New Standard Aims To Step Up Coordination Between First Responders During Mass Shootings

Every time there is a mass shooting, whether at a school, a public event or a place of worship — as was the case on Saturday when 11 people were killed at a Pittsburgh synagogue — it's a reminder for first responders that a coordinated response plan is critical.

The National Fire Protection Association, headquartered in Quincy, Massachusetts,recently released a new standard designed to improve communication among first responders in the event of an active shooter incident.

The standard, called NFPA 3000, aims to give first responders, medical professionals, community leaders and others a road map for responding to active shooters in coordination with each other. A May/June article in NFPA Journal said that the plan focuses on four principles: "unified command, integrated response, planned recovery, and whole community."

The idea is that cops should be talking to firefighters. State troopers should be working with the local police. And police and firefighters should work with paramedics and EMTs so they can reach victims as quickly as possible.

SWAT teams — units highly trained to deal with hostile events — often can't get to the scene of a mass shooting as quickly as other agencies. Officials say SWAT teams can take up to 40 minutes to get to an active scene, and many threats are over in 5 minutes or less.

"If there was an active shooter situation, we would respond as a tactical asset to that crisis," said Boston FBI Swat Team Leader Ed Kappler. "We certainly won't be one of the first responders, but we would be a follow-on to the incident."

So those who arrive on the scene first — including police, firefighters, and paramedics — need to have a communication plan, experts say.

The quest to create this standard began after the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando in June, 2016, a mass shooting that killed 49 people. A recent study published in the journal Prehospital Emergency Care found that 16 — or one-third — of all victims might have lived if they had gotten basic EMS care within 10 minutes.NFPA 3000 stipulates that first responders should try to secure an area even if the shooter is still on the premises, so paramedics can keep victims alive. It's known as a warm zone.

John Montes is an emergency service specialist at the NFPA, which is at the forefront of teaching first responders why collaboration is so important, and how it saves lives.

“One of my charges with NFPA 3000," Montes said," was finding ways to bring everybody together to not necessarily make everybody do things the same, ... to be more organized, be more prepared, and really help the public as quickly and efficiently as possible."

“We’ve been fortunate to be able to bring all disciplines together to create a standard that serves as road map for us to utilize in our communities to make them safer," said Massachusetts State Fire Marshall Peter Ostroskey. Ostroskey welcomed school officials, fire, EMS and law enforcement to the NFPA's Quincy headquarters last month for three symposiums about the standards and about active shooter preparation. The first of these filled up, with more than 100 registrants, three hours after the invitation was posted, Ostroskey said.

State Public Safety Secretary Daniel Bennett said he recently attended a training in Swampscott where the new NFPA 3000 protocol was used, including training on how to create a “warm zone.”

"How they were going to make the hot zone safe enough to be a warm zone, so that EMS and fire can get in there and rescue people — it was really incredible," said Bennett. "It shows how far the work together between police and fire has come over the last three and a half years."

In light of what happened at the Pulse Nightclub, there seems to be agreement that what first responders cannot do is simply wait for a SWAT team.

The training relates to minimizing threats and maximizing response, so that first responders can secure an area, and paramedics can treat the wounded and reunite loved ones.

Montes said NFPA officials want to talk with the first responders in the Tree of Life synagogue shooting, with an eye toward learning from their response. He said Pittsburgh public safety officials have a reputation for being forward-thinking and collaborative and that police, fire and EMS are working and training together.

"Pittsburgh's medical community, specifically their hospitals, actually have physicians that respond with EMS," Montes said, "and there were physicians on scene and in the synagogue when the incident was active still."

He added that the most important takeaway from any of these hostile events is that individuals need to prepare, so that they know what to do until help arrives.

"Instead of saying, 'We don't think these things are going to happen to us,' we need to have conversations in our communities right now about not if, but should this happen to us, this is what we're going to do," said Montes.

This article has been updated.