Ep 73: The Job of Contact Two
Episode 73
Published Mar 25, 2024
Last updated Feb 18, 2026
Duration: 35:33
Episode Summary
The bad guy is stopped and the next group of officers have arrived on the scene. What do we do now? Today, we breakdown the responsibilities of Contact Team Two.
Episode Notes
In the typical scenario, Contact One has engaged the suspect, the shooting has ceased, yet time remains critical. It’s essential to secure the area, implement an immediate action plan, and attend to medical needs. This is where Contact Team Two plays a crucial role. In today’s discussion, Billy Perry and Adam Pendley emphasize the significance of Contact Team Two swiftly organizing and dividing tasks to address these urgent needs.
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Transcript
Bill Godfrey:So if you look at the active shooter incident management checklist, it details out what Contact Team One does, how it gets formed, and what its responsibilities are. But what about Contact Two? What is the job of Contact Team Two? How does it get formed? Where do they go? That's today's topic. Stick around. Welcome to the Active Shooter Incident Management Podcast. My name is Bill Godfrey, your podcast host. I am joined today by two of our law enforcement instructors, Adam Pendley and Billy Perry, back in a house. Good to have you guys back.
Adam Pendley:
Thank you.
Billy Perry:
Good to be back. Thank you.
Bill Godfrey:
All right. So today's topic, we're gonna talk about Contact Team Two, how it gets formed, when it gets formed, what the tasks are, what their purpose is supposed to do. And I'll kind of lead us off, and then you guys can jump in here. So what we're looking for, those first three, four officers that get there, we're not asking them to wait, you know, for Contact Team One. They get there, they go in as they get there, and they link up, and they become Contact One. For Contact Team Two, and this can happen sometimes at a rally point out front, or it can happen at staging if tactical gets there and establishes staging location. We don't want delay for Contact Two, we want them to get formed quickly, self-formed, and to push forward. And they may be pushing forward before tactical is either established or has their feet underneath them. And so what we generally say is we want 'em to push forward, link up with Contact One, and make good things happen. But let's give a little more specificity to that. Adam, you wanna lead us off?
Adam Pendley:
Sure. So I think one of the major important things that we're looking at for Contact Team Two is that there is a Contact Team Two. I think most law enforcement training would have those first-arriving officers be fairly disciplined. Even if a sole officer goes in, that second, third, fourth is gonna link up and become Contact Team One. I think we've got a pretty solid understanding of that. I worry that all the follow-on officers then are coming from multiple different directions. There's no organization there, and now you have a Contact Team One and six or seven other officers that are all still using their individual call signs, and it adds to confusion, crossfire, blue on blue, and you don't want any of that.
So first recognize the importance of a Contact Team Two and have it form up, like you said, either as everyone's arriving to the next entry point, you know, and do the same linkup procedure that you would do to become Contact Team One. And as Contact Team Two, you're either trailing right behind what Contact Team One is doing and you're there to do a couple of things. One, you can provide additional firepower to address the active threat. You can apply a little bit of strategy. We're pushing 'em this direction. We need you to go around to the other side or this direction, or hold the stairwell. Or you've pushed through where there's injured people, and Contact Team One continues to move towards the threat, and Contact Team Two stays behind to begin securing what you can to begin rescue. So there's a lot of things that we can talk about as far as what Contact Team Two's job is going to be. But the main thing is to recognize that we have to stay organized and create a second contact team.
Bill Godfrey:
All right, I like it. It's a good place to start. So Billy, what I'd like you to address before we get too far into this is I don't wanna assume that everybody knows what we mean by linkup procedures. So can you kind of walk people through what you want to see happen? What do we want to see happen with those teams in terms of linkup procedures so that they don't get into crossfire?
Billy Perry:
Right, well, I think communication is paramount. I think being able to communicate, know where your, like, Contact Two needs to contact or needs to communicate, I'm sorry, with Contact Team One. Ask what they need, ask if they do need support. If they can talk. If they can talk. If they can't talk, they just need to go where they were and just be super hypervigilant and aware of where they're going. They may be going into a really hot zone where nobody on Contact One can talk. 'Cause if you're busy and you're working, you're busy and you're working. And by that, I mean in a gunfight.
Bill Godfrey:
Right, that's not a time to send a text message.
Billy Perry:
Correct. Correct. I know, you know, regardless of the, you know, inconvenience. So, you know, you've got stuff to do. So do God's work and move forward. But once they link up, I wanna link up visually, I wanna link up safely, and then get clear direction of what we need. I'm from the era of let's look for work. And I think, you know, that that spans from, like Adam said, if we need to put more guns in the fight, you put more guns in the fight. If we need to start direct care, start direct care. If we need to start setting up, you know, calling for rescue tasks forces, RTS, set up a good perimeter, you know? Our standard is set up security, an immediate action plan, and then start first aid, you know, direct care. So I think we need to do that for a Contact Team Two.
Bill Godfrey:
So you said something interesting, I want to drill down a little bit 'cause you mentioned the visually linking up, and I don't know that I'd heard that, of course, you know, I'm from the fire side, so not my area of expertise, but if you are linking up, if you're Contact Two and you're linking up with Contact One, and you're able to, like, visually signal them and they know you're there and you know they're there, would you still advocate 'em to do the blue, blue, blue? Or is that just an announcement you want to do when you're coming around blind corners? What's your thoughts on that?
Billy Perry:
I am a department of redundancy department. You know, two is one, one is none. So I'm gonna keep doing that because friendly fire isn't, and I don't wanna get shot by anybody, my own people, my friends, my enemies, nobody. And so I'm gonna be hyper-aware, and I'm gonna be very thorough in that. And I do wanna link up visually. I wanna tell 'em this is us coming across the field. This is whatever, you know, because under stress, people do easy things, and it's a significant emotional event for everybody.
Adam Pendley:
Right, and I think, I think it's important to stress that, you know, there could be the occasional tactical situation where it's important to be quiet, but the bad guys knows you're there, right? So being really clear about your communication, like, we're here, we're here, we're moving here, we're coming together, you come with me. You know, and being very clear in those communications is gonna be better for the good guys than it is gonna be tipping off the bad guy or something along those lines. I think sometimes-
Billy Perry:
I agree.
Adam Pendley:
Officers have a tendency to, they they think they're gonna sneak up on something, and that's not the case. They know you're there, you're gonna move quickly, you're gonna talk to each other, and you're gonna get to the threat and neutralize the threat. And I think whether you're doing that on the radio or whether you're doing it face-to-face or across the hallway is really important too.
Billy Perry:
This is called active shooter incident management. This is an active shooter, everything's different. And this is one of those rare times where if we're getting shot at, yay, they're not shooting at innocent people. And it's counterintuitive, doesn't take away the fact that it's accurate. Hopefully the firings not, but I mean-
Bill Godfrey:
So, be loud and proud,right?
Billy Perry:
Be loud and proud. Own it. This is us, we're coming in.
Bill Godfrey:
So as we drill down on the Contact Two, I want to talk a little bit about how they get formed, when they get formed, and they push up because we are strong advocates of, if you're in the scene, you need to be there with a task and purpose. So I kind of wanna go back to the history lesson of why we changed this years ago because of what we actually saw in training and exercises is that Contact One would get organized, you'd have one or two that would go in immediately, the other ones would go in when they got there, but they would link up, and that, that was working, as we said, working pretty efficiently. I think, Adam, you said, I think we got that one down. Yeah, that's coming together. And tactical, that fifth arriving officer, sixth arriving officer, whatever it is, was getting stood up, and that was working. The thing that we observed, though, is that there was a delay.
It took a little time for whoever was in that tactical role to get situational awareness over what was going on and begin to effectively take charge. And that reflex time, whether it was one minute, two minutes, three minutes, was a delay waiting for tactical to call for a second contact team when we already can pretty much take for granted you want a second contact team. You know, the number of times where the first contact, the first four officers dispense with the threat is a large proportion of these things. It's not typically taking 30, 40, 50 officers to neutralize the threat. That's not the typical scenario. So we wanted to get the second contact team downrange. And what we observed was just the simple reality that when you are trying to assume that tactical role, there was a little bit of a lag, little bit of a delay in getting your feet underneath you. Meanwhile, you've got a couple of officers, two, three, four officers that have showed up, they're ready to be Contact Two, and they're waiting for orders. And what we've said is, 'Okay, this doesn't make sense." The first four officers are gonna form that first contact team. That fifth officer, sixth officer, whatever it is, is going to take the tactical job. And then the next two, three, four officers that come in behind that person are going to become Contact Two.
Now, whether they do that at, if tactical is designated a staging location and they go there and rally up and then they get in one vehicle and move forward, or whether, pardon me, staging location hasn't been established yet and they all roll up to the front of the school, the front of the building, front of the church, whatever the case may be. But the point is, like Adam said, don't go in under your own call sign, get yourselves organized into a team. And I wanted to make sure that we addressed both the history of why we made that change. And it had to do with speed. Everything has to do with the clock. And getting the guns down range. So we're looking for that Contact One, which is, in most cases, gonna take care of the threat. And then Contact Two to get in right behind them. Now the question of what Contact Two needs to do, I'd like to drill down a little bit more. We talked about the linkup procedure, and both of you kind of indicated, we need to find out from Contact One what they need done. So let's talk about for a minute the different scenarios that you guys gave you. So you said, one, we need more guns in the fight. Do we wanna apply a little strategy? So let's talk about that one, and then we'll go back to Contact One has the threat either cornered or neutralized. Contact Two, they want to go to where the casualties were. Something like that. We'll work from there. Good enough.
Adam Pendley:
Yeah.
Billy Perry:
Good.
Bill Godfrey:
All right. So let's talk a little bit about, Billy, I'm gonna put this one to you. You've got the second contact team moving up. Contact One is giving chase, so to speak to the threat. What does that look like when they want that second contact team as guns in the fight on the threat? How do you coordinate that on the fly? Go.
Billy Perry:
Link up with them, find out where they are, find out where the person is, and then formulate a plan there. And it's gonna be situationally dependent on where the bad guy is or bad girl, bad person. So have them in there, and be prepared to initiate and engage them.
Bill Godfrey:
What are the things that you would want them to be aware of, be careful of, think about when you've got two different teams that are trying to bring fire to bear on-
Billy Perry:
Where everyone is. Who's with the person, who's with the bad guy? Are there innocents in there? Are there hostages? Who's in there with them? And are there any environmental issues? Not that it would really matter in the terms of a gunfight, but it's good to know.
Bill Godfrey:
When you say environmental issues, what do you mean?
Billy Perry:
Like gas.
Bill Godfrey:
Okay.
Billy Perry:
Like IDs. Like, stuff like that.
Bill Godfrey:
But you still gotta stop.
Billy Perry:
Absolutely.
Bill Godfrey:
You gotta stop the behavior of the bad guy.
Billy Perry:
Regardless. You gotta engage 'em and cease their behavior.
Bill Godfrey:
All right, Adam?
Adam Pendley:
So, I was just gonna say, even if, let's say, eight officers have made it to where the suspect is, where the stimulus is, you still want to have two teams because you may split up at that point and say, "One of you go, hey, go around to the backside, go down that hallway, you hold 'em there, we're gonna go this direction." You don't want just for span of control reasons, you don't want all eight trying to come from the same direction and trying to communicate through one leader. That's bad span of control, and it's bad tactics. So even if Contact Team Two has linked up with Contact Team One to be more guns in the fight, you're still operating as two separate units-
Billy Perry:
Homogenous units.
Adam Pendley:
Right. Who can do good work and communicate with each other. I mean, that's really worth emphasizing at this point is, again, if all eight of us are pointing our guns from one angle, that's not a very good strategy. I mean, of course, unless the suspect's directly right there in front of you.
Billy Perry:
Unless that's where they are. And you can avoid a crossfire.
Adam Pendley:
Right, and you can avoid a crossfire. But still operating as a couple different teams to do something tactically smart is a good way to go.
Bill Godfrey:
Okay, so now let's talk about the more common scenario where Contact One has the suspect in custody or down, under control, and they've seen some casualties that they've had to move past. We want Contact Two to circle back and start taking care of business there. What's the list of duties? So Contact One's got the suspect, Contact Two is, so prior to number one, active threat is done.
Billy Perry:
Right, active threat.
Bill Godfrey:
Now we're into the rescue, which has got to start with getting some security stood up. What does that look like?
Adam Pendley:
So I think that's really important to emphasize is we train a lot to the fact that while it's still active, if you're hearing active stimulus, we train officers, you have to move past the injured and move towards that threat. But somebody has to go back and fix what you left behind. And that is a important job for Contact Team Two or additional contact teams that are stood up is somebody has to go back and fix that area where there's casualties to establish security, immediate action plan, and medical. 'Cause that first contact team that has now engaged the suspect, they're now out of the fight. At a minimum, they're gonna have to stay there and continue to secure the suspect, and then later, they're gonna have to go into their own officer involved shooting protocols and stuff. So that team is basically spent, now it's gonna be the job of Contact Team Two to establish those casualty collection points to radio into tactical what they need, that they're ready for the rescue task forces to get that next part started. The danger we see is that four officers have engaged a suspect, the next four come in and stand over their shoulder, and the next four come in behind them, and they're all looking at the downed suspect, and nobody's getting any other job done. And that's the danger of not keeping these roles separate.
Bill Godfrey:
So Contact Two, Billy, they get back to where the injured are, and they've got three or four that's in, you know, in a room. They've got a couple laying down in the hallway. And, of course, one of the things that we advocate for is to quickly get them consolidated down and secure what we call a casualty collection point, which is just a fancy way of saying pick a spot, get your injured in that spot, and get that spot secured. Talk a little bit about why is that so important to get 'em out of the hallway and get 'em all in one spot. What does that do from a tactical advantage to you, from establishing security? How does it help you to get those people pulled together instead of where they are?
Billy Perry:
Well, you, just, like with students, where I work now, when we move students for a reason where there's, you know, reunification, whatever, we wanna cover 'em from three things. We wanna cover 'em from the elements, we wanna cover 'em from gunfire, and we wanna cover 'em from the media. So you wanna be protected from all those. So if you're in a hallway, you're not protected, or outside of an area for a downed person, you're not covered from gunfire. I want you covered from eyes. I want you covered from everything you can be covered from. It's easier to secure a door. If we get 'em into a room, let's say if Adam and I get 'em into a room, one of us can secure the door and the other one's working completely safely. And so I'm a firm advocate of take a room, take a room, utilize that, RTFs can come to you, and you've got a default de facto CCP, ad hoc field expedient CCP.
Bill Godfrey:
All right, so let's talk a second. We're gonna take a room. We've picked a room, we're dragging casualties. I assume you still want to advocate that somebody has got their eyes up on their weapons platform. Not everybody drags-
Billy Perry:
Security.
Adam Pendley:
Absolutely.
Billy Perry:
Somebody has security.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, on the hallway or the exposures, or wherever. You get 'em into the room, what are the kinds of threats that you want that contact team to look for? For where to the post up. Now you mentioned the door, that's an obvious one. What if there's windows? What if there's a second door? What are the factors that you guys want that contact team to think about in terms of that security posture for securing the room?
Billy Perry:
I'm gonna take the best room. I'm gonna take a bunch of rooms before I choose a room to put the people in. So I'm gonna pick the best room. I'm not gonna just ad hoc take the first one that I get. I'm gonna take one with minimal window exposure with the easiest to secure. And then once I take that room, I'm gonna set up SIM again. I'm gonna have security on it. I'm gonna have an immediate action plan. If it breaks loose, if this is a CCA, then I'm gonna have another group that's gonna go, and somebody else is gonna stay. But we're gonna be calling for RTFs to come in and take over where we are in our CCP there.
Adam Pendley:
Yeah, and you're just, you know, you're checking for everything in that room quickly. Of course, whatever room you pick, that's gonna make the most sense. A quick sweep of the room itself to make sure that there's no threats in the room currently. Keep security on the door. And then, even among your injured and you're uninjured that you're potentially pulling into that room, you're keeping an eye on them as well, right? You know, it doesn't happen very often, but it is possible that a potential bad actor or a suspect could be mixed in with those that you're trying to help. So you have to be aware of that as well. So there's a lot of work for the second contact team to do besides those initial tactical functions. Once that active threat has been dealt with, the role of those additional contact teams can be to do all of these things that we're talking about.
Bill Godfrey:
So from the security perspective, you want Contact Two to not only secure the external part of the room but also somebody's gotta have eyes on the inside of the room. Is that accurate?
Billy Perry:
Yeah, well, someone's gonna be working.
Bill Godfrey:
Okay, and then, so that brings us to the next thing.
Billy Perry:
At least one.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, is the medical piece. Once we've got the security established, we've got an agreed upon plan. If there's more shots fired, who's staying, who's going, it's time to go to work on the medical side. And one of the things that we certainly advocate for is the prioritization. And in the fire and EMS service, we use triage to kind of sort the severity levels of folks. And there is some protocols that we follow on how we group those. But for law enforcement, we're wanting to keep it very simple. And the way we suggest that is for law enforcement, if they're injured and that's key. If they're injured and they're walking wounded, that's a green. Anything else that's injured and isn't walking is a red. That's it. It's that simple. And those numbers are important to pass outside, to pass upstream.
Billy Perry:
To your RTF.
Bill Godfrey:
Pass it to the RTFs, which you're gonna pass it to tactical-
Billy Perry:
To tac, and he's gonna pass it to-
Bill Godfrey:
And he's gonna pass it on to triage and to the RTFs. So then the next step in that is to geographically triage that room, separate the room. So you pick, I presume, a wall to put your uninjured against a wall. Then, for the walking wounded, the walking injured, the greens, you put them in a separate spot, which then leaves only the reds laying on the floor in the room, which is becomes your priority for beginning medical treatment. Have I expressed that right? Did I miss anything?
Adam Pendley:
Absolutely.
Billy Perry:
100%.
Adam Pendley:
You're kind of sorting the room to do all of those functions that you just talked about, and then it allows you to focus clearly on that priority of those that are down and can't move. Those are the ones that are gonna need the most immediate attention. So your, you know, tourniquets, and direct pressure, and wound packing, and those kind of things that you're able to do, especially either if you carry the equipment on yourself or there's maybe a kit in the room that you can use. And depending on the number of injured, you know, obviously, on the one hand, we wanna reduce the trauma of those uninjured survivors. However, you may need to enlist their help. You know, you may need to bring them over and have them help keep direct pressure on some of the wounded.
Billy Perry:
Correct. Yeah, you may want to have them apply that pressure. And I wanna stress that this is after everything is controlled. This is after.
Bill Godfrey:
Well you've got security on it.
Billy Perry:
No, I mean, after, like, Contact One has taken the bad guy out. This when this is.
Adam Pendley:
Or you have absolutely no stimulus.
Billy Perry:
No stimulus, right.
Adam Pendley:
Because, you know, and we have seen the numbers increase, right? Where the, you know, the suspect has left before law enforcement arrives, so.
Bill Godfrey:
Sometimes the shooting stops, and we don't know why.
Billy Perry:
Which is a win.
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Bill Godfrey:
Sure. Take the win and count it.
Billy Perry:
Take the win and move on.
Adam Pendley:
Well, it's a win if we react properly.
Bill Godfrey:
Well, good point.
Adam Pendley:
But that's a whole, we've had that discussion before is that we, if we spend too much time chasing ghosts, then, you know, then people are laying injured, and, you know, so.
Bill Godfrey:
Absolutely. So we get the room triaged, we get it sorted physically. So we've got the uninjured, we've got the walking wounded, and we've got the reds, we've got security on it. Now comes the task of communicating all of that to tactical. This is where we are. We have a CCP established-
Billy Perry:
Three reds.
Bill Godfrey:
Security established.
Billy Perry:
Five greens, five uninjured. We need however many RTFs you think we need. Whatever.
Adam Pendley:
Right. And I think it's worth emphasizing at this point that this is one of those circumstances where it's okay to delegate up. The contact teams are the eyes and ears inside the crisis site. And it is okay for Contact Team Two to tell tactical, we're gonna need at least two RTFs here. I need a third contact team to go clear hallway A, we haven't been down there yet. Whatever the case may be. And I think that's really important. We have tactical in a leadership role, but they don't have the eyes and ears inside. The contact team, especially that second Contact Team Two that's not necessarily-
Billy Perry:
You should have your feet under you even more
Adam Pendley:
Yeah, exactly. They should be able to, to be able to calmly-
Billy Perry:
Right, reason through.
Adam Pendley:
Communicate what they're seeing, and what they're doing, and what is needed.
Bill Godfrey:
In a lot of ways, what you're describing is what we often in the fire service call CAN report, conditions, actions, needs. Contact tactical from Contact Two, we have a CCP established in room 18. I got three reds, five greens, five uninjured. Whatever those numbers are. I need at least two RTFs. I need another contact team to exist to assist with this thing, whatever that thing may be. Fair?
Adam Pendley:
Absolutely.
Billy Perry:
Well, and I'll ask, do you even need to tell 'em you need two RTFs? You've just given them, and I'm asking, you've given them what you-
Adam Pendley:
Oh sure.
Billy Perry:
You've given them the right number. Just whatever you and triage wanna send.
Bill Godfrey:
Yeah, I think that that's a really, really good question. And I would say is if you're able to say I've got three reds and five greens-
Billy Perry:
Five greens.
Bill Godfrey:
That is so extraordinarily helpful to fire and EMS. Because if you reverse that and you tell me you've got five reds and three greens, I'm not thinking two RTFs, I'm thinking three RTFs.
Adam Pendley:
Or four
Bill Godfrey:
Or maybe even four before we're done. Maybe I need a fourth RTF that's just gonna do the shuttle. The thing I think would give discretion is, not all reds are created equal. Maybe they're red because they got shot in the leg and they can't walk, and it's bleeding, but it's not bleeding that bad. That's a whole lot different than-
Billy Perry:
Sucking chest wound.
Bill Godfrey:
Right, they got two rounds to the chest, they got a round to the belly, they've got two or three rounds to the back. Or I've got my three reds are all three thoracic injuries. They're all truncal gunshots. Those are all three critical patients. And so if you have a sense of that as a law enforcement officer, I don't think it hurts to say to tactical, I think we're gonna need two RTFs, three RTFs, whatever.
Billy Perry:
That makes sense. Right.
Bill Godfrey:
But you don't have to. If you give us the reds and the greens, we are way ahead of the game. And quite frankly, if you just tell me you got eight injured, we're still ahead of the game.
Billy Perry:
We're still ahead of the game.
Bill Godfrey:
We're still ahead of the game. And we'll rightsize it from there because here's what's gonna happen, is that first RTF that gets in there is going to quickly look the room over, and call back to triage, and go, "Yeah, I'm gonna need four more RTFs. I'm gonna need a little help. I need some brothers and sisters in here to help." So I think one of the things that I wanna make sure is crystal clear for the audience, though, because I do think that this role most commonly falls to Contact Two. The clock is ticking, bang bang, the clock is ticking. And as Pete says, "What's your threat right now? Is it a bad guy? Is it a gun or is it a clock?" Well, Contact One's dealt with the guy, so it's no longer the gun, it's the clock. The faster you get RTFs in there, the faster these people get in front of a surgeon, the more lives we can save. The RTFs are not coming until tactical hears that you've got security established. Now maybe you don't have a CCP, and that's okay. We want you to, but you know, if you don't, you don't. But you've secured an area that's good enough for the RTFs to get moving. Tactical's gotta hear that. Because if you're not talking to 'em and tell 'em you've established a security posture and this is the location you want the RTFs to come to, they're not coming.
Adam Pendley:
And I think again, the reason that role was so important as a second and even additional contact teams is that we sometimes see that everyone wants to go right back to Contact Team One for all information. They think they're doing all the jobs. And sometimes even our first contact team officers think that they have to do all the jobs. It's like they forget that it's okay that a second contact team will come in and do some of those other tasks that need to get done. And you can stay focused on the area that you have secured. You have secured an area that has the suspect in it. You have your own immediate action plan. You're probably providing medical care to somebody there and possibly even including the suspect. That second contact team is gonna fix all the other stuff that needs to get done.
Billy Perry:
Right.
Bill Godfrey:
Good points. So let me spin the scenario a little bit. Contact One neutralizes the threat in the same room where the injured are. So it's like a cafeteria, or, you know, large conference room, meeting room, training room, something like that. But you've got injured because the bad guy was in there doing the shooting, and Contact One comes in and services the bad guy, bad guy's down in the corner. So now Contact One is holding security on the bad guy. You've still got a mess of a room. How does Contact Two's role change? Or does it?
Billy Perry:
It depends. It depends on how many injured there are. If there's not many injured, I personally would move them because they've already been traumatized enough. I'm gonna get 'em away from Doofus McDooferson, who we've eradicated his behavior. I'm gonna move 'em away from him or her and put them somewhere else. If it's not, I'm gonna barricade that 'cause it is a crime scene, and I'm gonna keep from contaminating it as much as possible. But depending on how many people there are, it's gonna depend on what I do.
Bill Godfrey:
It would be nice not to have the suspect in the casualty collection point with the injured-
Billy Perry:
100%.
Adam Pendley:
If possible.
Billy Perry:
I mean, we don't take a Hippocratic Oath, but we should, and we kind of do. And I don't wanna do more harm. And so I wanna, I'm a huge advocate, just like I don't, I'm not an advocate of treating innocents like garbage. I don't have to put a muzzle on their face. They've already had a pretty terrible day without me sticking a muzzle on their face screaming to get on the effing ground or whatever. I don't have to do that, you know? And I'm worried about the probabilities, not the possibilities. And so, as much as I can guard them, 'cause I, you know, our saying that I always said when we were teaching was, you've had a horrible day, and I'm sorry for that. I'm gonna try to make it better from here on out, and that's what I'm gonna do. And if I can take an adjacent room or an adjacent area, I'm gonna do that and move them over there.
Bill Godfrey:
At the very least, move the uninjured if you can.
Billy Perry:
Absolutely.
Bill Godfrey:
Assuming you've got enough hands on deck to get security-
Billy Perry:
Which you can.
Bill Godfrey:
Okay.
Adam Pendley:
Which brings us back, like even if Contact One and two end up in the same room, they still have different jobs to do, right? It's all the same mission, but they're probably gonna have different jobs to do. And they need to remember that there's different jobs to get done. Not just over convergence in general, but I can't emphasize enough how frequently too many officers focus on one task, and just by splitting them into teams, it gives them the idea that hey, this team's doing one thing. Our team needs to do something else. Like Billy said, we gotta find work to do. And what he means by that is, let's not all work on this same problem. There's more problems to be solved.
Bill Godfrey:
Doofus McDooferson.
Adam Pendley:
Yes.
Billy Perry:
Right, Doofus McDooferson.
Adam Pendley:
And just the simple act of designating a second contact team or a third contact team and so on, by designating them as a separate team and giving them a separate task and purpose, you start to divide up all these tasks that need to get done.
Billy Perry:
The division of labor is more organic.
Bill Godfrey:
nd I think that that is a really, really good point, 'cause you just mentioned, you know, getting another contact team, contact three, contact four, whatever. And one of the things that I've observed, I think, is, you alluded to it earlier, they feel like they've gotta do everything. We don't. You know, Contact One's got Doofus McDooferson. Contact Two is dealing with the CCP and the injured, which may or and or may not be in the same location. We need to get an ambulance exchange point secured. That should be a different contact team that takes care of that. And then, if you need a cordon secured between where your CCP-
Billy Perry:
That's a separate one.
Bill Godfrey:
that's another contact team. Because by the time this unfolds, you're gonna have friends that have shown up. I know there are so many places where we've talked to and they're like, "Well, we just don't have those resources." I understand that you don't have those resources in your organization on duty-
Billy Perry:
But everybody doesn't have the same uniform.
Bill Godfrey:
And they are gonna show up.
Billy Perry:
They're 100% gonna show up.
Bill Godfrey:
They are going to show up. From constables to feds to-
Billy Perry:
Agricultural police.
Bill Godfrey:
To the postal police.
Billy Perry:
Of course.
Bill Godfrey:
They are going to show up. You're going to have help, so don't try to do everything yourself. Now if tactical calls back and says, "I don't have anybody to send to that, can you figure it out?" That's a different story.
Adam Pendley:
Right.
Bill Godfrey:
Right? Then you make do You know, you got eggs, you make omelets. But I think that that's an important thing to say as well is don't let your mission creep overload your ability to execute well.
Adam Pendley:
Right, so when another contact team is assigned and they come into your crisis site and they say, "How can we help?" You should have a job for 'em. The moment you run out of jobs is the time that you tell tactical we don't need any more officers down range. And it's as simple as that. And using, again, it's just a division of labor. It is splitting up the task. You know, there should not be more than, you know, two to four or five at the most on a contact team, 'cause that's a good span of control. It's something one person can be on the radio for, directing that team and giving them, you know, following whatever they were assigned to do. If you start getting more than that, split 'em up into another team and find another job to get done.
Billy Perry:
Right.
Bill Godfrey:
All right, final thoughts on this one. Billy, what's your overarching thought here on Contact Two and the focus?
Billy Perry:
Remember what your primary mission is, and that's to save lives. If Doofus McDooferson has already been handled, move forward, looking for work, being cognizant of what the division of labor is and what the priority of work is, and implement that.
Bill Godfrey:
Active threat rescue clear.
Billy Perry:
ARC.
Adam Pendley:
And again, naming these teams by number and splitting up the jobs is a way to remind yourself that there's more than one job that needs to get done.
Bill Godfrey:
And I think for mine, I would say, look, we have a process we've laid out in the ASIM checklist. First four go in, they make Contact One. Fifth officer becomes tactical, six, seven, eight, nine become Contact Two and they move in. And we train to that. But the reality is probably gonna be a little different on your game day. You're gonna have three, four, five officers are gonna go down range, be part of Contact One, and then you're gonna end up with a mini polyester dog pile in the parking lot of three, four, five officers that arrived very quickly that are all kind of not stalling out a little bit, but like, "Okay, what do we do? What's next?" Somebody takes tactical, you assign the rest of the guys to be Contact Two, and you send them to go do the job. It doesn't matter whether it goes by the numbers or it comes in a little sideways, you know, a landing's a landing. As long as the wheels are down, it doesn't really matter if you come in skidding a little bit sideways. Get her done and address the issue. But we need Contact Two to back up Contact One as fast as possible.
Billy Perry:
Yep. I like it
Bill Godfrey:
All right, gentlemen, thank you very much. This was an exciting topic, really kind of back at the very first part of the ASIM checklist process.
Billy Perry:
The root.
Bill Godfrey:
It's excited to get to. Thanks for coming in. Good conversation. Thank you to our producer, Karla Torres, for making us always look great. If you have not liked and subscribed to the podcast, please do so and share it with the folks that you work with. We all have to get on the same page. If we have one of these bad days, we are not gonna solve the problem by ourselves. Your friends are coming. Get 'em all on the same page. And until next time, stay safe.