Suspicious Letter Received
Recently, a suspicious letter was received at the CDA Staff Office. There weren't any threatening words, or suggestions of threats. It contained random words with no sentence structure and was just odd. Fortunately, we don't have a lot of experience handling this type of incident but it's not unreasonable to think that it is a very real possibility. Any one of our offices could receive a threatening or suspicious letter or package and all employees should be aware of what actions to take in the event of this situation.
An After Action Review (AAR) was held with the involved employees. We discussed what actions were taken, what was done right, what improvements can we make, and what were the lessons learned.
Below are the lessons learned that we identified in the AAR:
- Ultimately, every employee is responsible for being aware of policies and referring to and following directives within policies.
- Every IDL office has a Safety Coordinator who is responsible for following safety policy directives and determining best actions for each situation.
- Employees should defer to and follow the direction of their Safety Coordinator. In the absence of the Safety Coordinator, defer to the Senior Manager or Safety Officer.
- Miscommunication and lack of communication created unnecessary concerns and misunderstandings. Ongoing communication is critical.
- Ask for more information if needed or if you feel you are not being updated.
- Follow up with those involved so that everyone has the most current information.
The IDL Emergency Response Policy is required reading for all employees. It provides direction for what steps to take not only during an emergency, but also how to respond to suspicious packages or letters.
There is an Appendix B- Suspicious Mail and Packages Response Checklist, which is required to be printed and kept at all mail receiving locations.
If you have questions, please contact me.
Emergency Response Policy
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