Committee seeks plan for shooting drills, OK with 911 radio fixes
Polk’s Public Safety Committee is making progress in their efforts to ensure police and first respondents get practical, hands-on experience with their active shooter plans with a deadline for formal plans has been set for later in November.
Officers are taught instructions for dealing with school shootings, but no full hands-on exercises have been taken yet. Considering each school has a custom response plan, officers arriving at a shooting would have to quickly adapt to a school’s location, structure, and population based solely on their instructions.
“We’ve got it on paper, you can study it all day long, but when they get on the scene, they’ve got to not even thinkthey just got to do,” County Manager Matt Denton said at an earlier meeting.
Juggling work schedules, planning around student hours, and gaining permission needed has proven a timeconsuming part of the process for officials as they try to work out what the best course of action is to take.
The plans due in November would highlight when, where, and how the practical training would take place. With students set to be out of school for Thanksgiving break, officers could see training during the holiday week. However, nothing specific had been announced as of press time.
“I would feel better if we had a deadline in place for when we would actually set this up,” Denton said. “Otherwise, we’re just skating.”
It’s not exactly something law enforcement wants to advertise as far as their plans are concerned in the first place. Previously officials have stated that they want to have plans in place for these incidents, but not provide any specifics to the public for fear of those who might undertake in an active shooting incident learn of how a response would work, and what tactical measures a shooter could then take to counteract advantages held by first responders on a scene.
Officers are also being urged to take practical exercise with the county building in case county officials and employees were targeted during an incident as well.
As that discussion continues, officials are also concerned about day-today field communications between first responders and 911 dispatchers locally.
Longstanding issues with the 911 radio network are no secret, and it can hamper the ability of public safety officials to respond to an incident when equipment within the 911 center isn’t working properly, or areas of the county aren’t covered well by the existing radio network.
One of those problems is set to be solved in the aftermath of the Public Safety Committee meeting as Company Diversified was commissioned to downgrade the firmware 911 officials suspect is causing current communications problems.
They also requested that commissioners should know whether or not the issue is persisting in time to act during the forthcoming November meeting.
“They’re coming to downgrade this firmware that Coosa Valley upgraded,” 911 Director Crystal Vincent said. “We think it (the firmware) caused the issues. We’re going to see if (the downgrade) fixes it. We’re still having big issues — missing traffic, tones not dropping.”
If technicians are capable of fixing the towers, they would also be in charge of maintaining the towers, so Polk shouldn’t have future problems.
Another area addressed during the meeting was safety along a well-traveled roadway for locals and those driving through north or south on Highway 27. The committee’s hope is that they can gain some traction on a plan to decrease the Cedartown by-pass’ speed limit.
With numerous wrecks and accidents plaguing the road, the commissioners spoke about joining hands with Cedartown officials to write a letter requesting the state to decrease the speed limit.
As a state highway, no county or city ordinance can amend the limit, but highlighting the issues could win the state’s favor.
At 60 miles per hour currently in areas including the Cedartown High and Cedartown Middle Schools’ entrances from the bypass, the group is hoping to see it brought to around 45 miles per hour.