Apopka Police Department Procedural General Orders - PDF

APOPKA POLICE DEPARTMENT PROCEDURAL GENERAL ORDERS Effective Date 01-11-17 Number 8624.00 New Subject ❑ Rescinds ❑ Amends HOSTAGE, BARRICADED SUBJECT, OR OTHER CRITICAL INCIDENT Reference Reviewer/Approved by Hanstein McKinley PGO 8625.00 “Special Weapons and Tactics Team” Reevaluation As Necessary...

APOPKA POLICE DEPARTMENT PROCEDURAL GENERAL ORDERS Effective Date 01-11-17 Number 8624.00 New Subject ❑ Rescinds ❑ Amends HOSTAGE, BARRICADED SUBJECT, OR OTHER CRITICAL INCIDENT Reference Reviewer/Approved by Hanstein McKinley PGO 8625.00 “Special Weapons and Tactics Team” Reevaluation As Necessary Application All Employees Related Forms / Bulletins 2009.010-A Strategic Operational Plan 2009.010-C After Action Report PURPOSE: To provide standards and guidelines for the department’s response to critical incidents, crisis situations, and other emergencies. Critical incidents would include such scenarios as hostage situations, barricaded persons, and other emergency situations. DISCUSSION: No policy can outline all that needs to be accomplished in mitigating emergencies within the City of Apopka and this General Order is not intended to be all encompassing, but rather to provide guidelines to initial responding members and ranking incident commanders for most events. The success of the department's emergency response depends on the flexibility, ingenuity, and creativity of department members. The highest ranking member on the scene shall assume command and control of all law enforcement resources committed to any unusual occurrence operation within this agency’s jurisdiction. The protection of human life is the department’s top priority. Whenever possible, the department will attempt to resolve critical incidents through communication and negotiation. However, the department will be ever mindful that the protection of human life also requires the Hostage, Barricaded Subject, or Other Critical Incident Page 1 of 10 operational development, readiness, and ability to respond accordingly to deteriorating conditions should the situation dictate. The incident commander should consider 'active shooter' situations in which the situation does not allow the pleasure of waiting for specific tactical resources before members must act to protect life. It is understood that the Apopka Police Department, even though a full service agency, has limited resources it can commit to any particular unusual occurrence. To that point, the incident commander may utilize local inter-agency mutual aid agreements as well as working relationships with county, State, Federal, and private entities to ensure sufficient resources are committed to resolution of the occurrence. This plan will be reviewed by all personnel no less than biennially. POLICY / PROCEDURE: I. General Policy: A. The department generally does not provide tactical services to mitigate hostage situations or those situations in which a negotiator is necessary. B. Such actions taken by the department will be the initial containment, contact, and intelligence gathering. C. A neighboring team (Orange County, Orlando, Seminole County, or other) will be notified and requested to respond for assistance if the situation becomes one in which the tactical resources of the city are overwhelmed. II. Member Responsibilities: A. First Responding Officer to a Hostage Situation, Barricaded Person, or Critical Incident will be responsible for the following: 1. Taking all necessary precautions to prevent injury to police personnel. 2. Notify his or her supervisor and other patrol members. 3. Contain the suspect. 4. Maintain firearm discipline. 5. Evacuate endangered bystanders from the location and debrief those evacuated for information about the incident. Hostage, Barricaded Subject, or Other Critical Incident Page 2 of 10 a) If the immediate need to evacuate to ensure the safety of person(s) is evident, the member will react accordingly. b) If the evacuation does not need to be accomplished immediately, a supervisor will be advised. 6. Evacuate Injured Persons: a) Arriving members will determine the safest evacuation route. b) Is the injured person in a position of danger due to the suspect’s ability to cause additional harm? c) Is the injured person conscious? d) Does the injured person have the ability to communicate with members? e) If it can be accomplished safely, an evacuation attempt will be executed by responding members. f) Ideally, perimeters will be established, and the department's IC will coordinate evacuations. g) Evacuated persons with injuries will be turned over to the fire department. 7. The fire department will be summoned to stage in an appropriate area. If possible, a joint command will be initiated with the supervisory fire department member. 8. Advise responding units of the safest travel route to the scene. 9. Keep all unauthorized persons from entering the outside perimeter. 10. Keep all non-police personnel from nearing the inner perimeter. 11. Attempt to prevent the suspect from contacting anyone except the police. 12. Prevent anyone from contacting the suspect. 13. Establish a dedicated radio channel for conducting emergency transmissions and communicating with other agencies. B. First Responding Supervisor on scene at a hostage situation, barricaded person or critical incident will be responsible for the following: 1. Establish Perimeters: Hostage, Barricaded Subject, or Other Critical Incident Page 3 of 10 a) Inner Perimeter: i. The inner perimeter will encircle the incident location to contain the suspect and monitor his actions. ii. No person will be allowed to access the inner perimeter other than Law Enforcement Personnel without authorization from a Supervisor. iii. Members staffing perimeter positions will seek proper protective cover. A position allowing an unrestricted view of the scene should be selected. b) Outer perimeter: i. The outer perimeter will encircle the entire incident location to restrict access to unauthorized persons, and maintain the integrity of the inner perimeter. ii. Members staffing outer perimeter positions will not allow any person to enter the perimeter without Supervisory authorization. iii. Persons evacuated from the incident location will not be allowed to return through the outer perimeter without Supervisory authorization. 2. Ensure the following are accomplished: a) Establish a Central Command Post and the Incident Command System. The highest-ranking supervisor on scene will be in charge of the incident, until relieved by a higher ranking member. b) Advise the on-call staff duty officer of the situation. Ensure communications distributes a staff page with the pertinent information. c) Insure that all required duties and responsibilities of subordinates are being complied with. d) Summon the Public Information Officer (PIO) to the scene. e) Evaluate the need and making arrangements for the immediate evacuation of the area. If an immediate evacuation of the area is Hostage, Barricaded Subject, or Other Critical Incident Page 4 of 10 not necessary, an evacuation plan will be developed. If possible, all evacuations will be made with the assistance of the SWAT team. f) Have communications personnel coordinate radio patches with assisting agencies, if necessary, to ensure interdepartmental communications. i. Patrol personnel involved in the incident and the command post should operate on the primary talk group. ii. Assigned units (SWAT, perimeters, etc.) will go to talk groups as indicated by command. iii. Command will assign a member to monitor communications from within the command vehicle. iv. Command should consider calling out the communications supervisor or designee to the command post to coordinate communication issues as appropriate. v. Patrol not assigned will be given a designated talk group by communications from which to operate. Communications will monitor this talk group and dispatch calls as appropriate. C. The overall incident commander will be responsible for the following: 1. Evaluate the situation and determining the appropriate personnel response. These members will be notified by the communications center and may include: a) The SWAT Team b) Hostage Negotiation Team (as requested from another jurisdiction). c) Additional Members and Supervisors. d) Canine Unit. 2. At all critical incident scenes, the Incident Commander will request the following, if applicable for operational assistance: a) Apopka Fire Department. Hostage, Barricaded Subject, or Other Critical Incident Page 5 of 10 b) Surveillance Equipment. c) Specialty Equipment (tactical vehicles, etc). d) Mobile Command Center. 3. Authorizing the Use of Force and Chemical Agents: a) The SWAT commander will coordinate with any assisting agency team commander to develop and submit a tactical plan to the incident commander. b) Such plan will contain any use of force and chemical agent recommendations. c) The incident commander must approve the tactical plan and authorize the use of force or use of chemical agents before the plan is executed. 4. If the situation deteriorates prior to that approval, members will be guided by the department's use of force procedural general order. 5. The incident commander may designate marked or unmarked vehicles to function as pursuit or surveillance vehicles should the need arise. a) The decision to use a marked or unmarked vehicle for these purposes will depend on the particular circumstances of the situation. b) The incident commander should also consider the availability of vehicle tracking devices and the use of air surveillance. 6. The incident commander or his designee may direct members to control travel routes via the blocking of roadways, intersections and other routes of travel. III. Operational Plan: A. Written Strategic Operational Plan: 1. The incident commander or designee should complete an operational plan and have such plan approved by the police chief prior to its institution. (Given immediate action, i.e. “active shooter situation,” is not warranted. 2. Within thirty days post event, the member in charge of the event, or designee will submit an after action report to the police chief. Such report Hostage, Barricaded Subject, or Other Critical Incident Page 6 of 10 will include whether the operational objectives were met, special considerations, debriefing information, arrests and injury information, and other operational issues identified. B. Central Command Post: 1. The command post will be established in a secure location, out of direct sight of the suspect(s), preferably in close proximity to the outer perimeter. 2. The command post will be staffed by the following personnel, at a minimum: a) A member to document the following: i. Event Log. ii. Personnel Log. iii. Incident Report. iv. After Action Report (with the assistance or direction of the incident commander and key personnel in the event.) b) SWAT commander who will coordinate the activities of the command post with the team's tactical command post (if set up). c) Public Information Officer. d) Intelligence Officer. e) Fire department supervisor. f) Staging Officer g) Any other personnel as designated by the incident commander. C. Intelligence: 1. The more Intelligence information that can be obtained, the better prepared the incident commander will be in mitigating the situation. A member of the department's investigations unit will be assigned to assist in obtaining intelligence information. Any information gathered will be given to the incident commander. 2. All attempts should be made to obtain the following information on the suspect(s), and/or hostages, and location. Hostage, Barricaded Subject, or Other Critical Incident Page 7 of 10 a) Suspects: i. How many suspects? ii. Who are the suspects? iii. Where are the suspects located? iv. Language suspect speaks. v. Do the suspects appear to be organized? vi. How are the suspects acting? vii. Are the suspects armed and with what? viii. Are there any known suspect vehicles? b) Location: i. Type of location. ii. Building plans. iii. Entry points. iv. Are dangerous materials stored inside? v. Are weapons inside? vi. Retrieve all telephone numbers of the location. c) Hostages: 3. i. How many hostages? ii. Identity of hostages. iii. Where are the hostages being held? iv. What is the mental/physical condition of the hostages? Sources of intelligence information: a) Employees of the concerned location. b) Neighbors familiar with the location. c) Family Members of the suspect or hostage. d) Parole/Probation Officers. e) Police Officers. f) Medical personnel. g) Released hostages. h) Captured suspects. Hostage, Barricaded Subject, or Other Critical Incident Page 8 of 10 i) Friends of the suspects. j) Utility company employees. 4. Intelligence to consider. a) Attempt to measure the emotional stability of the subject: b) Is the person explosive? c) Is the person speaking rationally or not making sense? d) Attempt to establish if the person is dedicated to the cause, or is the situation brought on by the incident. e) While awaiting the Crisis Negotiation Team, do not offer suggestions or possible solutions to the suspect(s). IV. Crisis Negotiation Procedures: A. A crisis negotiation team will be called-out when there is a need to secure the release of a hostage, negotiate the surrender of a suspect, or in any other situation deemed appropriate by the incident commander. B. The department will provide a liaison with the assisting agency's crisis negotiation personnel. Such personnel will be utilized in an attempt to contact hostage takers, barricaded persons, or other persons involved in a critical incident. The objective is to resolve the incident peacefully through communication and negotiation. C. Crisis negotiation responsibilities: 1. The crisis negotiators will be deployed and operate under their agency's guidelines. 2. The department and its members will support the operation and the command officer for the negotiation team will coordinate with the department's incident commander. Tactical personnel will coordinate efforts and follow the general direction of the negotiator. 3. The department's incident commander shall not relinquish overall responsibility of the situation, but shall have the negotiation team work within the incident command structure to mitigate the problem. V. Media Hostage, Barricaded Subject, or Other Critical Incident Page 9 of 10 A. Events within participating agency’s jurisdiction will be handled by the governing agency’s public information personnel. B. Events within Apopka’s jurisdiction will be handled in will be handled in accordance with PGO 8400.00 and the following: 1. The PIO will be responsible for the control of media personnel and the dissemination of all information and news releases. 2. The Department will cooperate as much as possible with the news media and will provide and authorize access by establishing a location where members of the media will be directed. 3. The following will apply: a) The location will be in a secure area away from an established command post. b) Members of the media will not be allowed at a command post. c) Members of the media will not be allowed inside the outer perimeter without the approval of the incident commander. d) Information will only be released with the approval of the incident commander. e) All information distributed to the media will be through the PIO. f) After the incident has ended, all photographs and interviews will be coordinated with the PIO. g) Specific details concerning the tactics or actions of the negotiating team or the SWAT Team will not be released to the media without review of the appropriate commander. By Order of: Michael McKinley, Police Chief Hostage, Barricaded Subject, or Other Critical Incident Page 10 of 10