Common Operating Picture—New Jersey Creates a Model for the Nation

By Keith A. Germain, Chief of Police, Barnegat Police Department; Co-Founder, Critical Response Group Inc.

As published in the September 2019 edition of The New Jersey Police Chief Magazine https://joom.ag/LVJe

With the most recent active killer incidents in Texas and Ohio fresh in our memory, the May 2019 mass shooting in Virginia Beach seems like it happened much longer than 3-4 months ago. As we continue to see this revolving door of active killer events continue with seemingly no end in sight, it's important to draw out the valuable lessons learned through each response. The headlines, facts, and circumstances of these incidents are, as is often the case, interchangeable and virtually indistinguishable from the countless active killer incidents of the last few decades: An aggrieved and well-armed killer targets a school, public event or workplace and ultimately kills large numbers of innocent people.  

While these events are incredibly disturbing, they are often precipitated and initiated by circumstances and people who are out of our control. The major factor that is squarely in our control, however-- and one for which we are the best trained in the world-- is the response to the active killer incident. 

Unfortunately, before the first Virginia Beach after-action report sees the light of day, we already have evidence from open source media that a problem that has plagued us from the beginning of armed conflict once again reared its head in Virginia Beach. 

That problem-- one that has been in stark relief from Parkland, to Las Vegas, to Ft. Lauderdale-- is the lack of geospatial awareness and a truly common operating picture.  

Avoidable Challenges in Virginia Beach

The audio from the Virginia Beach active killer incident once again exposes the extreme challenges facing first responders who despite being trained, equipped, and desperate to engage the threat—often do not have the knowledge of the location and common operating picture that they need to effectively respond. Look at the following examples and exchanges that took place in the dynamic response to the incident:

“Caller is advising of a male outside building 2, possibly shot.”

“Which building is building 2?”

“Which building is next to building 2?”

“What’s the location of the officer who’s been shot?”

“We’re on a main road across the street from the post office.”

“When you say front, are you talking about the occupational health side?”

"Can we clarify what north, south, and east is?"  

"Which side of the building are we calling ‘alpha’?" 

“We have citizens bringing one casualty out to a side door now.”

“Which side door?” “Which side of the building?” 

“I’m set up on the alpha side with my sniper rifle, where do you need me...?”

“I’m just trying to figure out the label of the building… Everybody’s referring to ‘he’s on the east side’-- is that the courthouse side?”

In fact, if you listen to the audio of the Virginia Beach Police Department radio transmissions in its entirety, you’ll hear that the vast majority of communication revolves around trying to communicate and understand location-based information. With no common operating picture or ability to easily communicate location, first responders in Virginia Beach were left to create their own framework of reference on the fly. And while they did an admirable job under intense circumstances, the truth is that they shouldn't have to. 

New Jersey-- A Model for the Nation

Nearly two years ago, the New Jersey State Association of Chiefs of Police partnered with the Critical Response Group, Inc. and began what has grown to be a model for the nation. Working together, the use of Collaborative Response Graphics (CRGs) has been introduced throughout New Jersey as a cost-effective and standardized battle-proven technique for providing first responders with a common operating picture and the ability to easily communicate location information.

CRGs evolved from the same type of battle-proven maps successfully used by the United States Special Operations community to conduct thousands of operations during the global war on terror. With aerial imagery, building floor plans, and critical building features all combined into one easily accessible map, CRGs changed the paradigm with respect to common operating pictures and multi-jurisdictional response. 

First responders, whether or not they’ve ever been to a location, can easily use the alpha-numeric grid to effectively communicate location and gain situational awareness. On a CRG, north is always up, meaning cardinal directions are easily and instantly discernible. Think of the sheer number of transmissions during the Virginia Beach incident that revolved around simply trying to communicate and accurately determine cardinal direction.

The first white paper on the use of CRGs was published in the New Jersey Police Chief magazine in February of 2017. Just over two years later, over 500 schools in 19 of New Jersey’s 21 counties have been mapped with CRGs. In addition, a large and growing number of critical infrastructure facilities have been mapped. 

As a result, police chiefs in Ocean County, for example, have every floor plan of every school in their jurisdiction available via the smartphone in their back pocket. That means that in the event of a critical incident, whether they’re in their office, their house, or a meeting half-a-state away, they have instant access to the common operating picture as well as real-time location of their personnel resources (blue force tracking). 

What’s more, should their agency be called on to assist neighboring jurisdictions (or any jurisdiction in the county for that matter), their officers have instant access to the maps and floorplans of the schools in those jurisdictions. This instant availability of a common operating picture across multiple jurisdictions is unprecedented and, quite frankly, a game changer. 

If the clock started ticking right now while you’re reading this, how long would it take you and your responding officers to get an accurate floor plan for a school in your jurisdiction physically in your hands? 

Now consider that any chief or officer in 17 of the state’s 21 counties can have the up to date and accurate floor plans of almost any school in their respective counties in their hand in under 30 seconds. 

A Common Operating Picture Best Practice 

In the latest development, the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness (OHS&P) has recognized CRGs as a Protective Measures Best Practice and has partnered with the New Jersey State Police to pursue a Statewide Mapping Initiative using the technique and technology. 

The New Jersey State Association of Chiefs of Police had the expertise, courage, and foresight to recognize over two years ago that CRGs represented a critical solution to the common operating picture problem that continues to plague responders in incident after incident across the nation. Chiefs of police associations in many other states are now following New Jersey’s lead.  

We all know the importance of best practices. We follow them in our development of policies and daily practices. We embrace them through the State Accreditation process, conscious of the extreme liability and lack of reasonable explanation for failing to follow them (especially when we belong to an organization that expends great effort to provide them to us).  

As our communities continue to cumulatively spend millions of dollars to mitigate threats and prepare for the eventuality of an active killer/critical incident, it is our shared responsibility as public safety leaders to ensure that a proven and recognized best practice—one that is so critical to the effective response and resolution of a critical incident-- is readily available to our agencies and personnel.  

Being in New Jersey has given us a unique opportunity to be ahead of the curve in active killer response. This is fortunate for both our personnel and those we’re sworn to protect—because falling behind can have terrible consequences.