police heroes better utilized as relief squads for the traffic posts. Having been on one, we were only relieved once formally to go into the station for lunch. No more one man posts. See above –need I say more? I’m not pointing fingers only at Command, there are things WE need to do better too. All Officers should have a flashlight and extra magazines. We should all have our Blood Type on our vests or uniforms. Communication goes both ways. While it’s not the responsibility of the BPPA or any of the other Unions to provide food and water to their members, a more orchestrated effort should have been made. When it was reported that no provisions were reaching the squads, the four Unions should have joined to voice their concerns. Same for Officers who were left on post despite witnessing unspeakable horrors. These guys should have been taken off the line, and they were members of all the bargaining units- a strong unified voice would have been heard. It’s understood that only a skeleton crew staffed the halls, with many Union Officers deployed on post during the bombing and its aftermath, so coordinating responses may have suffered. The ball was fumbled, directly impacting the ability of Officers to do their duty, BUT we recovered that fumble. None of our Officers were seriously hurt, no one was lost (we did have to turn the bus around though…) and these two terrorists were taken. There is nothing personal here, these are things we need to work on together (Officers, Supervisors, Administration, Command Staff, and Unions), putting agendas, and egos aside, going forward. If we don’t learn from our mistakes, we will only repeat them, and if the circumstances are dire, the results could be worse. “It’s not my job” is the problem, not the solution. Let’s work together – Officers, Command and Unions – to formulate a plan without finger pointing, blame or spite. What’s done is done, we all have to do better. From Emperor on page 30 The Emperor has no clothes!