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Chertoff hails situational awareness and information-sharing among police officials | 10.20.2006 | 06:52:22 | Views: 5382 | ID: October 20 '06: During the 113th annual conference of the International Association of Police Chiefs, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said information-sharing and cooperation between law enforcement agencies on all levels during the recent plane crash in New York was "a great example of the kind of coordination and information-sharing which is increasingly the hallmark of our relationship with local police." The crash, when New York Yankees Pitcher Cory Lidle slammed his cessna into the side of a luxury apartment building on the Upper East Side killing Lidle and his instructor, initially was not known to have been an accident. Memories of the attacks on September 11, 2001 were still fresh in the minds of police officers and first responders who rushed to the scene, Chertoff said. However, because a NYPD official was "immediately in touch with his counterpart at the city Emergency Operations Center," and the National Operations Center at the Department of Homeland Security, officials on all levels had "real-time" situational awareness. "We had real-time visibility into what was happening on the ground, and were able immediately to respond with whatever we could bring to the scene, and take the steps we needed to take to make sure that we were not in a situation where others would be put at risk," Chertoff continued. The coordination and communication during the event underscored the importance of situational awareness, lines of communication and working with local law enforcement and responder agencies because they "are the the most likely to detect the beginning of a possible plot, particularly a homegrown (terrorist) plot."
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