Episode Summary

For this week's podcast topic, we discuss different types of micro training to help reinforce active shooter incident management methods.

Episode Notes

Episode 41: Micro Training

For this week's podcast topic, we discuss different types of micro training to help reinforce active shooter incident management methods.

Bill Godfrey:

Welcome to the Active Shooter Incident Management Podcast. My name is Bill Godfrey your podcast host. We're happy to have you with us today, where we're going to be talking about micro training. Things that you can do in 10 to 15 minutes during your roll calls or briefings to help people stay on top of Active Shooter Incident Management. I have with me today, three of the other instructors from C3 Pathways, Robert McMahon from the law enforcement side. Robert. Good to see you.

Robert McMahan:

Good to see you, Bill.

Bill Godfrey:

All right. We've also got Mark Rhame on the fire/EMS side, Mark. Good to have you back.

Mark Rhame:

Yeah, always enjoy it.

Bill Godfrey:

And Billy Perry, Billy it's been a little while.

Billy Perry:

It hasn't been. It's been a minute, but I'm glad to be back.

Bill Godfrey:

Oh, it's good to have you. Good to have you back in the house. All right. So I almost feel like the first thing I want to do is go around and talk about all the different names we've heard this called. So roll call training, briefing training, quick drills. What else?

Robert McMahan:

Seven minute training where I came from.

Bill Godfrey:

Seven minute training. Okay.

Mark Rhame:

Morning teleconference review issues. Yeah.

Billy Perry:

Hip pocket training.

Bill Godfrey:

Hip pocket. All right. So the idea here is that during these opportunities, whether it's roll call, shift change, whenever you're going to do it within your organization, to be able to take 10 or 15 minutes and kind of reinforce some of these ASIM topics. And so I've asked the instructors to kind of come up with some things that they thought would help. And some of these are things that you can do really without any preparation, without any warning. Some of them are going to acquire a little bit of planning, but not a whole ton of planning. And we're going to kind of go through them. Mark. Do you mind leading us off?

Mark Rhame:

Sure. I guarantee you the three, four of us sitting here at this table and the people listening probably can go to their file cabinet, go to their book, whatever they keep their certificates of the classes they've taken, and they stick them into those files, stick them into that book. And then they pretty much ignore it from that point forward for the most part. Part of the failure, I guess, in the public safety environment, whether it's fire/EMS, law enforcement, is that we do a lot of good training. We get together and we come together and say this is a good thing, but how much do we practice this? How much do we talk about it? How much do we go out there and engage our partners? Whether if you're on the fire/EMS side or your talking to the law enforcement, especially the guys you run with, girls who run with on a regular basis than a community and talk about these topics and reinforce what we're going to do when we get on those scenes.

So one of the first things I look at is for fire and EMS is you need to invite your fellow law enforcement brothers and sisters out there stop by a firehouse. And let's re-emphasize what our roles are, what we're going to do when we get on the scene. When you build out an RTF how much equipment you're going to carry? Who's in command, who's going to do talking on the radio, make sure we have that radio discipline. So there's a lot of things that we can do in a very short period of time. But again, it's up to that battalion chief or assistant chief or whatever that ranking person is on that morning teleconference to say, "Hey guys and girls go out there and get with your brothers and sisters." On the law enforcement side as I'm talking about fire/EMS and let's reemphasize and talk about what our responsibilities are and what our roles are going to be in these environments. Because again, all of us has taken these classes, but how much do we practice it afterwards?

Bill Godfrey:

So real quick and simple Mark, you're talking about just invite your local law enforcement guys and gals that work in your area, ask them to come by pop by the firehouse 10, 15 minutes for a meal.

Mark Rhame:

A simple thing as open up the cabinet and show them what you're going to carry so they can actually see what your intent is when you arrive on the scene at staging, and you build out your RTFs-

Billy Perry:

And what your ability is.

Mark Rhame:

Yeah, exactly. And maybe they're going to go, "Oh, wait a second. That's too much. You can't carry all that stuff." Or maybe after the scene's been cooled down a lot the known threats are either contained or neutralized. You can bring in that scoop stretcher or Blackboards or whatever it happens to be. So that's where you re-emphasize this stuff and go over the rules of engagement if you will, in that fire/EMS side. And it doesn't take that long, just make sure everybody's on the same page.

Bill Godfrey:

Billy. One of the things that kind of jumps out to me as Mark says that is the idea of reinforcing that RTF introduction about rules and responsibilities and most fire guys and gals don't have any knowledge about tactics or how to move.

Billy Perry:

Right. And frankly, a lot officers don't either, spoiler alert. But you're right. And I think, yeah. That's all of us. We all fall into that, but yeah, I agree. And it all boils down to relationships.

Mark Rhame:

Yeah. That's actually a really good point though, Billy. In the class, we talk about it, and we do a little demo sometimes in the live class where we show building the teams out every shakes hands and does the introduction. But how often has someone gone out there and say, "Hey, let's practice this." The law enforcement officer gets with the fire/EMS guys and say, "We're going to be an RTF. Let's demo or practice this in the parking lot or in the station or whatever on our expectations from the law enforcement side.

Billy Perry:

Yeah, and we're all trainers. And we know we accept the fact that a lot of people don't understand. Practice does not make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect because if you're practicing wrong, it's not better. And you're right. And it's getting the reps in, the good reps. That's why SWAT teams serve warrants is for reps for hostage rescue. There's a lot of reasons for it. And I think that's where we need to do that in what we do in building relationships and familiarity.

Robert McMahan:

I think another way to do that is just on the opposite side. When law enforcement is conducting training, tactical training, invite those fire guys to come out there with you and do that with you. Practice those movements, figure out if you've got the right kit. Figure out how much you're carrying actually. You may want to adjust that kit based on that training and actually running it, communicating down the halls and all that kind of stuff. When we're doing our tactical training to make sure we're including them as well as our dispatchers to tie up that communication piece.

Bill Godfrey:

Now, Robert, when you say kit, what do you mean there?

Robert McMahan:

Well, I mean, both for fire and for law enforcement. Law enforcement's got their stuff, their kit that they put on their body armor that they get in there long guns out and that kind of stuff. The things they're carrying into that hot zone or warm zones. And for the fireside whatever those tools are that they're going to be carrying down range as an RTF to the patients, they need to make sure that that kit or whatever they're bringing is going to be right. And it's going to be manageable.

Bill Godfrey:

One of the things and I've talked about it before here on the podcast, that was a surprise or an awakening moment to me when I first started kind of doing this and working with some of the specific lingo. Things like the X, understanding hallway intersections, T intersections, how to keep a light touch, but not grab on when you're moving. How important are those things to talk to the fire/EMS folks about on the law enforcement side. Because I mean, if you don't have the law enforcement background that was foreign terminology to me.

Billy Perry:

Sure. It's huge. It honestly is. I mean it can be a total unhinging of the operation. It can be nothing and it can also be grievous. So I mean its knowledge is power.

Bill Godfrey:

Okay. Very good. Well, that's the first one off the board there, Mark. Billy what's on your list.

Billy Perry:

On my list is knowledge. And I say that jokingly. The big thing in law enforcement, and this isn't being condescending, I fall into this category as a trainer and as having been a trainer for decades, we in law enforcement used to be really, really good at the initial neutralization as Mark put it of the issue. When it came to ASIM Active Shooter Incident Management, we used to be really good at that. And we've kind of not gotten as good lately. We've had some challenges. And I think a lot of it is born of ignorance of our craft and our profession. And I think a lack of knowledge and a lack of familiarity can cause professional and cognitive freezing. And I think knowing what we do and why we do it and how we do it is huge. And I think this is one of those situations where hip pocket training can be so event changing.

And we talk it where our work, the why we do it response to resistance. And you can call it response resistance, use of force, whatever. In the words of Shakespeare, "A rose by any other name," whatever. But no the statutes, wherever you are, know the statues that justify or that cover your justification of use of force and in Florida, it's 7, 7, 6, know that. Know your orders. Know your case law, you're Graham v. Connor, Tennessee v. Garner. Scott v. Harris for pursuits and whatnot but know those things. And so that way, when the drop down menu appears in your mind, you act professionally. In law enforcement we reached a level of frankly, of unconscious competency. We accidentally do the right thing a lot of times when we can't articulate why. Words mean things and we need to be quoting those statutes.

And that's part of the issue we're having with a public right now is words do mean things. We can't explain why we've done what we've done, because we don't really know, frankly. And I think when you ask any number officers, why did they shoot somebody? Or why do they shoot people? Why do they resort to that? And why do they have the weapons platform that they use? They don't know. And they may use coined terms such as, "To neutralize the threat." Well that sounds good but what does that really mean? And what does that mean to the public?

And, frankly, we answer to the public. As a law enforcement officer, my fundamental duty is to serve mankind, safeguard lives and property. I mean, so to protect the innocent against deception, the weak against oppression or intimidation session week has pressure on intimidation and the peaceful against violence or disorder, and on and on and on. And we need to know why we do what we do, and we do that. We implement deadly force with two things in mind, to change their behavior, whatever they're doing, stop it. And to stop the bullet because the bullets... the fourth rule in firearm safety is the arc of fire, beware of your target and what's beyond it.

And handgun rounds over-penetrate a lot. And so what's behind it? We don't want to be detrimental. And that's why where I work, we have special ammunition, and we use long guns because of the lack of over-penetration and for the enhanced accuracy. And I think we need to be able to explain why, and when the public asks, "Why," because it's a reasonable question. We need to be able to professionally articulate why, because it's a great reason and it's scientific and based on physics and actual data, which is also crazy. That's the great thing about training in 2021. And one of the things I like about C3... research it, check it out. It's true.

Bill Godfrey:

All right. So some quick hip pocket training to talk about that decision-making process and knowing...

Billy Perry:

Knowing why, knowing when, being able to articulate why. And even not just in the deployment of it, but when you're standing in a neighborhood with a rifle, when somebody calls it an assault rifle or whatever, and says, "Why are you standing here with that terrifying thing?" For you to be able to articulate professionally. "I understand this may look scary but it's really not. And the reason I carry it is so that it is so much safer for your family and why endanger Sandy in the sandbox and Sammy on the swing set for somebody else doing wrong in do right zone. I can apply my rounds exactly on target and they don't over penetrate like my handgun rounds. And so while I realize it looks a little bit dangerous, sir or ma'am, it's really not. And it's a lot safer than any other platform we can use."

And that's why we do it. It's not for intimidation factor or anything else. And to be able to say, because it's true and people may flame me, but I don't care. It's true. We don't shoot to kill. We don't shoot to wound. And we don't shoot the warn. We shoot for you to stop doing what you're doing and to stop our bullet at the end. And in Jacksonville, we just had one Saturday night, I guess, the ninth. And they shot him, and it stopped when he stopped. That's what is the general thing. and but knowing why and being able to articulate it, that's where this hip pocket training could be so event changing, career changing and because most civil unrest have started because of traffic stops and shootings that the public didn't understand.

Bill Godfrey:

Okay, Robert, what's on your list? I'm going to come to you before I throw one of mine out.

Robert McMahan:

So years ago, one of the sheriffs I worked for implemented a thing we call seven minute training and every day at briefing, we were supposed to give seven minutes of training on some topic. And I don't know if the audience realizes but C3 Pathways has actually provided a great list in the Active Shooter Incident Management checklist of seven minute training topics. And what I would like to see is if I were still in charge of patrol or teams, is to see my supervisors going through each of these sections. Law enforcement first arriving, tactical, all these positions and talk about what those positions do, why they're important, why they're set up the way they are. So they know inside and out the structure that has been put together and this training that's been put together and know what their roles and responsibilities are.

Especially if I'm a first-line supervisor. And I want to avoid that over convergence of resources that we've talked about in the past. And I want those contact teams to get formed and to be going down range with a purpose and understand that tactical has got to control those. So all these areas that we have on the checklist are great train topics. Each segment by themselves are a great training topic for seven minutes, five minutes, 10 minutes, whatever you want to do at those roll call trainings. And they're also good at the tactical trainings that we've talked about earlier. Getting your tactical room clearing, running the hallways, all that kind of stuff, and getting your fire and EMS, and they're working those, but understanding what role each person's in, what their responsibilities are and what they need to get done. I think you got a whole checklist full of training topics there. And if you don't have one, you can go to the website and download one and get it for free. So, I mean, there's a month's worth of training just on the checklist itself.

Bill Godfrey:

I completely agree with you. And actually almost kind of wish I went first because now it's going to sound like I'm just stealing your topic, but I'm a basic guy, simple guy. And I think often the way the incident goes really depends on the first few minutes of how it unfolds. And if the first few minutes unfolds kind of the right direction, then there's an inertia with it that carries itself forward. And to me, one of the things that I would like to see in that five, 10 minute roll call briefing is to have scenarios. I mean, almost every place you are, you've got access to a computer screen or a monitor or a projector on the wall. Pull up Google maps, pull up a target in your area, whether it's a school or a building or a mall, or I don't care, take your pick.

And give them a scenario, say, "Okay, here's what the dispatch goes out. You roll up on scene. This is what you're hearing. This is what you're seeing. Give me a radio, arrival report. Go." "Well, what do you mean?" "Well, I mean exactly what I said. Give me that 15 second arrive report, tell me... hit the items. What's your size-up report? Identify your hot zone. Take command and tell us, yeah, that you're... what are you doing? Not just taking care of it, but what are you going to actually do?" Because I think when you start with that, it forces everybody to go, "Oh wow, I really need to pay attention to this." And then once you get down those first arrival reports, then you go to tactical and do the handoffs.

So like Robert was saying... one of the things that I saw that I thought was a pretty interesting way to do it. And Michelle was actually the one that did this. She laid out kind of a scenario on paper, but then split up pieces of it on little index cards. And so as they began to stand this up, she would hand the role cards, to whoever responded. So whoever was tactical got these cards and whoever were the contact team... contact one got these cards and contact two got these cards. And they each had their own little pieces of information, but they didn't know what the other ones knew. And it forced them to kind of have to communicate back and forth in those roles. And I thought that was a pretty creative way of doing it. Again, low tech, super easy. Don't really-

Billy Perry:

Super fast.

Bill Godfrey:

Yeah. Don't really even care if it's actually on the radio. I mean, just do it in your radio voice. Right? And make it happen. So to me, I think that's one of the really easy things that takes almost no planning. Pick a spot, come up with a scenario and say, "Give me your size report. Go."

Robert McMahan:

Yeah. And Bill, that's huge. And if you think that sounds silly, let me tell you it works. We had several officer-involved shootings where I worked and typically what you heard at the beginning was, "Oh, shots fired, scream, scream, scream." So we went into training and changed that and said, "Here's what we want you to say if you're involved in a shooting." So we incorporated it with a scenario on the range, do your shooting now and get on the radio and say what you're going to say. And it changed. Because the next officer involved shooting, we had, it changed. So this will change too. If you're doing this arriving officer reports and doing these briefings and talking it out like you're on the radio or even used radio channel to do it will change your behavior down range when it happens.

Mark Rhame:

And we talk about that in the face-to-face classes where I know historically for me, when I was a company officer... when I first got made company officer, I would do that as I drove around the town. I mean, literally I pull up to a building, we're going out and doing training, maybe we're doing area survey, or maybe we're doing a building survey. I would in my head give that briefing report as I pulled up to that building. And if you get in a habit of doing that on a regular basis, it becomes so much easier when you have that all that excitement in front of your face.

Bill Godfrey:

Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I think that's a good skill. Record one on your phone. "I want everybody, while you're out on patrol, pick a target, pick a scenario, do a report, record it on your phone. I want to see it tomorrow at briefing. Go."

Robert McMahan:

Yeah.

Bill Godfrey:

So I think those are great ideas. Mark, you're up next. What else you got?

Mark Rhame:

I love the practice. And I really tried to push this when I was on shift, of doing a tailboard critique before you leave and emphasize that as a leader-

Bill Godfrey:

You mean after a scenario is.

Mark Rhame:

After a scenario.

Bill Godfrey:

After an incident's occurred.

Mark Rhame:

Yeah. And involve law enforcement. That was something that we did not do because if we would have just said, "Hold on a second guys before y'all go back in service. Can you come over here and talk. We're going to gather troops around the back of the engine and talk about the good, the bad, the ugly." What did we do good? What did we do bad?

Billy Perry:

That's brilliant.

Mark Rhame:

How can we improve that? And involve the law enforcement officers, which I didn't do. I never ever... and emphasize that your crews before they leave that scene, I don't care if it's just a single engine and a rescue that went to a auto with entrapment. Before you leave the scene, put the truck back in service and go, "Guys gather round. What did we do bad, what we do good?" And as a company officer, and as a leader, they should be comfortable enough to say, "Well, we kind of didn't like what you did there." Now there's a line to that. Of course if they're constantly telling me what I did wrong, I'd probably say, "Well, I got a problem here." But the bottom line is that those tailboard critiques, before you leave the scene to me are so important when it's fresh in your mind.

Billy Perry:

Because we would that all as well. So I wish we had combined them. Because we would because be doing it over... I'm serious. We would be doing it over here. You're doing it over there on the tailboard. How innovative could we have been if we'd have just-

Bill Godfrey:

"Ooh, let's all talk together."

Billy Perry:

Right?

Bill Godfrey:

Yeah.

Billy Perry:

Because we know each other. Feel dumb.

Robert McMahan:

You know, as cops we're taught from right out of the academy, start thinking about what you're going to be doing and start thinking about, "Oh, if I have the scenario, how do I respond? If a bad guy pops up over here, how do I respond?" So we're taught to kind of pre-think out those incidents. Well, you can do the same thing with this. If you think about, "Okay, if I'm fifth, man, what are my roles and responsibilities? What do I got to get done? I know there's people down range already. How do I control that? How do I think these things through and plan them out before the incident ever happened?" And you can do this all by yourself. Take the checklist, whatever you want and think about these things, preplan them, talk about, or think about in your mind, how you're going to give that briefing or what you're going to say on the air before you get there or before it happens.

Bill Godfrey:

Absolutely. I think it's a great one. Billy RTF. Hit me.

Billy Perry:

Use RTF for everything. Use RTF for football games. And I don't mean just NFL games. I mean, you're in high school games. I mean, use RTF-

Bill Godfrey:

Planned events you're talking about?

Billy Perry:

Planned events use them for fairs for carnivals, use them for... because again, practice and you know what make the runs, I mean-

Mark Rhame:

How about social unrest?

Billy Perry:

Yeah.

Mark Rhame:

They pull a permit to do a picket or whatever.

Billy Perry:

Sure.

Mark Rhame:

And you know that thing's going to go overboard.

Billy Perry:

And we had been doing it for that. And that's actual what I would consider a deployment of them. Absolutely. But I think do it. And so that everybody sees how everybody works. And so you understand it more. Put the white stuff on the red stuff and put the wet stuff on the hot stuff. And I mean and do what we do. Because again, it's reps if it's done correctly.

Bill Godfrey:

Yeah. Keep it simple. Don't miss the opportunities to do it on the easy ones.

Robert McMahan:

It's just like I tell officers every week I said, "Do not let a firefighter breach a door on a check welfare on somebody that you think is... don't because the worst firefighter in the house can out breach the best SWAT Reacher. And so don't let them have more reps. Don't wait tilt the Super Bowl to reach your first door seriously. I mean breach it. And the same thing with this, I think we need reps.

Bill Godfrey:

Interesting. Interesting. So I'm going to say for my next one, triage on a mass casualty incidents. I think by and large it's been a bit of a lost art. Now Mark and I are old enough that we're from a generation when we were the medics. There weren't a lot of medics on the road, and it wasn't uncommon for you to have to deal. You went to a four or five patient car accident, and you were responsible for all the patients, if not through the whole call for an extended period of time.

And that's a bit of a lost art now is the idea of triage and kind of like the idea that Michelle had of taking up the different roles. Index cards, it doesn't need to be fancy. It doesn't need to be a bunch of stuff. Just take some index cards and write down various injuries, assessment information, and put them in a stack, give them a dozen and say, "I want those in green, yellow, red, and black piles now. Go. Sort them out, get them done." And then go through and look at them and say, "Okay what protocol did you use?" "Well, we use start." You use start. They always say that, "Oh, you start, really? Okay. So how did this patient end up in this column?"

They get the walking wounded one, right? I mean, that one's easy. They could wave to me. So that's a green right. They get that one right. Starts a lot more complicated than it sounds. And so, that's a great five, 10 minute drill. You can make 20, 25 cards and mix them up and keep repeating that until they get it right. And then once they get that right, put them into a couple of different piles to simulate two different casually collection points. And then look to the company officer, "Okay, you're in charge of triage now. You're the triage group supervisor at an active shooter event. They've just called in with these kinds of injuries. What are you and transport going to do to sort this out? Who's going first? Who is going in what order? How are you evacuating them? What's going to be your loads on the hospitals, or on loads on the ambulance? Which hospitals are you going to go to?" And I think that simple mechanism can allow you to, as Robert said, you can get multiple runs of training through that and take it on through their roles.

Robert McMahan:

And triage is a good example of something that we train on it initially. We go out and buy a whole bunch of those tags and the sheets that go with it. And in fact, we even took it farther, One of the departments I worked for the longest period of time We had those numbers that matched the triage tag that went on the ribbon on their arm that matched the run reports. So we can think that we're actually tracking these patients so we can get some good data, which frankly we didn't do. But the bottom line was that if you're not doing it on a regular basis, if you're not training on that a regular basis, when you need to use it doesn't work. Frankly, it's kind of a mess. Am I supposed to tear this off and put it in my pocket? Do I tear off this part and put it on the ground where they're at? It's raining, it's windy, that little piece of paper just went away. What do I do with these numbers? I mean, who's keeping that log, all that stuff-

Bill Godfrey:

My yellows are red, my reds are yellow.

Robert McMahan:

Yeah. And all that stuff looks good on paper. And it looks good in that trauma bag that's there that we got triaged tags. But frankly we don't do it enough to be good at it. I mean really that the bottom line.

Bill Godfrey:

It's funny, a number of years ago... so Florida adopted what they called the statewide standard triage tag. And then they immediately began updating it, evolution after evolution of the different form came out with these different little tweaks. And we were doing an MCI class at an agency and held up the tag and said, "This is the state standard triage tag. And you should have all of these on your vehicles. And one of the company officer goes, "Well, that's not what's on mine." "And well, it's supposed to be it."

Anyways, this went back and forth until we finally said, "Okay, timeout, all break. Everybody, go down to your vehicles and pull one of your tags off." And not a single one of the tags on any of the vehicles that were there matched not one of them. And the EMS supervisor was so beside himself, not happy at all. He then over the next several days went and did a physical inspection of every single station. He found over 20 different triage tags in use. 20 different triage tags from the old-

Robert McMahan:

And one agency. And one agency.

Bill Godfrey:

And one agency from the old World War II met tags all the way up to this modern... So it just goes to show you can't ever do it too much. Robert, I think you're up for the next one.

Robert McMahan:

I want to say this first for all you command staff out there. Hear me out here. Okay. Tabletop exercises in command staff. Now I'm not talking about the four to eight hour day that we have to do annually with our emergency manager to check the ICS training requirement box. I'm just talking 10 to 15 minutes. And here's why it's important because you're going to come on scene. You're going to want to take over this. And we tend to over-manage these things we'll get down too far in the weeds. And that's because we don't understand what all the rules are doing.

So if you can throw a 10 minute tabletop exercise together. It doesn't have to be fancy. You just get the matboard out, draw it out and start talking it through. Talk about what all these functions you... use this training tool again, that C3 has put out and go through these things so that you're competent too because there's nothing worse... you're your men, the downrange folks, they know you're not competent at this when you show up and you mess it up. So put yourself in there and spend that time doing some tabletops, just for command staff. You got all those staff meetings that you got to go to. You just won't turn some of it into some useful time.

Mark Rhame:

Are you saying that the rest of it's unuseful time?

Robert McMahan:

Yes. I'm retired, now. I can say that.

Bill Godfrey:

It's funny. I mean, you talk about flying under flags of false color. There are often, and this is true on the fireside, EMS side, as much as it is on law enforcement side. There are people that get promoted through no fault of their own. They get promoted, they get the job, and they haven't had a level of training that necessarily makes them comfortable with managing the incidents. Maybe they didn't have a chance for that much experience. Whatever the case may be. Certainly, this has been an issue the fire service has been grappling with because you don't run as many fires as you used to. So how are you supposed to get all this experience and know how to do all this stuff? And every once in a while, and depending on where you are, that sometimes it's more frequent. Every once in a while, you run across somebody who always has something else to do when training's there and what it comes down to is they're afraid of being exposed for not knowing what they're doing.

But the reality is, I mean, the silliest part of that is that everybody works for them, and everybody works around them already knows they don't know it. You're not hiding anything. Just get up and go to the training because everybody... It's not a secret. Everybody already knows that you don't know this stuff. So go to training and make yourself vulnerable. I think that line folks have way more respect for somebody in leadership who will commit the time to show up at training, participated and not be afraid to make mistakes in front of the troops.

Robert McMahan:

And you talked about not being comfortable managing these incidents. Nobody's comfortable managing these incentives.

Bill Godfrey:

Yeah, no kidding.

Robert McMahan:

Nobody wants this and the stakes are high. Nobody wants to have that on their shoulders. So you're not alone. Get in there and train and know what you're supposed to do.

Bill Godfrey:

I think the only people that desire to be an incident commander are people who haven't had to actually do it at a crappy incident. Because people who have had, know that they don't really want to do it again. Mark, what do you got?

Mark Rhame:

Well, I would say that in sort of touching what y'all just said is that, in my eyes, a great leader in an organization is someone who will engage their people on a regular basis on these five or 10 minute little training environments. Let's use the example of like a battalion chief or an assistant chief in a fire department when they're doing rounds and going around the station. And they were there visiting and maybe it's a social thing, maybe it isn't, but they take the time to say, "Hey, for the next 10 minutes, so let's just talk about this issue. Let's talk about arrival reports, size up reports." And challenge the people that are there engaging them in conversation and get them to be a better place in regard to their leadership capabilities. So in my eyes, whenever I see someone who is a good leader, someone who can engage other people in these short little conversations and training environments.

Bill Godfrey:

And challenge them.

Mark Rhame:

Yep, exactly.

Bill Godfrey:

Wherever they are. Billy? You got anything left?

Billy Perry:

Just to reiterate the ASIM can't start until we neutralize the threat. And until we take control of the scene and have it under control, and we have to be proficient in that. And once we have it done, it's not over. We don't pack up our trucks and go. It's not over. It goes on throughout all of prosecution through the whole completion of the case. So that's where our professionalism, that's where our professional competency, where our conscience competence, needs to come into play. And we need to be able to do that efficiently, effectively, and professionally every time.

Bill Godfrey:

And I think that applies for everybody up and down on all the disciplines and all levels, whether it's in dispatch in law enforcement, fire/EMS, line level, supervisor level, emergency management, I think that applies to everybody. And it doesn't auto-magically happen. You got to make an effort and actually work at it. Well, guys, we're coming up on the end of the segment here. And I know that we still had a couple ideas. So I'm thinking about maybe we do a part two. But I was also thinking, it might be interesting to hear from some of our listeners on some of the things that they've done and some of the ideas that they may have on doing some quick drills or quick training, hip pocket training, roll call training, things like that on both the law enforcement and on the fire/EMS side.

So I'm going to invite those of you that are out there listening to this, send us a couple notes. Send us some ideas that you might have, whether it's things that you're doing or things that might've popped into your head that you think would be a good idea, or you'd like to see your organization do. And let's revisit this. And in a few weeks’ time, let's do a round two of this and have some more of those ideas. So everybody, if you would please send those into info@c3pathways.com. Once again, that email address is info@c3pathways.com. Robert, Mark, Billy, guys, thanks for coming in. Great to have you here. Another good round. Everyone, I appreciate your time and hope that you found this useful. Thanks to Karla Torres our producer for making us sound great. Because if you heard one of these things raw, you would know she does a lot of work and until next time stay safe.