D.C. Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice Lindsay Appiah said at a recent meeting of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments that there were two recent instances of “terrorist-type events in the District.”
As preparations get underway for a summer season packed with patriotic events for America250, officials from across the D.C. region are considering security.
D.C. Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice Lindsay Appiah said at a recent meeting of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments that there were two recent instances of “terrorist-type events in the District.”
Appiah was referring to the killings of two Israeli Embassy employees outside the Capital Jewish Museum in May and the shootings of two members of the West Virginia National Guard near the Farragut West Metro station in November. One of the service members died, the other was critically wounded.
“That has certainly heightened our planning and our awareness,” Appiah said, adding that public safety officials will coordinate with jurisdictions outside D.C. as well as federal agencies. “It’s been very important for us to work with the Department of Homeland Security to really assess what is the level of threat or risk in our planning.”
She explained that the Special Event Assessment Rating, or SEAR, is used to measure the need for federal and local interagency coordination. The planned events will receive SEAR ratings to help them evaluate the necessary security.
Appiah also said it’s likely that there will be a lot of coordination for mutual aid between area police chiefs and their agencies, and said it’s also likely to result in a lot of overtime.
Scott Boggs, who serves as MWCOG’s managing director of Homeland Security and Public Safety, said at Tuesday’s meeting of the Board of Directors, “I’m working with Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia to deploy drone sensors to try to get some detection in place.”
He said the airspace over the region is “one of the critical vulnerabilities.”
“Right now, we’re focused on specific areas associated with America250,” Boggs said. “We’re trying to get things put in place before June 1.”
Boggs said a contract with Axon — the manufacturer of products ranging from Tasers to body-worn cameras and drones used by public safety agencies — will provide “detection as a service” that could feed information to the National Capital Region Coordination Center, which would in turn monitor regional airspace.
WTOP contacted MWCOG for further information, but was referred to Boggs’ statements at Tuesday’s meeting.
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