Feral Jundi

   So I am watching video and reading all of these reports coming out of Mumbai, and I have just been cringing. I mourn the deaths of hostages, and my heart goes out to the families. But there is a part of me that watched this attack from a tactical command point of view, and it pissed me off.  Could the death toll have been minimized if in fact the Indian response was coordinated and well managed under one management system?  I think so.

   Incident Command System or ICS is the most important element of the response to any incident or attack.  And this management system, if applied correctly, could have saved lives.  It is a system that would have helped to organize and call up resources quickly, and help to control and end the attack quickly.  ICS is a system used to bring order to chaos, and if the Indian government would have trained on this aspect of command, then they could have dealt with this in a much more efficient manner. 

    As for some thoughts on what was missing from the response, where do I start?  For one, if all of the police and military were briefed on ICS and how it works, then that would be a great start.  From there, the police(who are the first responders), would act as the Incident Commander for their particular scene, and request more resources.  That request should be in the form of how do we expand the ICS, because this attack is spreading all over the city.  I would also ask all resources to make communications with the Incident Commander, and establish the on scene chain of command.  But really, the first order of business is make your assessments of the situation, and order resources. And if that initial Incident Commander of the scene is not qualified for larger incidents, then he orders up a more qualified Incident Commander through dispatch.  Until then, that individual is in command, because there is no one else.

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