Getting the Bigger Picture

Last year I had the privilege of attending the Secured Cities Conference in Baltimore, MD. Held at the convention center, just a couple short blocks from the Inner Harbor, the conference was touted as primarily focusing on surveillance methods within cities and leveraging the video/images captured to improve the efficiency of response from the public-safety disciplines: fire, police and EMS. 

What I experienced, however, was vastly different from what I expected.

What I expected was a show floor full of exhibiting companies that made an assortment of video cameras, some of which would include audio pickups and all of which had the absolute best solution to any city’s given surveillance need. Beyond that I expected a few decent classes and presentations on various public-safety topics having to do with local efforts centered around remote video cameras, etc.

What I found was entirely different and greatly beneficial—especially in comparison to the time involved. I spent two days in Baltimore at the conference. I attended a presentation on coordinating response efforts between fire, police and EMS based on video camera imagery plus GPS tracking of public-safety vehicles plus radio inputs from the responders en route. I sat through a class on active-shooter response training for the true “first responders”: the victims themselves. It was enlightening to learn what the potential victims could do not only to defend themselves but also to assist the efficiency of the emergency responders.

I listened to a speech given by the Baltimore police commissioner and learned about some of the challenges he faces, challenges similar to those facing leaders in the other public-safety disciplines. I talked with several people who realized that while Secured Cities is too often perceived as a localized or limited effort to leverage a few technologies by one-off entities, what it really is is an effort to efficiently coordinate virtually every level of public-safety service and every other state, county or local service that would support such. 

What do I mean? Think about this example:

On Interstate 95, which runs up and down the East Coast through or around major cities like Washington, DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York, if a major motor vehicle accident occurs with some kind of hazardous-material spillage involved, how many organizations are going to respond? 
Police will write the traffic report and coordinate removal of the involved vehicles. The fire department will put out any fires, render the vehicles safe for transport and neutralize the spilled hazardous materials. Emergency medical services will treat and transport those involved in the accident. 

That’s all of the public-safety disciplines, but who else might show up? The state highway administration (of whatever flavor in your state) will likely turn out to manage lane and road closures and reroute traffic as necessary. If the hazardous material presents any kind of threat to the surrounding areas, then agencies for those areas will have to act accordingly (think evacuations). If there are railroad or transit trains that run through or nearby, the agencies managing and policing them will have to be involved.

What I realized, then, in that two days of the Secured Cities conference is that it’s not just about surveillance technology, communication technology or new programs to resolve specific issues in small geographic areas. It’s really about efficiently coordinating all public-safety threat- and crime-prevention efforts and then following those up with proper timely response, if the prevention efforts fail, from all necessary public-safety responders. It’s not just about new technologies or specialized services; it’s about getting everyone working together in a strategic fashion to leverage all available technologies to keep the public safe. That is a conference worth attending and learning from.

This Year’s Show

This year’s Secured Cities Conference is once again being held in Baltimore, Nov. 4–6 at the Baltimore Convention Center. Presentation topics scheduled include:

• Leveraging integrated security in your plans and designs for a built environment;

• Improvements in the emergency alert system for mobile devices;

• Best practices for wireless surveillance system design;

• Security challenges in a shipping channel and how one city (Houston) dealt with them;

• A new school security model that provides multiple layers of protection between classrooms and active shooters;

• How virtual social spaces are impacting our security practices and behavior.

If you register prior to Oct. 3, 2014, the education admission fee—which includes all the educational sessions and access to the exhibit floor—is $225. Compare that to most commercial training sessions today—they run $200+ per day. There is a great deal of learning and networking you can do for about half of what a commercial training course would cost. Add another $60 (prior to October 3), and you can also attend the conference reception and Innovation Awards luncheon.

I strongly encourage you to not only attend, but to bring others from your agency with you. The potential benefits are well worth the price, and I’d certainly enjoy seeing more fellow emergency professionals there!

Visit www.securedcities.com to register today.

Lt. Frank Borelli (ret.) is the editorial director for the Cygnus Law Enforcement Group, which encompasses Officer.com, Law Enforcement Technology Magazine and Law Enforcement Product News. Frank has been producing equipment evaluations and articles for the police and military communities since 1999. Pulling on his 7 years of military service, about 30 years of police experience (so far) and over 20 years of instructor experience, he stays active in police work, training and writing.