Domestic Terrorism
Background:
- You are the Principal the local Shining Star Elementary School. Your school contains 400 students and
is part of a four-school cluster. Your cluster is part of a school district that contains over 100 schools from
all levels.
- You are the emergency manager for this county of over 300,000 people. Your position is to prepare the
county for disasters in an area where the worst expected disaster is fire from storms or drought. Wind
storms are the next worst expected disaster. Your county is surrounded by counties of equal or larger
sizes in a larger city with a population of five million persons. Shining Star Elementary School is in your
county.
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- You are the Mayor of a town within the county that contains the Shining Star Elementary School. The
city police and fire department work for you.
- You are the Chairman of the County Supervisors in the county that contains the Shining Star
Elementary School. The county sheriff, fire department, health department, and county support offices
work for you.
For the four positions you should have: Notified all local Law Enforcement agencies for assistance;
established an Incident Command System; and isolated the area.
Scenario:
- Fires have broken out in twenty-five (25) schools of the district.
- The City Police and County Sheriff offices are destroyed by explosions.
- The National Press demands immediate access to the Shining Path Elementary School and whoever is
in charge.
- The group in the Shining Path Elementary School demands all prisoners held in Guantanamo be
released within twelve (12) hours or more students and teachers will be killed.
Domestic Terrorism
Scenario One: Fires have broken out in twenty-five (25) schools of the district
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The Shining Star Elementary School, being part of a four-school cluster, is relatively well
prepared to deal with emergencies that could arise. The same is true for all schools in the district
since the standard set in the cluster is the same throughout the district. All schools are equipped
with fire fighting equipments including fire extinguishers and hydrants. Additionally, each
school has a fire marshal stationed in each school whose primary responsibility it to maintain fire
disaster preparedness at all times, assess equipment adequacy and usability state and conduct
emergency drills twice every school term. With the reports coming from the respective Fire
Marshalls, the disaster preparedness plan is activated immediately. The plan indicates that in the
case of a fire, all students after evacuating the premises are to meet at pre designated points for
roll-call to determine who is missing.
As the Principal of one of the schools facing a fire disaster, one has to place a call to the
local fire department. It will be the responsibility of the local Fire Chief to escalate the incidence
after determining its dynamics. It is expected that among the agencies that will respond to this
disaster will include, the National Emergency Management Authority (NEMA). Given the
multiple locations of the fire disasters, the district fire marshal will take overall responsibility of
coordinating all activities and thus becomes the go-to person in case of a need.
As a principal, the immediate action to engage in is to have all students evacuate the
premises and assemble at the assembly points for roll call. It is at this point that medical needs
will be identified and addressed, while missing students will be known and sort. Given the scale
and spread of the fire, NEMA should be involved. Forensic scientists should be involved in
order to determine the causes of the fire. The national agencies will be notified and invited by
the person in-charge of emergencies in the district (Schmid, 2011).
Scenario Two: The City Police and County Sheriff offices are destroyed by explosions
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As the emergency manager of the county, the destruction of the City Police and the
County Sherriff office makes this an invasion that affects the core of emergency response in the
county. As a result, county resources cannot longer be relied upon to attend to the emerging
emergency. Given that the cause of the explosion is not immediately evident; the emergency
manager places a call to the State Governor requesting for federal assistance. The Governor will
place a call to the President of the Country for federal assistance. This calls set the ground for
the deployment of the National Guard – to take care of the enforcement of Law and Order,
allocation of Federal resources to assist with the local emergency, deployment of the FBI whose
explosives experts should help the cause of the explosive (Haddal, 2010). This revelation will
determine the next cause of action. Should it be determined to have been caused by deliberate
human action, then criminal investigation will commence immediately. Should the explosion
have been caused by natural causes, the reconstruction will commence immediately.
Scenario Three: The National Press demands immediate access to the Shining Star
Elementary School and whoever is in charge
The Mayor of a town within the county that contains the Shining Star Elementary School
and with command of both the police and fire department, has a responsibility to shield both
forces from the prying eyes of the National Press, who can be uncivil in their quest to get the
story. This being the case, all information will be shared from one central source – the mayor’s
office. Since there are different disaster locations, instructions will be issued to seal-off all the
locations and no one apart from authorized personnel should access the sites (Ciment, 2011).
Additionally, no emergency worker should talk to the press and all press interactions will be left
to the mayor or to whoever the responsibility is designated. As the mayor, a call will be placed
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to the State Governor for assistance and it is expected that the Governor will in turn place a call
to the President seeking Federal aid.
Scenario One: The group in the Shining Path Elementary School demands all prisoners
held in Guantanamo be released within twelve (12) hours or more students and teachers
will be killed
With the demand coming from the Shining Star Elementary School, it is clear that this is
no longer a local problem but has taken on an international dimension. Despite being the
Chairman of the County Supervisors with the power to command all the county emergency
resources, the situation at Shining Star Elementary School is much bigger and complicated that
the local resources are designed to cope with. Given that the situation has clearly degenerated to
a terrorism stand-off with demands that border the life or death of the hostages – who include
student and teachers, immediately, both the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) will be called to the scene and left to determine between the
two federal agencies, who will take the lead role (Brinkerhoff, 2009). Additionally, depending
on the lead agency, Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) teams will be brought into the scene
with the clear instruction to prepare for both soft and hard assault of the target and what each
plan will entail – both in terms of personnel and possible casualties. Given the epicenter of the
action will be at the Shining Elementary School and the publicity generated nationally, after
sealing off the school building where the terrorists are, the National Press, will be set up in the
playing field with regular briefing being held in pavilion. This should keep the national press
and briefing personnel safe while keeping them within the vicinity of the epicenter. Before the
federal agencies arrive to take over the situation, the local hostage negotiator will be in-charge
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off all communication with the captors in an effort to ensure no life is lost while the scene is still
under the command of the local agencies.
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References
Brinkerhoff, J.R. (2009). The role of Federal military forces in domestic law enforcement title.
US Army Combined Arms Center, Newsletter 10(16), Ch.
