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Last month American Police Beat hosted the 11th annual Police Union Leadership Seminar at Harvard University. The invitation-only event is attended by the presidents and officers of the police associations from the 50 largest cities in the nation. The three-day seminar, held at the Harvard Law School, is a challenging program of lectures and panel discussions led by some of the nation's foremost experts in the fields of leadership, management, negotiations strategies, using social media and other topics of interest to the people who are leading the largest police unions in the country. This year, the secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, joined us in Cambridge to speak to the group about the pressing issues facing DHS eand the Department's important partnership with local law enforcement across the country.
Her remarks were followed by a lively question and answer period where union leaders got the opportunity to talk to the secretary directly about their concerns. In total, the secretary spent 90 minutes in discussion with the union presidents. Secretary Napolitano told the group that a top priority of DHS is focusing on the needs of local law enforcement.
"We view that one of our most important missions is supporting our first responders," she said. "And we are doing everything possible to make sure local law enforcement gets the resources they need as we move forward." Throughout her remarks, the secretary emphasized the importance of better information sharing among everyone in the law enforcement profession. "When I say that I don't just mean sharing data that comes over computer screens or is heard by officers when they are out on patrol," Napolitano said.
"I am talking about delivering information to local agencies that has been carefully collected and analyzed in order to help you identify potential threats and give you greater context to situations that are evolving that could endanger the safety of people in your communities." The Secretary emphasized that information sharing has to be both ways. She said DHS has been actively encouraging local law enforcement to share information they have collected with their colleagues at the federal level. "Local law enforcement has over 900,000 sworn officers," she said.
"Your knowledge and your resources are so much deeper than ours and you know much better what is happening in your local communities. We want and need to hear from you." To meet the goal of improved communications, DHS has opened a state and local desk at the agency's National Operations Center. The desk is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. "Information sharing is one of the most effective tools we have, Napolitano added.
"Through our fusion centers which are focused on providing you with properly analyzed information." Another top priority for Secretary Napolitano and the Department of Homeland Security is better coordination and information sharing between federal law enforcement agencies including the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), The Director of National Intelligence, the FBI, the various Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF) and HIDTA programs, to name a few. "We are moving forward with a very aggressive effort to get these agencies talking to each other and working together," she said.
Among all the responsibilities shouldered by the Department of Homeland Security, an agency with 225,000 employees and a budget of $52 billion dollars, preventing the nation from another terrorist attack is at the top of the list. "In the terrorism area we have a lot going on," Napolitano told the police association leaders. "Al Qaeda is trying hard to mount a successful attach on our country.
Whether it comes from within the United States or outside, we know they are determined. It could be something as simple as a group of people with IED's who set them off in multiple jurisdictions or another major attack. We have been very, very busy on this front." Secretary Napolitano spent several minutes discussing the arrest of the Denver-area airport shuttle driver, Najibullah Zazi, 24, and his father Wali Mohammed Zazi, 53, both suspects in a plot to launch a terrorist attack in New York City. Najibullah Zazi pled guilty this past February. He told a judge his plan was to conduct a martyrdom operation on the subway lines in New York City.
"This case shows the crucial role local law enforcement can play in exposing and stopping terrorist plots," she said. "The explosives these men planned to use involved the purchase of large quantities of hydrogen peroxide. Once we had that information, local law enforcement officers fanned out and made visits to local beauty supply stores inquiring if there had been any unusual purchases of that material." Napolitano briefed the group on an operation conducted jointly with local law enforcement that took down an entire operation of shuttle vans in Arizona who had been active for years carrying illegals over the border.
Napolitano emphasized the key role local law enforcement played in collecting evidence by conducting surveillance operations and going undercover. During the lively question and answer period, inquiries ran the gamut. Tommy Nee, president of the Boston Police Patrolmen's Association, asked about the newly passed immigration law in Arizona and if it was constitutional for states to operate separately from the federal government on matters of immigration. He also inquired whether Arizona legislators had sought out advice from DHS concerning the constitutionality of the new law.
Napolitano replied that DHS officials had not been consulted but that immigration enforcement is not exclusively the domain of the federal government. The secretary went on to point out that while she was the governor of Arizona, she vetoed several laws that were similar to the one just enacted. "But I'm not the governor anymore," she said. "Local law enforcement will have to figure out what they are going to do going forward and that's not going to be easy." Several union presidents inquired about security issues in the nation's airports and whether the efforts had been successful apprehending would-be terrorists.
The secretary replied that new technologies like explosive detection equipment, whole body scanners, the deployment of canines trained to detect guns and bulk cash, and more sophisticated training was having a strong deterrent impact. Ron Martin, the president of the El Paso police union said his city was still reeling from the recent execution-style murders of a detention officer and his wife in the court house across the street from his office. "Since that tragic incident we have our officers being guarded by ICE agents and deputies," Martin said.
"One of our biggest problems is we are 300 officers short. The money is being funneled to federal agencies along the border and we are not getting any of that monetary assistance." Napolitano responded that she was committed to allotting the bulk of funds to the southwest border. One topic on everyone's mind was the controversy over the FCC plans to sell the D-Block airways for commercial use as opposed to making it available to public safety agencies. Tom Nee posed this question for the secretary:
"In our history, in the wake of September 11 and Hurricane Katrina, the big fear for those of us down on the street is that we maintain our communications. It really doesn't matter what's on your duty belt if your radio doesn't work. That's the piece of equipment that's our biggest asset. Going forward will you support us in our efforts to get access to the D-Block for a public safety channel that is outside the realm of commercial interests so we can keep people safe?" The secretary was unequivocal in her response.
"We are very involved with getting that space for public safety," she said. "We need that. It's a key part of our overall architectural plan for security. The plain fact of the matter is when something is happening we need to be able to communicate with each other up and down and across. This has not been accomplished and it's been almost ten years since the attacks of September 11. Let's work on that together."
"We all know that you have done a huge amount of work," Tom Nee told the secretary as she wrapped up her remarks. "And we want to thank you for being such a strong advocate for us. We are out every day in all of America's communities working very hard and we want you to know, when it does go down, and it will, we will be there for you as well." Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites        
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