NCJ Number
218960
Journal
Law and Order: The Magazine for Police Management Volume: 55 Issue: 5 Dated: May 2007 Pages: 30-32,34,37,39
Date Published
May 2007
Length
7 pages
Annotation
This article describes a training exercise in Las Vegas in which a variety of first responders dealt with improvised explosive devices (IED) set off at two shopping centers and at a medical center.
Abstract
Funded by a $250,000 Federal grant, the training exercise, called "Operation Loaded Dice,” involved approximately 1,000 first responders, government officials, volunteers, evaluators, and participants in the Las Vegas valley region. The training exercise was meant to train first responders as well as to test the interoperability communications between the agencies involved and the unified command structure overseeing the response. The training exercise involved the use of three different IEDs in order to stress the valley’s response system. The article describes how different factions of first responders came together to work as a team during the training exercise, in which IEDs were exploded at different times and in different places, some of them intended to kill or injure first responders. The SWAT teams of both the Henderson and North Las Vegas Police Departments worked together to clear the insides of the malls and to search for secondary IEDs intended to injure first responders. Mobile Command Units were set up with wireless communications, satellite linkage, weather station access, laptop hookups, and flat screen monitors. Some of the key challenges at the mall sites were coordinating the many first responders and dealing with the size and complexity of the command structure and personnel. Las Vegas’ SWAT team and Fire & Rescue’s bomb squad, which work in completely different ways, learned to work together to respond to the IED explosion at the second mall. It was discovered that although the teams responded well to the disaster, interagency communications have room for improvement in the Las Vegas valley area. The All-hazard Regional Multiagency Operational Response (ARMOR) unit, which combines members of Las Vegas Metro, Las Vegas Fire & Rescue, and the Clark County Fire Department, also responded to the disaster scene in order to search for hazardous chemical elements. Exhibits