DEAR SERGEANT AL: Last week I was coming out of my office for lunch
when I suddenly saw a whole bunch of police cars with lights and sirens angle
parked perpendicularly to the curb and for the cops to get out and either stand
in formation and then just stand around it seemed for no reason. Nothing else
seemed to be going on. This seems to be a waste of time and the taxpayer’s
money for them to be racing to a corner to be standing around doing nothing. It
also seemed like a case of hurry up and wait. Can you take a stab and tell me
what they possibly were doing, so many cops in the middle of broad daylight
standing around waiting for the clouds to roll in? –MOBILIZATION OUTSIDE BECAUSE I or YOU ORDER U 2. 
“The Chinese have two symbols
for our word “crisis.” One means danger, the other, opportunity . . .”
–John F. Kennedy
“Let’s engage the enemy, and
see what happens . . .” –Napoleon Bonaparte
DEAR MOBI YOU 2: Wow. By the tenor of your email it seems
that you don’t give the police any leeway for a benefit of the doubt. If that
is true then be prepared to feel small because if I might be right in my
assumption, which is what you are asking me to do that you are already doing it
yourself to a verdict, then what you were probably witnessing was something
called a mock mobilization. Another
possibility is that the cops were on mobilization stand-by awaiting
instructions or assignment or for something to happen. They might have been
held as a reserve to an incident further away that you weren’t aware. For the
past 20-50 years since events like the civil rights protests, the Columbia University
Library protests, the MLK assassination and Watts riots, and the Chicago DNC
riots all of 1968; the RNC protests at Madison Square Garden in 2004, the 99% Occupy
Wall Street protests of late; the G6, 10, and 20, the World Trade Organization,
and NATO summit anarchy protests the past ten years, the Crown Heights riots of
’91, the OJ Simpson and Rodney King verdicts and LA riots of ‘92, the Tompkins
Square Park fiasco of ‘88, Hurricane Katrina, 9/11, etc., police departments
have learned from successes and mistakes to turn the police mass mobilization
process into a science-like streamlined procedure that almost mimics an ant or
bee colony in a state of hive emergency.
 |
| The NYPD and Occupy Wall Streeters go at it with each other . . . |
If what I’m assuming is true,
what you witnessed was not a waste of taxpayer’s money as it may seem, and in
fact if you are the kind of person soooo quick to complain about police misconduct
in any one of those incidents mentioned above, then you should be breathing a
sigh of relief that whatever lessons were learned in any of those historical
events that have affected American history and the police profession in both
good and bad terms, that the police get
it and are taking steps to ensure that history doesn’t repeat itself in a
bad way again. A mobilization is a police, fire, civilian, military and other first
responder procedure of activating either or both on and off-duty personnel in
response to a crisis or emergency that requires a larger presence to deal with
an on-going issue that if not corrected can lead to some catastrophe or an even
larger crisis. Whether it be a missing child, a manhunt, a campus or
theater mass shooting, a HAZMAT bio/chemical agent leak or spill, a natural
disaster, a fire or explosion, a political assassination or verdict, a riot,
etc., if the crisis is not resolved right there and then, it may require a
larger presence of outside police or fire agencies, federal law enforcement and
civilian agencies, the National Guard, and if necessary, the President of the
United States and the US Armed Forces. If not resolved a mobilization can lead
all the way up to a governor or the President of the United States declaring a
state of emergency or martial law or the suspension of habeas corpus, as
Presidents Lincoln and George W. Bush did during their crises of the Civil War
and 9/11, respectively. The US Armed Forces can be alerted from Defense
Condition (DEFCON) 5 (state of peace and normal readiness) all the way up to
DEFCON 1 which is an all out state of war (usually nuclear).
Now you may think that I have
a flair for the dramatic. But remember
that great changes happen starting with small steps. It is amazing how something
that looks like to most people at first a small Cessna crashing into a
skyscraper doesn’t seem like it can turn into something like a full on state of
war that we’re still fighting 12 YEARS LATER in the longest war in American
history, but that’s exactly what happened on September 11th. I
remember a friend calling and waking me up that Tuesday morning. I didn’t have
to go into work until the 3rd platoon that afternoon. My friend woke
me up to tell me a small plane crashed into one of the Twin Towers at the World
Trade Center and to cut the TV on. For an hour and half as we spoke I watched a
plane slam into a building repeatedly in a video loop and Matt Lauer go on and
on about a plane of all different speculated sizes that crashed into the upper
floors. Then suddenly there was a new angle of attack but we couldn’t tell if
it was new footage or another plane. Sure enough when we discovered it was
another plane, and confirmed the size of the aircraft used on both towers and
at the Pentagon (don’t forget Shanksville), most of us knew right there and
then what we were dealing with. Knowing what I was facing at work I told my
friend I had to go. As soon as I hung up the phone, it immediately rang again.
Without skipping a beat and knowing who it was when I picked up the phone
without saying hello, I said, “when does he want me to come in?” The secretary
to my boss, a police inspector, said, “he needs you to come in right now.” I
was one of the lucky ones. But my life changed ever since. I’m sure yours has as
well.
I didn’t realize it at the
moment, but I was part of a mass mobilization that affected the entire state of
New York and eventually the entire United States. At first Governor George
Pataki of New York declared a state of emergency that effected ALL police
departments in New York State. Mayor Giuliani of New York City mobilized all
uniformed forces into work. As I drove into Manhattan while most people were
leaving the island en mass exodus, I noticed that it wasn’t the NYPD New York
City Highway Patrol that was covering Interstate 495 on the Long Island
Expressway into Queens County, as they had more pressing problems to deal with
at the moment. It was BOTH the Nassau and Suffolk Counties’ Highway Patrols
that had shut down the entire west bound highway and entrance ramps probably
from Montauk, Long Island all the way down to the end at the Queens Midtown
Tunnel at Manhattan. In his state of emergency Governor Pataki deputized all
outside and retired fire and law enforcement to order them to present their
credentials at any New York City Police or Fire Station House Desk and stand by
for instructions. All you had to show was a badge at a police desk that you
were bona fide law enforcement and you were utilized. I remember hearing from
outside agencies both fire and police, how state troopers had shut down the
entire eastern seaboard on I-95 and escort from state line to state line at 100
mph non-stop fire trucks and police cars from as far as Florida and Canada and
Maine all the way up or down to New York City. For weeks you can periodically hear
the shrill and the roar of Pratt and Whitney, General Electric, and Roll Royce
super-sonic jet engines from the US Air Force, Marines, and the Navy as they regularly
patrolled the skies of Manhattan. I remember hearing from cops and firefighters
from the Great Lakes area who came days after 9/11 into Manhattan how before
they left home they saw AWAC planes owned and flown by the Polish Air Force
patrolling the skies of the Great Lakes as President Bush activated and
mobilized NATO, ironically of all member nations we were the first country in
NATO’s history to do so under the treaty’s provision of “an attack on one is an
attack on us all.”
So you see MOBI YOU 2, the
reason why I explain the mobilization process in these terms to you is so that
you understand how serious and far-reaching it can become and how a simple
event can compound itself into something far-reaching and dangerous of
cataclysmic proportions. While a missing child most likely will not lead to Armageddon,
if the police do not respond appropriately, that missing child could possibly lead
to a serial child abductor that if not prepared can leave the police unable to
keep our children safe, for example. So in mobilizing the police are preparing
themselves for ALL possible contingencies, even for things that may happen out
of no where that has nothing to do with the ongoing crisis, like American
Airlines Flight 587 out of JFK to Santo Domingo, an Airbus A300 that crashed in
the Rockaways, Queens, New York during the 9/11 crisis. Remember that? When the plane crashed eight
weeks almost to the day after 9/11 we at first thought, oh oh, here we go again,
to find out later that the plane crashed because of another reason. But the
police had to be prepared for ALL options.
So with this is mind there are basically five kinds of mass police
mobilizations you should be aware of that the police activate for a mock or
real crisis to maintain their state of preparedness:
1.
1st
Level (Squad): Usually called by a patrol officer or
detective, perhaps more likely a patrol supervisor or platoon commander activating a
squad of police officers and a sergeant/supervisor. If a building or small area
needs to be evacuated or searched for a bomb scare, missing child, suspicious
package, or a suspect, this level usually suffices. About a dozen or less officers may be utilized. At this level and above all officers must have their riot helmets and batons available just in case.
2. 2nd
Level (Platoon):
The whole tour of officers working a precinct/service
area/district for a given tour is mobilized and comes off patrol to be replaced by an adjoining/adjacent or parent command. A precinct/service
area/district commander needs to respond as well. Usually happens when a search
area or incident widens requiring more officers. One to three dozen officers may be utilized.
3. 3rd
Level (Precinct):
The entire precinct/district/service area has been mobilized and its
commander or his/her equivalent has to take command. Perhaps several dozen officers will be utilized. The parent command or an adjoining/adjacent command takes over patrol duties and answering 911 calls.
4. 4th Level (Division): This is a big one. At this level a group of police precincts/service
areas/districts/divisions is activated. This level is used for larger scale incidents, perhaps a large fire or explosion, a plane crash, a presidential motorcade visit, or a full scale but localized riot like Occupy or Tompkins Square Park. Reserve officers will be mustered and made ready for stand-by at a separate location. Regular and requested single days off are cancelled. The cops need a note from a doctor to call in sick. Arrest teams and paddy wagons may be assembled. Police horses and motorcycles might be utilized. A
police commander/inspector or rank just below a police chief or a lower ranking deputy/assistant police chief usually takes charge. Hundreds of officers will be utilized at this level. If it's a big police force the show is impressive, almost like an army.
5. 5th Level
(County/Borough/Ward): Depending
on the size of the jurisdiction and the department, the whole
county/borough/ward/town/city if not the entire police department is mobilized. It’s
probably all hands on deck. ALL vacations are cancelled. Off duty needs to come in now or at a designated time in 12 or 24 hours. The mobilization may alter all the officers' work hours and they will incur overtime on an ongoing basis for days or weeks. At least a higher ranking police chief if not the superintendent or sheriff or chief of police
him/herself is in charge of the whole operation. They call this when it really hits the fan (or just about to) for things like 9/11, Katrina/quake/tsunami/natural disaster, the Olympics, a political convention, riots affecting several cities like 1968 or 1992, or a massive power outage.
The following video is a NYPD Level 4 mobilization drill:
Anything higher than this that requires the use of other
uniformed services or agencies needs the authority of a government
chief executive, be it a mayor, county executive, governor, or president to
intervene. Part of the mobilization process requires that drills be routinely conducted
at all times of the day to test and/or ensure that the agency concerned
maintain an adequate level of preparedness. Federal, state, and local law
requires some of these drills to be conducted on a regular basis. Sometimes
these drills are conducted in conjunction with other agencies. So I’m issuing a
warning to you MOBI
YOU 2, don’t be so quick to
judge. Trust me when I state the cops don’t want to be hanging around twirling
their thumbs no less than you do, but part of this process is waiting around for either something or something bigger to happen. The police brass want the cops to be ready and available at a moment's notice in case they are needed for a specific task. Whether a drill or on standby for a disaster
in progress or waiting to happen, the mobilization process has become a
intricate part of police work no different than routine patrol. If anything,
for the time the cops were sitting there doing nothing with your tax dollars as
you state, that corner where your office was during your lunch hour was probably the
safest corner in the city! Safe journeys for you!
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Sgt. Al here. I welcome your comments, ideas, and suggestions. You have questions about the police, and I'm interested in hearing what you have to say as a citizen. Thanks!