In the face of increasing campus violence, the University of Toronto is in the process of finalizing and training officers in the Incident Command System, a management and decision-making model for critical incidents pioneered in the U.S.
No single agency is equipped to handle an emergency situation alone, and the goal of using ICS is to coordinate multiple agencies, ensuring swift and efficient emergency response. David Black, who also served campus police as U of T’s implementation manager for the “Emergency Response Management Solution” communications system, said that “All the public safety agencies that campus police interact with train together using ICS and are familiar with the management structure. Each agency knows their role and the roles played by others. They speak the same language. It streamlines communications and control. An important feature of ICS is that it can be applied to any operation whether it is a crisis or not.”
In the event of a crisis, University of Toronto Police Services would defer to Toronto Police Services. Special constables would likely advise TPS on the situation and help secure the area.
Black elaborated, “The ICS training has allowed us to work together with the same people that would respond from outside agencies. While ICS doesn’t change the roles we play it does contribute to the seamless implementation of a unified command structure.”
The training UTPS received was developed by Bowmac Educational Services, a private company who worked with UTPS and TPS to tailor their program to a university environment. In October 2006, U of T campus police hosted the first university-focused ICS training program in Canada.
The three-day program hosted representatives from six Canadian universities and members of the Toronto police, fire and ambulance services. According to Dan Hutt, U of T’s Police Services manager, all campus police will receive ICS training over the next two years.
