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The Intelligence Commanders Group (ICG) of the Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA) has published an after-action review on the 2020 protests and civil unrest that erupted on May 26th, 2020 as a result of the in-custody death of George Floyd and continued to erupt in major cities across the United States and Canada throughout the summer of 2020. The MCCA ICG’s report has been approved for public release.
The MCCA ICG’s after-action review compiled survey data from 68 major cities and counties in a reporting timeframe of May 25th to July 31st, 2020, during which an unprecedented 8,700 total protest events occurred.
The report may be of interest to local jurisdictions who may not have experience with the scale and frequency of protest events seen this year, and who are seeking summary data, as well as guidance from the lessons learned by major cities and metro areas during the civil unrest in the summer of this year.
Interesting findings include:
- Violence was limited to only 7 percent of all protest events in the reporting period.
- Major city law enforcement agencies arrested 16,241 individuals during protest-related events. Nearly 17 percent (2,735) of these arrests were for felony offenses.
- More than half (53 percent) of all agencies reported that their District Attorney’s Office elected not to prosecute protest-related cases. Approximately 52 percent of major city law enforcement agencies reported having to re-arrest suspects at least once at different protest-related events.
Major city and county law enforcement agencies identified and rank ordered the most significant challenges they faced during the protest events. The three top-ranking challenges were:
- Lack of community trust in law enforcement agencies.
- Lack of support from elected officials.
- Low officer morale.
The law enforcement agencies surveyed also identified and prioritized key areas for improvement. The three top-ranking areas were:
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Community outreach. Due to the nature of the protests being anti-police, many protest organizers and groups were unwilling to work with police. In this situation, the presence of neutral actors to act as liaisons between police and protest groups to facilitate some sort of communication becomes critical.
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Increased funding. Funds would be necessary for responsible reforms and the need for improved training
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Accurate media reporting. Media outlets tended to focus their reporting on the violence and events where police use-of-force was used. This encouraged a false narrative that law enforcement agencies were disproportionate in their response.
The full report provides more in-depth information about the nature of the violence, protester tactics, law enforcement response tactics, public perception, and looking ahead to best practices for law enforcement response to future protest events and civil unrest.
(Source: MCCA)
The year 2020 has seen an unprecedented number of natural disasters, such as the wildfires in the United States and in Australia, as well as the record-breaking number of hurricanes. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports there were 28 such disasters in 1980s, 119 in the 2010s and future projections for increasingly violent and frequent storms.
With natural disasters on the rise, pre-planning will be critical for the resiliency of local jurisdictions. Two reports were published recently offering guidance on local disaster readiness to plan for, respond to and recover from natural disasters.
The International City/County Managers Association (ICMA) has published a study surveying hundreds of local communities on the state of their preparedness for natural disasters. The study also distills the challenges and lessons learned from local officials’ disaster management experiences and outlines a framework of key strategies for local leaders to follow in their emergency planning in order to build resiliency. These key strategies emphasize an enterprise-wide approach to building resiliency in advance of a disaster and the importance of growing a steady network of partners both horizontally and vertically in order to successfully manage the disaster and recovery.
A report from the National Academy of Public Administration reinforced the findings of the ICMA study with their March 2020 report on emergency and disaster management responses. This report takes a case study approach to what has and has not worked well in local disaster prevention, planning, mitigation, response and recovery to natural disasters. Case studies in the report highlight challenges and lessons learned.
(Source: Government Executive)
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