the mission (such as the wall breaching) in a useful time scale. Laptops and other equipment that was needed for the CP also failed, and additional resources had to be brought in from elsewhere. While much of this is low level stuff that training will pick up, some of the blame has to fall on the FBI who are supposed to make sure that everything is slick through things like CPs and JTTFs. ASAC Hopper admitted that
communications weren’t great, but this is what happens in real life, and this and other elements of the lessons learned process have now been closed. “Comms are always an issue. When you have a crisis cellphones don’t work as well as they should, computers you rely on don’t work when you need them so you have to bring in reserves. That was done in this situation, we mobilized not only personnel from Tampa but quite a bit of gear, computers and the like, to supplement what we had here. That is something we expect to happen. A positive that came out on the state and local side was the fire department and the medics that responded [See interview on pp 47] did not have protective gear which we would like to see across the nation. They now have a grant for gear like ballistic vests and helmets.” While some of the communication
issues come down to technical or training failures there were elements of procedural failure too. The FDLE AAR singled out federal communications as lacking, and while there might have been other agencies involved in that process (the FBI was not named directly) it is hard not to see this as anything other than a criticism of the bureau. “I was a little shocked by that,” said ASAC Hopper, “not because I didn’t believe it, but because I was not made aware of it. It is to be expected. We don’t work on the same radio frequencies or channels as we do a different job. There is a mutual aid channel that was engaged that night, but that was more between state and local agencies. “We were fortunate with the relationships. As soon as we determined that the shooter threat was no longer an issue and it became an investigation, I wound up with 1,400 state, federal and local investigators at my door asking
how they can help. As a commander that’s a good problem to have. In order to bridge the comms gap we would try and pair up an FBI or JTTF agent (who has the same gear) with an outside agency person. So if an FDLE agent came to help we would pair them up with an FBI or an FBI JTTF officer so they immediately had comms and were embedded with us. Our CP here had this at the state and local investigator analyst level, I also invited in supervisors from all the departments. I had Supervisory special agents from FDLE in the CP on rotational shifts, sergeants, lieutenants and above from the state and local agencies providing assistance and counterparts helping with the case. Any new information coming into the CP was shared and consumed by all those agencies. I did no fewer than three briefings a
day for all the agencies involved, I would have them at the forward CP, with the chiefs and SACs, and also back here with the ground level troops that were actually conducting the investigation and the analysts. I am sure
you will always get complaints that comms weren’t the best, but I think we did a really good job that was designed to share information and intelligence as close to seamless as possible. I always like to commend the DEA. Without asking, they sent their entire Jacksonville division to Orlando and they showed up on our doorstep asking how they could help. There have been rifts in the past between FBI and DEA over drug investigations and the like, but when it came to this without asking they dispatched their entire office to Orlando to assist. Jeff Walsh who is the ASAC is a good friend, and the relationships that were established long before Pulse were essential to the response that we provided that night and days and weeks down the road.” People deciding to show up and help
starts off as a nice problem to have, but rapidly turns into a major relationship challenge. They don’t always have what you need at that time, will often need some form of lodging/support, and need to be brought up to speed on the operation. All of this can become a drag
www.cbrneworld.com CBRNe Convergence, Orlando, USA, 6-8 November 2018
www.cbrneworld.com/convergence2018 Pulse went very quickly through a series of different stages ©CBRNe World
February 2018 CBRNe WORLD
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