The July 7, 2016, protest over the shooting of two men by police—one in Louisiana, one in Minnesota—had been peaceful, despite participants spilling out into the downtown street, remembers Tami Kayea, Dallas Fire-Rescue's deputy chief for EMS. At the time, she was a downtown battalion chief for the department, and she expected the demonstration to play out uneventfully like so many other past protests in the city.
"Even the ones that start to get a little rowdy, the DPD does a phenomenal job when they deal with protests and protesters," Kayea said. "They actually have a positive interaction, most of the time, and even during this event, if you looked at social media, half the photos were with people posing with police officers."
But that was before a 25-year-old Army veteran opened fire and ambushed Dallas police handling crowd control for the event. The attack killed five officers and injured nine others, as well as two civilians, before a police bomb disposal robot rigged with C-4 explosive was used to kill the shooter.
During a time when active shooting incidents have become all too commonplace, the Dallas shooting was unique because of the targets and how it changed the EMS response.
"It doesn't matter what state you're in, it's happening everywhere in America," Kayea said during her seminar about the shooting this week at Firehouse Expo 2019 in Nashville, TN. "But what has changed is that they are purposely targeting law enforcement. … We see pattern of them starting to aim at police."
With police as targets, firefighters, paramedics and other first responders become concerned that an added element of danger might surround the individuals sometimes responsible for their safety.
"There were a few times a night that I really want police (around). Well, maybe I'll stand over there," said Kayea, trying to illustrate how proximity to officers at the scene didn't create a sense of security. "It plays with your head."
That's why she calls the shooting "The Night the Rules Changed." During her presentation, Kayea discussed some of the lessons she and the department learned following the tragedy.
Lesson: Information can be scarce and overwhelming
Responding to the shooting, Kayea found she was clamoring for more information, while at the same time feeling like she was drowning it.
"On the one hand, I thought I wasn't getting enough information. … And then on the other hand, I was inundated with information," she said, calling it "a weird dichotomy."
Critical details from the shooting—how many shooters, where are the shots coming from, how many hurt?—seemed to be elusive or unverified. To illustrate her point, Kayea played a newscast from the attack filled with information—there were multiple shooters, bombs had been planted around the city—that turned out to be inaccurate.
"A lot of information received (from the scene isn't right)", she said.
At the same time, a tidal wave of minutiae from the scene was crashing down on Kayea and the other first responders. Plus, units that were responding to other emergencies unrelated to the shooting needed to be tracked, adding even more data to be corralled.
Lesson: Establish a unified command
When Kayea reached the area near the gunfire, she struggled to find anyone who knew the location of the on-scene command center. That challenge made her realize just how important it is that firefighters, paramedics and police are working out of the same playbook.
"You need to establish a very clear unified command early," she said.
Kayea did just that during the 2016 attack. She called in the department's Engine 18—that one unit, in her words, that she wanted around in crucial situations—to help her and set up the command before being put in charge of operations at the scene.
Lesson: How you communicate is important
Radio is usually the preferred tool of police and firefighters when it comes to communicating. But in the 2016 shooting, first responders found a different device to be more effective.
"Cellphones were very useful for us, when you want to have long conversations—radios aren't good for long conversations—or when you want to have private conversations. … So we did all that by cellphone," said Kayea, who cautioned that reliability of cellphones can sometimes be dicey.
And it's that type of adaptability and problem-solving that is essential in these emergencies.
"You have to be willing to think outside the box in these incidents," Kayea said. "You have to do stuff that you haven't done, that you don't normally do but that you feel is absolutely right for that situation. Because so often, we're dealing with situations that we haven't been in before."
Lesson: Always safety
Staying safe is a priority for firefighters and police in emergencies. But safety isn't something to think about just while responding to the call.
"We always have to think safety, we know that," Kayea said. "But we need to think about safety before the incident, and that means training, education, going over things, developing as many tools as we can going into these situations, making sure we have equipment in place. Pre-incident planning."
And safety even extends past the incident, especially if an active shooter event is politically charged. Kayea saw that happen following the 2016 shooting that had a gunman targeting police. Threats were made to fire departments and fake grenades were even lobbed at stations, she said.
"You have to consider safety even after the incident to make your crews feel secure and safe," she said. "Because I guarantee you, it takes a long time after this before that happens."
Lesson: Fill that toolbox
The unpredictability of mass shootings presents a challenge for agencies.
"The problem is that all active shooters are different. Different locations, different populations. And until it hits, no one is going to know what the right action to take is," Kayea said. "What I can tell you is: develop as many tools as you can. …Start building that toolbox up so that when it happens, you can say, 'I've got all these tools to choose from, what's going to work in this situation.' "
Some of those tools includes gear, such as body armor. But it also means creating an active shooter policy and training with police.
"You need to practice together," Kayea said. "You're going to be together when it hits, you don't want that to be the first time."
Training is important," We train for fires all the time. We do high rise training even though we may go years without having a high rise fire. But we train because it's high risk, low occurrence, and we know how dangerous those are
Lesson: Coping with the aftermath
Walking away from an active shooter incident doesn't mark the end for first responders. They can carry that tragedy with them for days, months or even years.
"My life paused July 7, 20:58, and I couldn't get it off pause," Kayea said. "I saw the rest of life moving on, but I was having a hard time moving on."
Events, such as anniversaries, can trigger flashbacks for firefighters and paramedics who responded to the incident. That's why it's important to make sure measures are in place to help those first responders deal with the emotional and psychological fallout.
"Now you have to deal with what you've just been through," she said. "And you have to have services for your guys, you have to have stuff in place to help them."
