what went wrong as the seattle center shooting

There was an unfortunate shooting that occurred at the Seattle Center during an annual event called the Bite of Seattle. I submitted the following as an Op-ed, but it was not picked up, so I’m sharing it here.

 Neophyte political leadership can be dangerous. Sometimes they have no experience in government at all or likewise have never interacted with emergency management, disasters, emergencies or public safety. They come to their political jobs knowing little of how public safety systems operate and thus can make poor decisions while trying to “act decisive.”

 The Police Chief she fired had held the position for 18 months.

 Here’s the Op-ed:

What Went Wrong at Seattle Center?

 I was not at the Seattle Center when the shooting occurred on a Sunday night. I was not part of the response to the shooting, only an interested observer. I can’t give you specifics about went wrong that night, but I can tell you how a response to this event “should have played out” and who is responsible.

Likely there were immediate calls to 911 coming into the Seattle Police Department’s (SPD) 911 Center from citizens who observed the shooting, heard the gunfire and were taking cover or running away from the gunfire.

There were also SPD officers assigned to the event and present and patrolling the Bite of Seattle. Rather than running away from the gunshots, they ran toward the sound of the shooting. Due to the multiple gunshot victims on the ground, they would have notified SPD Dispatch of the need for medical transport based on the number of casualties on scene. All of the above would have happened automatically.

It is at this point the system that should have existed broke down. You have a mass shooting that has occurred which would require the establishment of Incident Command. This is a national standard to handle incidents that have a broader impact or scale. The Incident Commander is the key person who has all the authority and responsibility for the scene and how resources are allocated to respond to what happened.

The Incident Commander retains all the functions of incident command unless he or she designates someone to take those duties. In the specific case of this shooting there was an absolute need for a Public Information Officer (PIO) who is trained and proficient in the duties of communicating what has happened to the media and in some cases directly to the general public.

Meanwhile at the actual shooting site, due to both police and firefighters responding, a Unified Command of fire and police senior officials on scene should have been established. Since this is a shooting, it is SPD who would assume the role of Incident Commander and Seattle Fire would be in direct coordination and supporting the incident by treating wounded individuals and arranging transport to hospitals.

SPD, being a larger department, is likely to have multiple PIOs who perform the duty. One of them should have been “on call” and available to respond to any incident. Either 911 Dispatch or, should the SPD Operations Center have been active, would have called for a PIO at the behest of the Incident Commander.

Because of the high visibility of this shooting that included possible additional shooters, the on-call senior management (Command Staff) in SPD would have been called and notified of the incident. You would expect that person would report to the incident site and get a briefing from the Incident Commander. In big enough incidents, it would be that senior commander’s prerogative to assume incident command. The role of the SPD senior commander is to review all the actions that have been taken to that point and remain briefed on future actions that need to take place.

The crux of the matter in this incident is the lack of public information. The PIO when they arrived on scene would have received a briefing from the Incident Commander with all the known and verified information that has been collected. The PIO would then designate a place for an on-scene media briefing for news organizations. General Information on what is known is shared. Questions that can be answered are answered. The time for the next media briefing will be announced at the end of the current briefing. Information often changes quickly in this type of incident which often results in multiple briefings to traditional media, social media, and activation of other notification systems. It is apparent that little of the above happened in this incident.

Lastly, the Mayor would have been notified of the incident through a planned internal mechanism She would have been told where the Incident Command Post was located at Seattle Center. She would proceed there and not make any comment, saying she “needs to first be briefed.” The Incident Commander would be present to conduct the briefing with all the known facts. If the Mayor has a Communications Director that person would accompany the Mayor for that briefing and in concert with the SPD PIO orchestrate the on-scene media briefing with Seattle Fire, also present to add details on persons medically treated and transported. All the above should have occurred within the first two hours or perhaps less.

I can only deduce several deficiencies. One would be a lack of incident command policies and protocols being established. I doubt that that is the case. A lack of training in the incident command system is the cause—perhaps ICS has only given the absolute minimum of attention. Lastly, a lack of use of the Incident Command System (ICS) by the department and therefore the unfamiliarity, leading to a lack of use in this particular incident.

Normally, “Being Out of Town (BOOT) when an incident happens is protection enough for someone like the Police Chief. It wasn’t! While he along with the Mayor, are ultimately responsible for the actions of organizations under their authority, his resignation is not out of bounds. As for this incident in particular, the person most directly responsible for the events of the night is the senior Command Staff person who was in charge of the department the night of the incident. If you were to fire the senior person most responsible for the actions of SPD, it is him.

The public expects people to be held responsible when things don’t go well in responding to an emergency or disaster. Mayor Nickels learned this lesson from a snowstorm in 2008 that blanketed Seattle and streets were not fully cleared for a number of days. At the time of the incident, Mayor Nickels should have fired the Transportation Department Director—who was out of town, to offer the public the scalp they demanded. Nickels was not re-elected.

Maybe this is one key lesson that Mayor Katie Wilson learned from this event even if she can’t spell ICS.