DHS Considering Law Enforcement Rapid Response Component

A new report says the Department of Homeland Security is currently considering the possibility of creating law enforcement deployment teams to help communities during disasters. But is the plan even feasible?

According to an article by Daniel Fowler on the Congressional Quarterly website, Rick Dinse, a senior law enforcement official with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, says the department’s goal is to have a draft report completed on the proposal sometime this year.

“In the after actions from [Hurricane] Katrina, it became very clear that there was a missing piece in the overall response structure of the country,” Richard Cashdollar, a senior adviser to the Major Cities Chiefs Association, told Fowler. “Fire and rescue had Urban Search and Rescue. The medical community responded through . . . Disaster Medical Assistance Teams, and there was no equivalent team for law enforcement that could pull together really existing assets and move law enforcement across state lines and do the same thing that USAR and DMAT did.”

Fowler says the DHS, FEMA, the Major Cities Chiefs Association and the Major County Sheriffs’ Association are working on the initiative.

“We’re looking to support an expansion of the EMAC concept — Emergency Compact concept — that would allow state and local law enforcement — basically, a pre-arranged deployment — to assist,” DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff told the National Congress for Secure Communities last month. “We have . . . this concept under things like our Urban Search and Rescue teams. The idea would be to extend it to the law enforcement community as well.”