[EAS] BLU Alert Comments.

[Sean Donelan]

On Tue, 1 Aug 2017, Ed Czarnecki wrote:
> This is a rather nteresting position - BRETSA wants PSAPs to be able to 
> issue Blue Alerts, with no organized framework or guidance, for any 
> situation involving uniformed personnel.

That shows an issue with color alerts for special populations.  Every 
group is special.

What color alert is used for someone killing fire department personnel and 
emergency medical technicians?  A Red Alert for fire trucks?

What color alert is used for someone killing school teachers and 
children on school buses around town? A Yellow Alert for schools buses?

What color alert is used for an Active Shooter driving around town killing 
random ordinary people? If there isn't a special EAS color code for 
someone shooting random ordinary people, would that mean law enforcement 
couldn't inform the public about the threat?

Or maybe the same code could cover all sorts of cases of a extremely 
dangerous fugitives and criminals threats to the public, including 
law enforcement and public safety personnel, school teachers and just 
random ordinary people.

An interesting thing is all the instances cited by the DOJ and other law 
enforcement organizations supporting a new Blue Alert, the reason news 
organizations weren't actively reporting about the threat at the time was 
law enforcement hadn't released the information about the threat. As soon 
as law enforcement informed news organizations, it was rapidly covered on 
news channels, newspaper websites, tweets and social media. If its not 
important enough for the mayor to interrupt his regular schedule, is
it be important enough to interrupt all the broadcasts and cable systems 
in the city?

Blue Alerts could be extremely useful, to improve the internal processes 
and sharing between public safety agencies.  Law enforcement could share 
information about threats with fire departments and emergency medical 
responders.

Most of the Blue Alerts issued since 2008 have been for very serious 
incidents. Using available news reports and reviewing those alerts, I 
think most law enforcement agencies done a reasonable job using Blue 
Alerts for very only extreme threats to the public and law enforcement. 
There have only been a couple of questionable Blue Alerts since 2008. But 
that's just my opinion.

I'd prefer EAS and WEA have a more expert group regularly evaluate the use 
of all types of public warning and alerts, including Blue Alerts. They 
could consider if its reasonable when a local official uses WEA for a July 
4th parade road closure, and when a police department uses EAS for a Blue 
Alert.