Search Result: First Responders

Extending health-care screenings and treatment for the 9/11 first responders initially stalled because federal lawmakers who represented areas outside of New York believed it was a New York issue.

The ghosts of the Twin Towers and the victims of the 9/11 attacks in New York City, at the Pentagon, and on United Flight 93 still loom over law enforcement. They loom both as an indictment of the lost opportunities to have prevented 9/11 and as an omnipresent reminder of a need for vigilance.

The Jan. 8 shootings in Tucson may have drawn interest toward law enforcement in Arizona's second-largest city, but another incident that highlighted the need to improve public safety communications for agencies across the entire nation occurred much earlier: on 9/11.

For policing professionals, the Tucson shooting offers another opportunity: to analyze the local public safety response to learn what worked, what could have been done better, and what takeaway lessons might help other agencies respond to a mass-casualty incident in their own city.

There are hundreds of stories of officers conducting a search and thinking a container of drugs has been located only to discover pipe bombs. With infernal machines, as with guns, knives, and physical assaults, an awareness, a suspicious mind, a professional paranoia, are the first steps toward survival.