The second iteration of Alameda County’s Urban Shield task force is formulating their final recommendations to implement a resolution by the County Board of Supervisors to re-constitute the Homeland Security-funded annual disaster preparedness drill.
In a seven hour meeting, the five member task force voted for several recommendations, a bunch via an uncontested consent motion and a few more substantive ones on a 3-2 vote.
Among the more substantive recommendations were to:
- Eliminate the event’s vendor show – an expo of law enforcement products
- Ending the public ranking and scoring of the competing teams so evaluation changes from a “contest” to a standards-based evaluation system.
- Excluding SWAT teams from the UASI-funded training drills
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Other areas of discussion included data collected from volunteers, observers and some journalists who attend the exposition and training drill, which includes social security numbers, drivers license numbers and telephone numbers, as well as criminal background checks, and which is kept in a database for a year after collection.
The task force will also be discussing the Alameda County evaluation process after it was learned that the 2018 evaluation team from Louisiana State University included former Miami-Dade officer Manuel Malgor who participated in a notorious botched sting operation called the Redland Killings. During the Redland Killings, 4 men were shot at a marijuana buy while attempting to run away including the department’s own informant, who was shot 20 times. The Florida AG’s office called the case “disturbing” and officers were investigated for possible suppression of evidence. Miami-Dade paid out $1.3 million dollars in civil penalties. [/read]