Six Things a Police Chief Must Get Right in a Mass Shooting Investigation: IACP Recap

At this year's IACP conference, a session entitled Six Things a Police Chief Must Get Right in a Mass-Shooting Investigation focused on an overlooked aspect of mass shooting response - the post-incident investigation. Most police training focuses on the immediate response to these incidents, emphasizing neutralizing the shooter, rescuing victims, securing the scene, and reuniting victims with family. But what happens when the initial response Is over, and the agency moves into an investigative mode?

The agencies involved in a mass shooting incident will be judged just as much by how thoroughly they conduct the investigation, conduct the prosecution, and provide answers to the family, community, and media. The immediate response is often not covered as much, especially in the media, as are the investigative processes that follow.

The Six Things

The presentation covered all crucial aspects of the lengthy process and highlighted the points developed by the IACP Police Investigative Operations Committee. The points developed by the committee include practical, real-life lessons from experienced law enforcement professionals. The six things a police chief must get right in a mass-shooting investigation include:

1. Determine the responsible agency for conducting the investigation.
2. Create a strong and experienced investigative team.
3. Begin managing the investigation early in the incident.
4. Deploy excellent crime scene management and evidence collection teams.
5. Effectively manage the investigation and 'own' it to keep everyone on task and thorough.
6. Manage the messaging to the media, victim's family, community, elected officials and others to maintain the integrity of the investigation.

The panel involved in the committee has all been involved in mass shooting incidents and could speak from experience. One of the laborious tasks is tracking all the investigative assignments, roles of those assignees, and other agency involvement and tasks assigned. While using spreadsheets and paper tracking systems can be effective, time and duplication of effort can be saved through the use of technology.

The panelists, Daniel Oates, Douglas Burig, Christina Fernandez, Richard Littlehale, and Phil Pulaski, shared their experiences with mass shooting incidents and investigations and provided insight and lessons learned on the six items in the list. The panelists also reminded attendees that while mass shooting incidents are not commonplace, the chiefs and agencies that work to have the best investigation while avoiding missteps and mistakes will do the best job handling them.

How SoundThinking Can Help

SoundThinking's ResourceRouter patrol management is one tool that can help manage various assignments, helping supervisors, investigators and patrol officers the ability to see their assigned tasks and locations while in the field. Using ResourceRouter in the field allows those assigned to mark tasks complete, which updates command staff.

Investigation management tools, like CaseBuilder, can also help coordinate information and provide an operational and investigative overview to command staff. Tracking the investigation in one system that is integrated with other systems like the Records Management System (RMS) not only reduces data entry errors but saves staff time.

Contact us to learn more about ResourceRouter, CaseBuilder, and Soundthinking's other law enforcement products.

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