Clik here to view.
Photo above by Imara Chew. Other images by Chris Faraone.
I read a fascinating Boston Globe story last week en route to a press conference in South Boston. It was about a congressional hearing in Washington, D.C. the day before, when four inspectors general skewered the weak inter-agency communication that preceded last year’s bombing of the Boston Marathon. In doing so, the federal bureaucrats compounded prior damning revelations like the fact that FBI agents cleared Tamerlan Tsarnaev as a threat without processing his name through all available department databases.
While organizational confusion may have impeded anti-terrorism forces from thwarting the aforementioned tragedy, few would argue that authorities neglected to respond aggressively. Within minutes of the marathon attack, SWAT teams and assorted cavalries emerged from the shadows, and maintained a thorough presence all throughout the days-long manhunt. That reckless show of force considered, I couldn’t understand why officials were so smitten over last weekend’s Urban Shield: Boston, a massive first responder training that simulated crises from Brookline to Moon Island. Shouldn’t they be focused on prevention?
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
I arrived at the presser in time to hear Mayor Marty Walsh welcome delegates from the Metro-Boston Homeland Security Region–a network that includes the Hub and eight surrounding municipalities–plus emergency medical and fire personnel. In his comments, Walsh extolled the spirit of collaboration, while Office of Emergency Management Director Rene Fielding touted the relationships built through two prior Urban Shield runs.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Wondering if organizers added anything to this year’s schedule to bolster inter-agency communication, I asked Fielding and the uniforms beside her if they’d planned any meet-and-greet activities besides the mock trainings. “Something like an ice cream social,” I queried (they hadn’t). I was serious. Officials said that people “shouldn’t be alarmed” about the presence of 2,000 first responders in helmets and riot gear. That’s not possible–those visuals are inevitably frightening–but it might be reassuring if their interpersonal relationships were more than merely militant.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
To follow up on Saturday, I went to observe transit cops and EMTs in the train yard behind the Broadway Red Line station. In one of seven simultaneous scenarios across the region, they geared up accordingly before descending a block-long tunnel into the MBTA Regional Training Center, a massive disaster prep area for simulating havoc on the different subway lines. Constructed with federal funds between 2011 and 2012, the facility resembled a Hollywood set right down to a crew of hired actors shellacked with fake blood.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
While other Urban Shield trials seemed to be overblown testicular fascinations–the staged hostage situation at City Hall, for example–Boston’s underground response apparatus proved impressive. Even to a harsh critic of authority like me. In a bunker with bare walls and a large surveillance monitor, supervising officers pushed buttons to fill the mock Green Line platform with prop smoke while a bomb squad and K-9 unit scanned packages. As for first responders intermingling … for logistical purposes, they were mostly clustered with their own–transit fuzz with transit fuzz, triage officers with triage officers, and so forth.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Wondering if other hard progressives felt like me–that some exercises, like subway evacuations, were important–I wrapped my Urban Shield experience on Sunday in Roxbury, where a coalition dubbed Stop Oppressive Militarized Police (STOMP) crowded the Families for Justice as Healing storefront on Humboldt Avenue. Among their calls to end “militarized police raids and surveillance,” there was, as expected, little love for the gun show on display all weekend. I did, however, find some ideas about how training might be improved, as activists explained that emergencies and terrorist attacks aren’t always the same thing. It’s a foreign concept to our bloated first response forces, but one that officials might recognize if they put down their artillery, held hands in a circle, and scooped a few pints of Rocky Road.
“They claim it’s emergency response preparedness,” said War Resisters League organizer Ali Issa, who lamented the fact that federal training is so bellicose. “What this really means is they’re defining what an emergency is … It doesn’t always have to be tied to terrorism.”