[Scan-DC] More on D.C. area interoperability

[Alan Henney]

Federal News Service

April 3, 2009 Friday

PANEL II OF THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND EMERGENCY
MANAGEMENT SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
COMMITTEE;
SUBJECT: DISASTER CAPACITY IN THE NATIONAL CAPITAL REGION:
EXPERIENCES, CAPABILITIES AND WEAKNESSES;
CHAIRED BY: DELEGATE ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON
Enhanced Coverage Linking
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON  -Search using:
  a.. Biographies Plus News
  b.. News, Most Recent 60 Days
(D-DC);
WITNESSES: DANIEL NICHOLS, ASSISTANT CHIEF, UNITED STATES CAPITOL
POLICE DEPARTMENT; MAJOR GENERAL ERROL SCHWARTZ, COMMANDING GENERAL,
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA NATIONAL GUARD; VERNON HERRON, DEPUTY CHIEF
ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER FOR PUBLIC SAFETY/DIRECTOR OF HOMELAND
SECURITY, OFFICE OF THE COUNTY EXECUTIVE, PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY,
MARYLAND JEFF DELINSKI, DEPUTY CHIEF, SPECIAL OPERATION BUREAU,
WASHINGTON METRO AREA TRANSIT AUTHORITY POLICE;
LOCATION: 2167 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING

SECTION: PRESS CONFERENCE OR SPEECH

LENGTH: 11387 words


PANEL II OF THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND EMERGENCY
MANAGEMENT SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
COMMITTEE SUBJECT: DISASTER CAPACITY IN THE NATIONAL CAPITAL REGION:
EXPERIENCES, CAPABILITIES AND WEAKNESSES CHAIRED BY: DELEGATE ELEANOR
HOLMES NORTON

Enhanced Coverage Linking
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON  -Search using:
  a.. Biographies Plus News
  b.. News, Most Recent 60 Days
(D-DC) WITNESSES: DANIEL NICHOLS, ASSISTANT CHIEF, UNITED STATES
CAPITOL POLICE DEPARTMENT; MAJOR GENERAL ERROL SCHWARTZ, COMMANDING
GENERAL, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA NATIONAL GUARD; VERNON HERRON, DEPUTY
CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER FOR PUBLIC SAFETY/DIRECTOR OF HOMELAND
SECURITY, OFFICE OF THE COUNTY EXECUTIVE, PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY,
MARYLAND JEFF DELINSKI, DEPUTY CHIEF, SPECIAL OPERATION BUREAU,
WASHINGTON METRO AREA TRANSIT AUTHORITY POLICE LOCATION: 2167 RAYBURN
HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING TIME: 11:45 A.M. EDT DATE: FRIDAY, APRIL 3, 2009

DEL. NORTON: Chief Nichols is going to stay for the next panel.

And I could I ask the second panel to come up, in addition to the
chief. Mr. Jeff Delinski, deputy chief, Special Operation Bureau,
Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority; Major General Errol
Schwartz, commander general, D.C. National Guard.

And because my good friend and colleague has another important
engagement and must leave before the next panel, I'm going to ask Mr.
Vernon Herron, who is the deputy chief administrative officer of
Public Safety and director of Homeland Security for Prince George's
County, if he would come forward in this panel.

And instead of my asking the first questions, I'm going to ask that
Representative Edwards

Enhanced Coverage Linking
Representative Edwards  -Search using:
  a.. Biographies Plus News
  b.. News, Most Recent 60 Days
ask the first question of this panel.

Perhaps we should proceed with Mr. Herron, in case Ms. Edwards has to
leave early.

MR. HERRON: Good morning, Chairwoman Norton. Thank you for allowing me
to be here today.

I am Vernon Herron, deputy chief administrative officer for Public
Safety and director of Homeland Security for Prince George's County,
Maryland. I appear before you today on behalf of one of the largest
counties in the National Capital Region.

But before I begin, I also would like to take this time to thank
Congresswoman Donna Edwards

Enhanced Coverage Linking
Donna Edwards  -Search using:
  a.. Biographies Plus News
  b.. News, Most Recent 60 Days
for her leadership on the critical issue of National Capital Region
public safety and for recommending that I appear before you today.

If time permits, I would like to offer testimony on the incident
legislation.

First I want to take a moment to recall that Prince George's County
has testified on this issue before. In July of 2006, Prince George's
County Sheriff Michael Jackson testified before the House Energy and
Commerce Committee on H.R.5758 -- the Warning Alert and Response
Network Act. In that testimony, Sheriff Jackson explained that warning
the public of an impending disaster is a good first step, but not
nearly enough to address the total reality of public safety in
response to a large-scale disaster. We are pleased this hearing goes
further than debating how we warn the public, and discusses how we can
lead and coordinate masses of people to safety.

Prince George's County Maryland is located in the heart of the
Baltimore/Washington corridor. The county borders Washington, D.C. and
is just 37 miles south of the City of Baltimore. The county's
population exceeds 820,000 with a daily work population of well over 1
million people.

Covering an area of close to 500 square miles, the county is home of
many business as well as state and federal agencies. Some of these
federal agencies include NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center, Andrews Air
Force Base, U.S. Department of Agriculture's Beltsville Facility, a
federal records center, a large Internal Revenue Service office
complex and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration Center for
Weather and Climate Prediction. Additionally, a large part of the
region's Metro system and Interstate-95 pass through Prince George's
County.

Fortunately, for most communities in America, the threat of terrorism
remains just that -- a threat. However, the United States has
experienced several acts of terrorism and widespread natural disasters
which caused devastation and catastrophe and 9/11 was an example of
this devastation and catastrophe for New York, the National Capital
Region and the entire United States.

Therefore, Prince George's County is in a prime position to offer
perspectives on how to address the need, impact and practicality of
orchestrating large-scale public safety response.

Coordinating planning across the National Capital Region would greatly
assist the utilization of limited resources available to support
evacuation and sheltering of residents, citizens and visitors to the
National Capital Region. Actual emergencies are inherently unstable
and consist of rapidly changing events whose outcome may be difficult
if not impossible to predict. Resource sharing will be necessary in
order to ensure that regions can efficiently manage a major evacuation
or sheltering event.

Prince George's County works closely with the Maryland Emergency
Management Agency and Federal Emergency Management Agency to ensure
all resources needed are being utilized in a most efficient and
effective manner. Locally, we have executed MOUs with the Board of
Education to provide emergency access through the use of 260 public
schools located throughout the county. Although there is adequate
number of public schools to shelter thousands of citizens, we do not
have enough resources to open every school or multiple schools
simultaneously and also handle our daily responsibilities.

In the event that multiple shelters will be needed to house large
numbers of citizens for an extended period, we have preselected two
mega shelters: Ritchie Coliseum in the north portion of the county;
and Showplace Arena in the southern portion of the county. Both are
capable of sheltering several hundred people.

Prince George's County has also pre-stocked mobile caches consisting
of cots, blankets, pillows, personal hygiene kits ready for transport
to any shelter. For larger shelter needs we have prepositioned FEMA
tractor trailers loaded with emergency shelter supplies ready to
activate.

Having immediate access to emergency supplies enables Prince George's
County to mitigate, respond to and recover from a disastrous event.
Disasters require coordination between public safety departments, our
Health and Human Services Department, as well as the other emergency
support function agencies. Having these train and exercise together
ensures that social service support and agency collaboration is
available to assist during this trying time.

In the event that a full evacuation of the county is necessary, the
county's Transportation Department has traffic cameras located at
major traffic intersections. Using these cameras can alter the time of
the traffic lights to reduce gridlock and facilitate smooth traffic
flow. The experiences from past incidences reveal vehicle evacuation
requires a unified effort and this will be required for the National
Capital Region.

Regional coordination is paramount in any effective response and
recovery plan. To facilitate an effective recovery plan, the National
Capital Region has developed a regional videoconference system. This
videoconference system uses its own data network labs, which provide a
direct link to every emergency operations center throughout the
National Capital Region. The ability for senior officials from each
jurisdiction to directly reach out and communicate with their neighbor
in the National Capital Region will not only enhance the recovery
process, but expedite the use of resource sharing and mutual aid.

The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments -- also know as
MWCOG -- has played a major role in fostering regional communications.
Through MWCOG, senior officials and public safety chiefs and directors
of each emergency support function meet regularly to discuss issues
and concerns that greatly impact jurisdictions' ability to coordinate,
communicate and collaborate through emergencies and disasters.

Prince George's County communicates directly with MEMA during any
major event. MEMA is advised of the event and place on alert that
mutual aid may be required. Prince George's county also depends on
several federal funding mechanisms to support the county's operations.
Those mechanisms include the Urban Area Security Initiative, COPS Law
Enforcement Technology Program, the Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance
Grants, the Byrne Discretionary Grants and the American Recovery
Reinvestment Act funds.

These funding streams are critical to our continued ability to deliver
public safety services and response capability. Some of the grants
require a matched dollar amount from the jurisdictions. For example,
the Regional Catastrophic Preparedness Grant Program lies dormant due
to the fact that jurisdictions cannot provide the 20 to 25 percent
grant match. This grant requirement cripples the ability of the
jurisdiction to obtain the available funding -- especially during this
difficult economic time.

Also, the FY 2010 House Budget Resolution decreases the Public Safety
Function Authority by 5 billion (dollars), while increasing the outlay
by only 1 billion (dollars). This discrepancy gives us pause, as we
are not able to provide as much public safety response to the National
Capital Region, which cuts through important programs such as the ones
I listed above.

In examining the state of operations today, we would make the
following recommendations: First and foremost, we must keep UASI whole
and urge the FY 2010 budget to not be set below $900 million; strive
for greater coordination and communication between local governments
and FEMA -- including conduction of unified NCR drills and exercises;
establish clear and efficient reporting structures between local
governments, FEMA and the Executive Office of the President; establish
mechanisms for emergency expenditure reimbursement. If local
governments are going to assist federal emergency response activities,
there needs to be a clear path which those local government can seek
reimbursement for those costs.

Hurricane Isabel, 9/11, Hurricane Katrina and the massive crowds of
this past inauguration have all taught us valuable lessons regarding
large-scale public safety response. However, if we are to move forward
in the entire National Capital Region in sync, then more coordination
will need to be established and the critical federal support cannot be
stripped away.

All of our local government fully interoperable within themselves and
are all jurisdictions of the NCR? Is there a coordinated National
Capital Region Plan for FEMA, and are all local government entities
completely verse with this plan? These are the questions we should ask
moving forward.

Prince George's County will continue to partner with the NCR to make
our country safe. Each day, we want to be able to inform our citizens
that we are better prepared today than we were yesterday.

I want to thank the subcommittee for calling this hearing today and
for the chairwoman for allowing us to speak regarding this important
matter. I look forward to answering any questions you may have.

DEL. NORTON: Thank you, Mr. Herron.

Let's move to Major General Schwartz, D.C. National Guard.

GEN. SCHWARTZ: Thank you, Madame Chairwoman, and the members of this
committee for the opportunity to testify in front of you today.

I've submitted by testimony for the record, but please allow me to
make some highlighting remarks concerning the District of Columbia
National Guard and their contribution to the National Capital Region.

I've been a Capital Guardian now for 32 years and we continue to
provide excellent support to this city. The District of Columbia
National Guard consists of the Air National Guard and the Army
National Guard and we are housed with the District of Columbia,
Andrews Air Force Base and Fort Belvoir, Virginia.

These installations outside of the District of Columbia provide us the
support that we would need to perform our missions in the District,
such as our air assets, our schoolhouses and other important venues.

The District of Columbia National Guard has a federal and a district
mission. It does not limit us to the way we perform our duty from the
limited actions during a nonemergency all the way to martial law where
we can support the District.

I would like to emphasize the primary role of the District of Columbia
National Guard and let you know that it is in support of local
authorities. We will only respond based upon the request of local
authorities.

The District of Columbia National Guard is like no other National
Guard in the nation. The 53 states and territories have a governor
that they report to as their commander in chief. The District of
Columbia's commander in chief is the president of the United States.
He has delegated that responsibility to the secretary of Defense, to
the secretary of the Army who has oversight for all local missions.
The secretary of the Air Force also has oversight over our air assets.

We provide excellent air support to Congress by housing three B- 40
aircraft out of Andrews Air Force Base to move congressional
delegations around; two C-38 jets and other support equipment.

The District of Columbia National Guard also performs its federal
mission -- that is supporting the war fight Army or air, not matter
what part of the world it is.

My responsibility is to make sure that the District of Columbia's
National Guard can rapidly respond to any homeland initiative. The
Office of the Mayor will contact the Guard. I will do the necessary
coordination with senior officials above my level to make sure that
the District of Columbia gets all it needs in a very short period of
time.

We support 16 ESFs from the response plan and that is transportation,
communication, mass care, search and rescue, oil and hazards response,
agriculture and natural resources, public safety and security. The
District has added a 16th ESF for donation and voluntary management,
which we are supporting them with our field kitchens and other
resources that they may need from the Guard.

We are working very closely with the District of Columbia Homeland
Security Emergency Management Agency and other agencies within the
FEMA Region III area. We are housing the FEMA region trailer and the
American Red Cross trailer in the parking lot of our armory, because
we envision the armory with its 58,000 square-foot capacity can
house -- can be a shelter in case of an emergency here in the
District -- like we did for the Hurricane Katrina where we housed
several individuals who came in from Louisiana.

We have the ability to build capacity through our partnerships in the
region. The Maryland National Guard, Virginia National Guard,
Pennsylvania, Delaware and West Virginia offers support to the
District of Columbia when needed.

An example of that support, which stretched beyond that space, is our
support for the presidential inauguration in January where 30 states
and one territory provided over 7,000 troops to the District. Our
objective is to remain in the background, but to make sure that the
events are safe and secure.

In our capacities from Fort Belvoir, we have just received new UH-72
helicopters for MEDEVAC regions. We are picking up an additional three
helicopters in a week or so and we will be using those in case of
local emergencies.

I yield back my time, Madame Chair, and I will be happy to answer any
of your questions at the end.

DEL. NORTON: Thank you, General Schwartz.

Mr. Delinski.

MR. DELINSKI: Good morning and thank you, Chairwoman Norton, for
inviting me to testify on behalf of the Washington Metropolitan Area
Transit Authority.

My name is Jeff Delinski. I'm a deputy chief of the Metro Transit
Police.

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, otherwise known as
WMATA or Metro, is a far-reaching system servicing 3.5 million people
living in an area of roughly 1,500 square miles. We provide on average
over 1.2 million rides on weekdays, making WMATA an important
contributor to the health and vitality of the regional economy.

WMATA has a history of providing emergency response training and
outreach to our regional public safety partners. WMATA opened the
Carmen E. Turner Training Facility in 2002 -- a first of its kind
facility in the United States dedicated to transit. The facility
includes a 260-foot tunnel, two Metrorail cars, a simulated
electrified third-rail for mock fire and rescue exercises and a
passenger rail emergency evacuation simulator. Since its opening,
nearly 15,000 people have been trained at this facility, which has
earned a national reputation.

In 2004, the Metro Transit Police launched a training initiative
entitled "Managing Metro Emergencies". During a two-year period, this
course provided over 5,000 regional law enforcement, fire and rescue,
Department of Transportation and WMATA operations personnel enhanced
training for mitigating, evacuating, transporting and recovery from a
major service disruption in our system.

WMATA has recently intensified its focus on emergency management
activities by creating an office of emergency management. In December
of 2008, Mr. Peter LaPorte was hired to oversee this new office and is
a direct report to Metro's chief of police. With the recommitment of
six internal staff and hiring of five personnel, Mr. LaPorte has
created a team that has over 200 years of transit based incident
response and emergency management experience.

The Office of Emergency Management will oversee a new training
initiative involving the delivery of incident-command system training
to an estimated 8,000 Metro employees. Funded through the Department
of Homeland Security's Transit Security Grant Program, and the
regional urban area security initiative funds, this program will raise
awareness of security-related issues and instruct operational
employees to implement the proper response procedures and command
system structure during the initial and developing phases of a Metro-
specific incident or emergency.

Above all, partnerships with first responders and regional
stakeholders are the foundation of effective emergency management.
WMATA would not be able to manage emergencies without capitalizing on
the strength of our partnering agencies.

Continuance of frequent training and exercises -- as well as ongoing
involvement with the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments --
are the primary ways for building and improving our relationships with
external agencies.

WMATA is critically tied to the success of the numerous special events
that take place in this region. The most recent of these large-scale
special events was the 2009 presidential inauguration, which resulted
in the largest crowd served in WMATA's history, providing 1.5 million
individual trips on both bus and rail.

The success on Inauguration Day is proof of not only WMATA's ability
to work within the region, but the region's propensity to work
together.

When an unplanned incident does occur in the national capitol region,
it is our responsibility to ensure customer safety, minimize the
delay, and get people moving again.

WMATA's actions on September 11, 2001, provide a good example of our
ability to move large numbers of people during a regional emergency.
However, it must be said that while WMATA is willing and prepared to
operate in less-than-ideal circumstances, we do have limits in our
capacity to move passengers. Even in the best conditions, the region
always faces traffic management challenges.

To address this, WMATA in conjunction with its regional partners has
been active in the development of the Metropolitan Area Transportation
Operations Coordination Program, otherwise known as MATOC. MATOC is an
area-wide situational awareness effort that enhances coordination
between the region's transportation providers.

Thanks to funds appropriated by the federal government that make
emergency management a priority, WMATA and the region have done a
great job dealing with and responding to emergencies and planning for
events. Continued investment in emergency management initiatives such
as proper equipment, training efforts, planned processes, response
measures, recovery protocols, and overall prevention techniques is
imperative for enhancing the national capitol region's mobility,
safety and quality of life.

The men and women of WMATA will continue to strengthen our
capabilities and relationships with our local, regional and federal
partners to ensure a safer, more secure and better prepared region.

Thank you.

DEL. NORTON: Thank you, Mr. Delinski.

Mr. Nichols, do you have any additional statement at this time?

MR. NICHOLS: The only thing I'd like to add, ma'am, is that I
obviously already submitted a statement for the record, but the one
thing I'd like to highlight is that you'll hear today in the previous
panel and this panel the need to coordinate and share resources within
the Washington Metropolitan area. There is no one agency that is well-
suited to work in an unilateral manner to handle the types of
emergencies that occur in Washington or could potentially occur in
Washington. We've seen that even something with the evacuation of the
Mall to coordination for the inauguration and the events on 9/11.

One of the priorities of Chief Morris, myself, and Gloria Jarmer (sp),
our CEO, was to make sure that the United States Capitol Police is
able to obtain a new radio system that allows us to be a full partner
with interoperability. To have plans is fine, but the lifeblood of the
agency is in this region to coordinate is our ability to communicate
with each other. And when you have a key partner who has limited
interoperable capabilities to talk to the people who are seated at
this table certainly it causes a concern.

We're working very closely with U.S. Capitol Police Board and the
communities of jurisdiction to make sure that we have the authority
and the appropriations to obtain this system and make sure that we can
fully integrate with the Washington Metropolitan Area law enforcement
public safety agencies should there be a major situation develop that
requires an evacuation of the area or an event that caused us to bring
resources into our jurisdiction so we can communicate and coordinate
those rescue and law enforcement activities.

DEL. NORTON: Thank you, Mr. Nichols. Let me understand your testimony.
Your radio system is not now fully integrated with even the D.C., the
Metropolitan Police Department, which is the largest police department
in the region. Is that so?

MR. NICHOLS: We have limited interoperability with Metropolitan Police
Department, but we don't have full interoperability. When we bring
some of our other partners who are seated at the table here on line,
we have limited interoperability.

The other problem that we have with our current radio system is, it's
not encrypted so that when we're handling an emergency situation
everybody's little brother with a scanner can listen to what we're
doing and that therefore compromises our operation.

DEL. NORTON: I'm going to go now to my good friend Representative
Edwards

Enhanced Coverage Linking
Representative Edwards  -Search using:
  a.. Biographies Plus News
  b.. News, Most Recent 60 Days
for the first series of questions. I just wanted to make sure I
understood what you were saying. And this testimony is that even as we
speak the capitol police are not fully interoperable with the region
or even with the D.C. police department located right here.

Ms. Edwards.

REP. EDWARDS: Well, thank you, Madam Chairwoman. And also thank you
for enabling Mr. Herron to come to this panel, as I have to depart.

It's exactly this point of operability of systems that I wanted to
focus on, and so I appreciate Assistant Chief Nichols your raising
that. And I want to direct this question also to Mr. Herron because my
understanding is that Prince George's County Police Department also
has a radio communications operability concern and deficit. The
Montgomery County Police Department also has an interoperability
problem in addition to the Capitol Police and the District of Columbia
Police. And I'm not sure, Mr. Deli ski -- perhaps you can tell me
whether WMATA suffers the same deficit—because this is a huge concern.

Here we are in a region and our major law enforcement agencies have
limited capacity in an emergency situation to communicate with each
other and to do it in a secure fashion. This is perhaps, and this is a
tremendous deficit for one of the most significant regions in the
country. And I think that as we look to—and this is an authorizing
committee and not an appropriating committee, but I would say to my
colleagues that as we go forward this is a huge deficit that needs to
be cleared up. And it can't go any longer.

We are perhaps just lucky that we haven't had the kind of emergency
event that would require us to draw on our communications capacity and
then suffer for that deficit. And so I'd appreciate, Mr. Herron,
first, your comments about the Prince George's County interoperability
deficit.

MR. HERRON: Yes, ma'am. If an emergency occurred today, Prince
George's County first responders would not be able to seamlessly
communicate with our partners in the national capitol region. As you
know, during the 9/11 attacks our first responders responded to the
Pentagon and had to be handed out radios so we could communicate with
those first responders.

We recently purchased a new radio system to replace our existing
40-year-old radio system. We're hopeful to be on line with that system
within the next 15 months. It is the latest and the greatest
encryption, and we will be able to communicate effectively with our
partners in the national capitol region.

REP. EDWARDS: Mr. Delinski?

MR. DELINSKI: I share your concerns with interoperability as well.
It's certainly a problem that's been challenging the Metro Transit
Police Department. As you know, we operate in all three major
jurisdictions here and communicate with the local police departments.
We have some limited capacity to do so. Metropolitan Police for one on
limited basis and U.S. Park Police come to mind.

However, this issue has also been brought up through the Council of
Governments here in Washington, D.C., and using Urban Area Security
Initiative funds we've purchased several thousand radios that
obviously do communicate with each other in their storage caches
strategically placed through this region. So if there is a major event
we do have that option of pulling out those several thousand radios
and distributing them to the first responders on the scene of a major
incident.

So we have that option while we wait for technology to be able to
bring our radio systems together.

REP. EDWARDS: And Major General Schwartz, can you describe your
communications capacity with the law enforcement agencies and other
first responders in the region?

MAJ. GEN. SCHWARTZ: Yes, ma'am. Thank you for the question. First of
all, let me talk about the framework in which we communicate. Our
joint operation center in the District of Columbia is tied to the D.C.
Emergency Management Agency through several communications mechanisms,
(rebioC) (sp) being one of those and radios if you have to be deployed
to the streets.

It's further tied to other EOCs or JOCs within the region, within the
FEMA region 3. So we have a 24/7 capability to communicate to our
joint operation centers within this region.

If we are deployed to the street to assist the Metropolitan Police
Department or the Park Police or whoever requires our service, we are
then issued land mobile radios or hand-helds to communicate back to
our JOC and then out to different regions so that they can report back
what is going on.

So because we are not on the streets 24/7 the pressures that the law
enforcement agencies may feel are not realized by the Guard.

REP. EDWARDS: Thank you. And then finally, Mr. Herron, what would be
the cost for a fully interoperable communications system for Prince
George's County in this really critical metropolitan region?

MR. HERRON: The cost is $65 million, and as I indicated we did sign a
contract with a vendor. We're moving forward with the placement of the
towers and the testing and so forth. And I must say that there have
been the Burn Grant accounts and the UAC's funding has helped us
facilitate the purchase of this equipment. And hopefully within the
next 15 months barring any other issues we will be able to go live
with this radio system.

REP. EDWARDS: Thank you. And then lastly before I have to depart, my
other question was also about medical emergency services. I have been
really concerned that at a time we need to step up and think about our
regional medical emergency services and how we would handle a
disaster, we're seeing for example at Andrews Air Force Base, Major
General Schwartz, where some of your units are supported. Malcolm
Grove Medical Center will be declining actually in its medical
services at that facility. Prince George's Hospital Center is under
great strain even though it has the region's trauma unit there.

And I worry about the capacity of -- and we will hear from Washington
Hospital Center and the American Red Cross later on about our capacity
to deliver the kind of medical emergency services that we need,
especially outside of the District of Columbia presuming an event that
might require movement of great masses of people out into the suburbs,
and particular the southern suburbs in Prince George's County that are
more adjacent to the capitol complex.

And so I wonder, Mr. Herron, because I'm looking right now at how we
actually might support a much more regional approach on medical
service delivery for the purposes of homeland security.

MR. HERRON: Yes, ma'am. In the national capitol region we have been
working together over the past couple years to deal with the capacity
in the hospitals, our search capacity to speak. We rely heavily on
MOUs to support one another, and our hospitals have these MOUs in
place as well.

We have purchased several mobile medical buses to transport large
numbers of victims to hospitals. We are not at the place where we
really need to be to address a large capacity, so to speak. We have
moved, are moving in the right direction, but there is plenty of work
to be done.

REP. EDWARDS: Thank you. And Madam Chairwoman, I yield, and I look
forward to both reading and looking at the testimony of the remainder
of this panel and the subsequent one. And I appreciate your enabling
me to ask this line of questions. And thank you all for your presence
here today. Thank you.

MR. HERRON: Thank you.

MR. DELINSKI: Thank you.

DEL. NORTON: Well, thank you Congresswoman Edwards. We're very glad
you live in the region so that even when Congress is dismissed you're
willing to travel from Prince George's to offer the very important and
helpful comments and questions you have offered this afternoon.

Let me follow up on the Congresswoman's questions on interoperability
because it may involve a real life circumstance. That involves the
enforcement, what we understand to be a multi-law enforcement approach
to events like the inauguration. Now there's been a report issued thus
far, and I've indicated that we are not prepared until the GAO report
is issued to go very deeply because we haven't had an independent
report on what happened. But we do know that from constituents from
around the country that there were people who could not get out of the
3rd Street Tunnel. And some have identified this as perhaps the most
important, if not the only, Homeland Security issue that arose during
what was an extraordinarily successful event in other ways.

And yet there were perhaps hundreds of people who were told to make
their way by walking through the 3rd Street Tunnel; did and could not
get out.

I'm wondering if this was a question of interoperability, whether any
of you participated in communication with one another so that these
people -- and we are told were not even told why they were being held.
Did the Capitol Police know about this? Did Metro? Did you, General
Schwartz? Did you, Mr. Herron? How did this occur, and was there any
communication among the agencies who appear to have coordinated so
well in other regards the inauguration?

MR. NICHOLS: I can probably, in the best position to answer that right
now. There was a joint report that was done by the agencies who were
involved in the planning of the inauguration that addressed this, and
some of the other issues we found which turned out to be rather
significant challenges with regard to the security plan and then
balance the security plan with the level of access that we wanted to
provide people to the various venues in the city.

Essentially everything was compounded by the fact that there was an
unprecedented, almost 2 million people in the city. Since that had
never been experienced before, we didn't really have an historical
perspective on how that would strain infrastructure, how that would
test the communications capabilities of the law enforcement public
safety agencies, and just generally the security plans that we put in
place that day.

I'll be happy to send the report over to you if you haven't had a
chance to --

DEL. NORTON: Well, actually, I'm trying to find out from all four of
you whether you had any communication during the time that people were
in the 3rd Street Tunnel. I'm trying to find out whether
interoperability or the communications system was partly at fault
here. Did any of you know that there were people?

I'll go down. You knew, Mr. Nichols?

MR. NICHOLS: We knew there were people in the southbound to the 3rd
Street Tunnel because that was a designated pedestrian route. The
command level officials at the various multi-agency command centers
did not know that there were people in the northbound tube. The
northbound tube was never intended for pedestrian queuing.

DEL. NORTON: Well, how did they get in there?

MR. NICHOLS: Officers on the ground level, in order to overcome
crowding challenges that were taking place in the northwest sector of
the city, directed people down there to relieve pressure.
Unfortunately --

DEL. NORTON: This is interesting because this is the kind of unplanned
circumstance -- and the officer on the ground has to make a decision.
And actually, if you think about it, it would seem to be a good kind
of on-the-ground decision, but you'd expect it to be made -- the
nothing that you're getting a lot of crowding: "look, here's this
tunnel that is closed, it won't have vehicular traffic, let's send
them through this tunnel." It makes perfect sense as long as everybody
knows it.

Was the failure of communication related at all to interoperability?

MR. NICHOLS: Yes. I believe that was one of the factors. We had a
multi-agency command center going on, but in a multi-agency command
center what we're really doing is listening to about 15 or 20 or even
more independent radio transmissions from the independent agencies --

DEL. NORTON: Including for example, anybody can get on that now
because you're tuning in to other systems rather than having your own
system?

MR. NICHOLS: That's correct. So there was no one radio system that you
could monitor to get a global view of what was going on in the city
that day. Conversely, should there have been a major situation
develop, the same would have been true. We would have had to have
listened to all these multitude of different agencies' transmissions
in order to coordinate our activities and tie operations together.
So --

DEL. NORTON: Including, for example, Mr. Nichols, if somebody, you
know, these incidences we had here and the one which is most indelibly
in our minds of course is the incident that occurred here in the
Capitol. Here you had the tunnel open, you had millions of people here
almost none of them with real tickets. Now if among them there had
been someone with a military style weapon who decided to open fire,
what would have been the consequence there? When would you have known
about it? How would that have been handled?

MR. NICHOLS: Well, we had contingency plans in place to handle any
number of situations that could occur including active shooter. We'd
actually had tabletop exercises on how the various agencies would
respond depending on whose jurisdiction the event was taking place at
any given time. But again, the potential for something like that to
occur, occurs every day. It's compounded exponentially when you have
large crowds at a national security event like that where you have
instant media attention of what's going on.

DEL. NORTON: And of course it would be compounded if in fact there was
free access to military style weapons which would make it much easier
to mow down people in such a crowd if you happened to be either a
crazy person or a person intent upon doing harm.

MR. NICHOLS: That's an important point because obviously our focus is
on continent, enduring constitution government and protection of the
leadership of the United States because everybody was outside of the
west door of the Capitol.

You had the entire top level of the government at one place at one
time. That's certainly a significant security concern.

But, you can't discount the fact that there doesn't necessarily have
to be an attack upon that area in order to completely disrupt and
overtake the inaugural activities of that day. And we were very
cognizant of that. We always are.

The agencies that are involved in the inauguration have a
Constitutional requirement to make sure that the president is sworn in
at noon on the 20th, like the Constitution says. And anything that has
the potential of disrupting that -- whether it's an active shooter on
the Mall, or something that occur(s) here on the Capitol grounds, we
have to guard against that.

And as the threats proliferate -- through access to weapons, or
whatever, the difficulty of making sure that we hit that
Constitutional requirement for the inauguration is even more
difficult.

DEL. NORTON: So, would you be as alert today, in looking for the lone
gunman, single shooter, as looking for somebody carrying a nuclear
device -assuming that was possible, into this area?

MR. NICHOLS: Yes, ma'am. We have a -- we run a spectrum of threats;
and we look at, we look at threats based upon the probability and the
consequence; and we weigh our resource allocation toward that scale.

DEL. NORTON: Well, let's talk probability and consequence. Isn't there
a greater probability for a single shooter to come in spraying a crowd
or a motorcade than it is for someone to bring in a nuclear device
today?

MR. NICHOLS: Yes. I think if you look at some of the terrorist attacks
that have taken place just recently -- Mumbai is probably the best
example of what a small group of people who are heavily armed can do
to disrupt an entire city, we are not immune from that.

We've seen, and you've talked about it, talked about it also, what
happened on January 24th -- I'm sorry, July 24, 1998, where we had one
individual with one handgun, and the disruption that he caused, and
two police officers dead and a citizen wounded.

So, yes, it's a significant concern. It's a significant test of the
planning and response capabilities of the law enforcement agencies in
this city, and it's something we have to be cognizant of every single
day.

DEL. NORTON: Thank you, chief.

Now, I'd like to go down the line and ask any of you if you knew --
because you have all the things that happened, most of the things you
would expect to happen. I think what people didn't expect was that
officers would have to make an almost instant decision about the
crowding and sending people through a tunnel. As it turns out, some of
those had tickets. In fact, many of those had tickets and did not get
out. I'm trying to learn whether or not, with the present system of
operability, if any of you were informed of the fact that there were
people in the Third Street tunnel.

Mr. Delinski.

MR. DELINSKI: I will say that communications, up to and including the
inauguration itself, were very robust. The planning was tremendous.
The event was tremendous.

We had officers and officials assigned to many different command posts
throughout the region that were able to feed back information to our
EOC at Metro, so we'd get real-time information, and so forth. So, an
extensive antenna out there, getting as much information as we could.

However, to my knowledge, we were not notified of the Third Street
condition. There was no request made to help alleviate that. Of
course, we had our hands full with Metro-related issues --
transporting 1.5 million people --

DEL. NORTON: You would have had your hands full, Mr. Delinski, if
there had been a shoot-out in there, but I bet you would have
dispatched Transit police to help in the event that there was such an
event.

MR. DELINSKI: Absolutely.

DEL. NORTON: I'm just trying to hear -- I'm not casting blame. If
anything, we're trying to help, because we are shocked, amazed and
awed that there would not be interoperability among all those related,
and that you'd have to do what it looks like a jerry-built system if
you want interoperability.

Major General Schwartz, you had a major role to play. In fact, you
were the commander of all the forces, not only the D.C. National Guard
but all forces at the inauguration. Were you informed, through radio
or other kinds of contact, that people were stuck in the Third Street
tunnel?

GEN. SCHWARTZ: Ma'am, the Joint Task Force, D.C. was not missioned to
provide support to the tunnel. We had 7,000 --

DEL. NORTON: Yes, sir. I'm just trying to know if you knew about it.

GEN. SCHWARTZ: No, ma'am, we did not know about it.

Now, do we point towards a physical communication problem or just
failure to communicate? And that's what we have to look at. The
officer who was probably sending folks down into the tunnel probably
had no situational awareness of what was happening in the tunnel.
Therefore, was it a failure to communicate or a communications
problem, physically?

DEL. NORTON: Well, we'll find out. But, in this age of high-
technology, it doesn't seem to us, if there were a state-of-the-art
system available to officers, that there would have been lack of
notice of all officers. And, again, although there were people who got
sick in the tunnel -- handled very well, you hardly heard anything
about it.

Although people were -- continued to be joyful about the inauguration,
our job and your job is to think of worst-case scenarios. The worst
case scenario, that I know from speaking to a number of you about
planning, was not that there would be a lot of folks there -- you've
already, you had already shown you could handle lots of people, but
that something unforeseen would happen.

As it turns out, this was the unforeseen event. And it happened, in
part, because officers were trying to relieve crowding, not because of
some outside force. And yet some outside force could have taken
advantage of the failure to communicate.

Mr. Herron, you are a public safety officer as well. Do you know
whether Prince George's officials, or you, were informed that
people -- I'm sure some from your own county, were stuck in the Third
Street tunnel?

MR. HERRON: Madame, I was in the Emergency Operations Center during
the entire event and we were not informed.

DEL. NORTON: And this is the Emergency Operations Center of where --
of what location?

MR. HERRON: Prince George's County.

DEL. NORTON: And you were not informed?

MR. HERRON: No, ma'am.

DEL. NORTON: I think that the testimony here, of very competent
officers, is all that needs to be said about this appropriation period
and interoperability.

Chief Nichols, isn't it true that some funds have been allocated to
begin, at least, on interoperability among the region and the District
of Columbia police?

MR. NICHOLS: Yes, ma'am. I believe that there are -- there's a lot of
money that was given to the Department of Homeland Security to
distribute across the nation with regard to grant money for local and
state law enforcement agencies.

The U.S. Capitol Police, because of the fact that we're Legislative
Branch, can't receive grant money. So, we were appropriated a
supplemental appropriation to begin planning for our new radio system,
and we have requested additional funds in the current bill --

DEL. NORTON: So, how far along are you, sir?

MR. NICHOLS: We're pretty far along in the planning stages right now.
We're being monitored very closely by the committees of jurisdiction
to make that we are within the realm of --

DEL. NORTON: Chief, does that mean not only the D.C. police
department, but Metro? Does that also mean the region -- that you'd be
interoperable with the entire region?

MR. NICHOLS: Yes. We would be interoperable with the entire region.

We project right now, if we get the funding that we're requesting and
the authority to move forward, it would still be about three years
before we get our system completely on-line and up and running. That's
why the chief has made this such a priority, because nobody can
predict, in the span of three years, what we're really going to be
facing, not only within the Capitol Complex but within the region.

So, this is something that has a very high priority, so we can get it
on-line and get down the road with fulfilling our mission.

DEL. NORTON: Yes, General Schwartz?

GEN. SCHWARTZ: Madam, may I just add that if the system is going to be
delivered in three years, we have to look at upgrades to the existing
system to make sure that they can all interoperate or upgraded
together.

DEL. NORTON: And it looks like, between now and a fully interoperable
system, we're into jerry-built systems at some considerable risk, I
take it, to homeland security?

MR. NICHOLS: You're right.

Right now we're making do with what we have. I believe that,
obviously, from the testimony today, we're not the only agency that's
in this position. But, the agencies in the region have to continue to
bridge the gaps that we experience with regard to our communications
capabilities.

DEL. NORTON: Mr. Herron, could I ask you a question.

Once there was evacuation of New Orleans, everybody talked about, how
can we evacuate? Some of us have emphasized "stay in place," that
there are few events where there would be a need to evacuate whole
populations.

For example, we have floods in this area but seldom have we had a
100-year event, as they are called. However, it could be that there
would be the need to evacuate people from the District of Columbia.

It's a pretty big jurisdiction. You've spoken of a place -- a shelter.
I want to make sure I have the -- the places that are mentioned, which
have been mentioned. Got these out of order, okay.

MR. HERRON: Ritchie Coliseum and Show Place Arena?

DEL. NORTON: Ritchie Colisetum (sic), Show Place --

MR. HERRON: Arena.

DEL. NORTON: -- Arena. How many people could be sheltered in these two
facilities?

MR. HERRON: I think, combined, we can probably shelter up to --
probably 3,000 people.

DEL. NORTON: If more than 3,000 poured out, think about where Prince
George's is located.

MR. HERRON: Then we're in trouble. To be quite honest with you, we're
in trouble.

You know, we've asked our citizens to be prepared to make a plan to
shelter-in-place, to prepare for the future. In Louisiana, we had more
than 2,000 residents migrate to Prince George's County to stay with
relatives, which impacted our capacity. They self-evacuated and stayed
with relatives in Prince George's County, and it was a -- it was a
strain on our resources.

DEL. NORTON: So, do you advise shelter-in-place unless told to
evacuate?

MR. HERRON: I think every citizen should have a plan to shelter-
in-place; they have alternative housing with friends and relatives
that they can migrate to in case of an emergency.

Of course there will be that segment of society who will not have the
resources to do that, and that's when the government must be prepared
to respond to the needs of those citizens.

DEL. NORTON: Most of the time, when there's been an event of some
kind, you don't know what it is. The Chief has -- Chief Nichols has
testified that it is likely to be a spraying event of somebody -- some
shooter, as we had here in the Capitol, as it is to be some exotic
event.

Let me ask -- so, therefore, the first thing is we don't know
anything. That's why the questioning that Ms. Edwards and I have done
on operability in the first place. I mean, before we tell people to
stay in place -- (laughs) -- we would like to know what the event is
so we can know what we're talking about.

It puts us in a terrible position, you in a terrible position, to tell
people to stay in place or to go, without being able to speak to one
another -- with everybody trying to get on these little jerry- built
systems that you have concocted. And, by the way, in case of a
terrorist event, others being able to listen in to what it is you are
saying.

I'd like to know, in the event of an emergency, whether known or
unknown, whether you would expect a unified command. Who is in charge
of making decisions?

GEN. SCHWARTZ: Ma'am, I would think the local incident commander is in
charge. That's the first person on the scene.

DEL. NORTON: That would mean whoever in the jurisdiction, like Mr.
Herron?

GEN. SCHWARTZ: I think the first responders, which is normally police
or fire, would be on the scene. And then the supporting packages will
come in to assist that incident commander.

MR. DELINSKI: He's exactly right -- if I could follow up on that.

When there is an incident, such as an active shooter, the first law
enforcement official on the scene would set up an incident command.
Any responding units, whether it be from that particular agency or
other agencies, would report to incident command and ask for
directions, get information, and so forth, and feed that information
back to their departments as well.

If it's a rescue situation -- like, there may be a fire, or something
like that, or if it was a rescue situation, it would be in the hands
of the fire department. At that point, law enforcement would respond
to incident command, and then work with them to mitigate the
situation.

DEL. NORTON: Could I ask you this question, Mr. Delinski.

I noted in your testimony -- if I can find it, 2008 Metropolitan
Transit Police Department investigated 224 suspicious packages and
people, nine unknown substances, 20 bomb threats in your facilities --
"investigated," it doesn't mean you found anything --

MR. DELINSKI: Correct.

DEL. NORTON: -- and I do appreciate that. Did any of these -- did any
of these investigations involve guns?

MR. DELINSKI: There were a few incidents that were reported of
suspicious people that were seen carrying weapons.

DEL. NORTON: When you see -- of course, your system transmits,
transports people throughout the region, and especially to the
District of Columbia, which is the hub of the region -- if you see a
person with a weapon in one of your facilities, how do you respond
today?

MR. DELINSKI: If the weapon is concealed, obviously you approach that
person and get as much information -- obviously, maintaining a safe
distance; watching the person's hands, and so forth; doing the --

DEL. NORTON: How would you know if it were concealed, sir?

MR. DELINSKI: Because of the bulge, maybe, in the side. Maybe someone
else had seen it previously. It may have been moderately displayed
underneath his jacket, that where it was sticking out -- the butt of
the gun, or something along those lines.

Obviously, if the weapon is out, we make the immediate police
challenges to, you know, "raise your hands, stop what you're doing."
And we have the person, if the weapon is in their hand, "drop the
weapon on the ground;" move it away from them; and then spread them
out in a prone position on the ground to where we can go and secure
them; and then investigate the circumstances that led us to that
point.

DEL. NORTON: I believe, if I'm not -- I believe that Virginia does
allow concealed weapons --

MR. DELINSKI: Correct.

DEL. NORTON: -- how do you handle the fact that one part of the -- I'm
not sure Maryland does, however --

MR. DELINSKI: No, it's illegal.

DEL. NORTON: Maryland does not.

MR. HERRON: You have to have a permit issued by the Maryland State
Police in order to carry a concealed weapon.

DEL. NORTON: So, you can have one with a permit.

MR. HERRON: Yes, ma'am.

DEL. NORTON: It may require a permit, for that matter, in Virginia.
But, the point is, you can conceal, carry -- carry, in many places, in
Virginia, for sure. How does the Metro handle three jurisdictions --
all with vast amounts of the federal presence, who have their own
quite different gun laws?

MR. DELINKSI: It's complicated, to say the least. I mean, that's one
of the reasons why our recruits are selected through a vigorous
background process. We go through three training academies. We're
certified in all three states, as we referred to -- (audio break) --
the District of Columbia --

DEL. NORTON: So, you have to know the laws, essentially, in all three
states?

MR. DELINSKI: We have to learn the laws in all three states --
correct.

DEL. NORTON: So, you would, if we passed a whole new gun law in the
District of Columbia -- so new that it said, you don't have any more
gun laws in the District of Columbia, would you have to retrain every
officer?

MR. DELINSKI: All 450 sworn members we would have to retrain -- yes.

DEL. NORTON: Are you funded to retrain all sworn officers of the
Metropolitan Transit Authority?

MR. DELINSKI: There is currently no funding available for that now.

DEL. NORTON: How would you handle bus travel? Do bus drivers assume
any responsibility -- they are not law enforcement officers, for
people carrying weapons? How would they be expected to respond, when
coming from two jurisdictions which do have their gun -- their own
local gun laws, to a jurisdiction which has no gun laws whatsoever --

MR. DELINSKI: We ask our employees --

DEL. NORTON: -- the nation's capital.

MR. DELINSKI: Yes. We ask our employees, particularly those on the
buses and in the rail system, to be vigilant in observing suspicious
behavior. And we ask that if they do see this type of activity -- a
concealed weapon, or otherwise, that they report to us immediately. We
do not ask them to intervene or take any type of police action; or be
very limited in their contact with any type of suspicious person.

DEL. NORTON: Would such officers, would such, excuse me, personnel --
and, in particular, I'm thinking about personnel who may see people
who board the vehicle, such as a bus driver -- would such personnel
have to be retrained as well if there were no gun laws in the District
of Columbia, and they traveled on vehicles between the District of
Columbia and other jurisdictions?

MR. DELINSKI: Currently, there is no training in the law for other
employees outside the police department --

DEL. NORTON: Well, how do they know whether to call if there's a
concealed weapon, for example?

MR. DELINSKI: We ask them -- through Public Service Announcements, and
also public awareness campaigns, internally and externally, to follow
those procedures, and not take any type of direct action, and contact
us and let us do that.

DEL. NORTON: Mr. Herron, did you have something to add to that?

MR. HERRON: Yes, ma'am. If I may take this opportunity to speak
briefly about the --

DEL. NORTON: Please.

MR. HERRON: -- amendment. As you know, I'm the public safety director
in Prince George's County. As part of my responsibilities, I direct
the police department, and the first department, the department of
corrections. Prior to my appointment as public safety director, I was
a Maryland State trooper for 27 years, and I proudly served in several
jurisdictions throughout the State of Maryland, including Prince
George's County.

During my tenure, 13 of my colleagues were killed in the line of duty.
Two of these colleagues were personal friends of mine and they were
killed at the hands of men, who possessed illegal firearms. I
personally was involved in a shooting where a man, who attempted to
take my life, possessed a gun unlawfully.

If this legislation passes, Prince George's County -- (inaudible) --
would be in a situation where our crime would increase tremendously.
Just recently we announced a drop in crime that had reached an
all-low; hadn't been this low in 20 years. And this was because of the
work of our men and women of the police department and our citizens.

During this fight to decrease crime, two of our police officers were
killed in the line of duty -- Sergeant Richard Findley and Sergeant
Gaughan. Sergeant Gaughan was killed at the hands of a criminal who
should not have been in possession of a handgun.

In the State of Maryland, we have gun "straw purchases," where people
can buy guns legally and then give those guns to somebody who should
not possess them. With the enactment of this amendment, in the
District of Columbia it will triple the "straw purchases" in the
region. And I can tell you, from experience from a local level, that
that would cause an increased amount of gun violence in Prince
George's County and throughout the National Capital Region.

DEL. NORTON: Mr. Herron, your testimony's important, especially your
testimony concerning an increase, and -- as you've been able to
report, a recently decrease in gun violence in Prince George's County.
The District had as many as 430-440 homicides in the early '90s, and
it's down to something -- a little over 200 now.

We cannot imagine how rapid, or how savage, would be the increase in
gun violence if there were no gun laws in the District of Columbia at
all. Whatever one thinks of tight gun laws, all one has to imagine is
a jurisdiction where there's just none at all, and you were left to
your own devices.

Now, let me ask you, Mr. Herron, as a public safety officer, how would
the absence of gun laws here in the District of Columbia complicate
any evacuation activities? You have your own gun laws. We would have
none. You could stockpile assault weapons. You could have any -- you
could have gone to Maryland. You could have gone to Virginia. Maybe
when you're leaving you want to take your guns with you.

How would the presence of no gun laws, and, therefore, the
accumulation of guns here, complicate evacuation and other activities
associated with a natural or man-made disaster?

MR. HERRON: I think the absence of gun laws, Madame Chair, would
impair our efforts in the National Capital Region to keep our citizens
safe. It's important that we have these layers of security, and the
interdiction of illegal guns is one of those layers. If we are not
able to control, or we are in partnership with a jurisdiction that has
no gun laws at all, it would definitely impede or impact not only
evacuations but the safety of our citizens in the National Capital
Region.

You asked a question about the training of police officers, additional
resources. You know, currently the Maryland State Police is
responsible for registering handguns and the purchase of handguns. If,
in fact, this burden would be put on the State of Maryland, I don't
think the State of Maryland has the resources to be able to -- have to
register handguns from another jurisdiction.

DEL. NORTON: Would guns be allowed in any of the shelters where you
would receive people from other jurisdictions or from your own
jurisdiction?

MR. HERRON: No guns would be allowed in any shelters unless you were a
law enforcement officer.

DEL. NORTON: Of course -- (inaudible) -- interoperability, it might be
hard for people to know that --

MR. HERRON: Yes, ma'am.

DEL. NORTON: -- if any kind of event were to occur now.

GEN. SCHWARTZ: Similarly, with the D.C. Armory, now that we have metal
detectors on each of our entrances we'll be able to detect if any
weapons would be coming into the building.

DEL. NORTON: I wonder if -- no, that may be under federal law.

Let me ask all four of you about layers. Again, this comes from the
testimony that we have received in hearings of the Homeland Security
committee, where the mythology (sic) of layer after layer after layer,
local level -- certain things happen there, certain things happen at
the state, and the cumulative effect, if I may summarize it, is that
you are able to provide security in a region as high risk as this.

I'd like to speak about layering, and what would happen if one
layer -- namely gun laws in the District of Columbia, the nation's
capital, were to disappear.

Let's start with Mr. Herron, and go on down.

MR. HERRON: Madame Chair, I was present when you asked this question
previously. I think that, without doubt, that if that layer was
removed it would impact homeland security in this region.

It's important to have layers. It's important to have collaboration
and cooperation. It's important to know what happens in other's
jurisdictions about the sale and the purchase of guns, and things of
this nature.

I am very concerned, our county executive is very concerned about this
pending amendment and how it's going to impact our citizens in Prince
George's County.

DEL. NORTON: Major General Schwartz, you, of course, are perhaps most
aware of the military-style weapons. I know that you have served in
Iraq. I'd like you to describe the notion of layering, which, I
understand, goes on also on the ground when you're in a theater of
war.

GEN. SCHWARTZ: Madame, first to clear the record and get it straight,
I was not in Iraq, but my troops were in Iraq.

But, on the topic of layering, I think the first thing we have to do
is the education of all citizens in this area so that they know the
laws, so that they can assist the local authorities with this problem.
If all citizens are fully aware of what the laws are, what the issues
are --

DEL. NORTON: But, see, I'm not at the citizen level, I'm now asking
for officers. I'm trying to find out -- I understand that, you know,
the citizen layer has to be aware. I'm assuming that the citizen
layer, by the way, is not aware --

GEN. SCHWARTZ: Right.

DEL. NORTON: -- I'm not going to assume what millions of people know,
I'm trying to find out about the layering provided by various
authorities available to us.

GEN. SCHWARTZ: Yes, ma'am. I think that in the law enforcement arena
all layers are extremely important, and we cannot eliminate any one of
those layers as there will be a significant gap, and there the
security and safety of the entire population will be at risk.

DEL. NORTON: General Schwartz, if there had been no assault weapon ban
in the District of Columbia at the time of the inauguration, would
that have complicated or affected the National Guard security that you
were called upon to provide?

GEN. SCHWARTZ: Yes, ma'am, it would have affected the briefings that
our men and women received before going out on their mission,
especially in the Mall where there were no screening required for the
approximately large -- the large number of folks --

DEL. NORTON: Well, we -- let's make that point clear. There was
screening if you happened to be close in, and to have a ticket. But,
if there were two million people on the Mall, surely a million-and-a-
half were completely unscreened individuals.

Go ahead, sir.

GEN. SCHWARTZ: Yes, ma'am. (As a) matter of fact, they all were
unscreened. They would only be screened if they were going into the
parade corridor or close to the Capitol. So, it was a concern, and we
were very vigilant in making sure -- and, as you heard earlier, we had
mechanisms in place to conquer what may happen, and we were very
fortunate that nothing happened.

DEL. NORTON: Mr. Delinski -- going on down the line.

MR. DELINSKI: One of the things that we pride ourselves in at WMATA is
our very low crime rate. The chances of someone being a victim of a
Part 1 crime in the system, meaning someone --

DEL. NORTON: And a Part 1 crime is?

MR. DELINSKI: Part 1 crime -- (inaudible) -- more of the serious
crimes -- the rape, robbery, homicides, and so forth, are very low.
The chances of being a victim of one of those Part 1 crimes is less
that three per every million riders that we have on a regular daily
basis, okay.

So, if suddenly there's this influx of weapons, that maybe this bill
may bring about, you would certainly expect that we'd see an increase
of guns in the Metro rail system, which, you can go down the road,
through this process, and say it may equate to a higher level of
crime -- which we are trying to protect the very low levels of crime
that we have.

Also, we have a very open system at Metro, okay. We do not have
security points in place, like airports --

DEL. NORTON: No screening whatsoever to get onto --

MR. DELINSKI: We have approval random bag checks at station entrances,
however it's under conditions of higher alert levels or a specific
threat against the strategy, okay. So, they're not out there every
single day.

We don't have this airport-type screening of everyone who's coming
into our system. So, I think, with this amendment's being passed, or
if it would be passed, you would certainly expect that our
vulnerability would increase as a result.

DEL. NORTON: I must compliment the Metro for apparently receiving
endless numbers of new riders. (Laughs.) You've become the most
popular ticket in town --

MR. DELINSKI: Yes. (Laughs.)

DEL. NORTON: -- and you've kept a low crime rate. Of course, more
people, more risk. And you are finding all kinds of people, including
federal officials, who decide they're going to pass up that ride and
just get on the Metro and get here.

MR. DELINKSI: That's right.

DEL. NORTON: So, that's increased as well, we know for a fact.

Finally, Chief Nichols.

MR. NICHOLS: Yes, ma'am.

Within our jurisdiction we use a concept that allows us to identify
threats the furthest point that we can. Our goal is to detect, deter,
respond to a threat, defeat that threat, and then mitigate the results
of what that threat brought to our jurisdiction.

Those principles have to interplay well with each other. And, as you
know, we're in the middle of this city, so we're not an island. Things
that occur just on other side of the street from us, even though it
may be legal in that jurisdiction, especially with regard to weapons,
doesn't diminish the concern that we have within our jurisdiction
about a potential incoming threat. So, it's a very significant issue;
it has to interplay with each other; and we do take the layers of
security, and the concentric rings of security, very seriously.

DEL. NORTON: The testimony of all four of you has been quite
indispensable to this hearing. We're trying to get a sense of the
threats to the region. We're trying to understand evacuation. We're
trying to understand what happened, of course, at the inauguration.
And, with all -- even given the criticism, I want to take this
opportunity to commend each and every one of you for a stellar
performance.

We didn't expect perfection. We didn't get it. Perhaps we didn't
expect the Third Street tunnel, but we should have expected there
would be something like that. I don't know how Metro was able to
absorb all of these people. It isn't as if you had any idea how many
you were supposed to absorb.

I do want to say, for the record, that when it became clear that --
(laughs) -- Metro had done all it could, I asked Mr. (Kato ?) to come
see me to do even more, so that the subways would be kept open beyond
what he had already agreed to do without additional resources. I want
you to know, this is one member -- and I think I have my whole region
with me, going to try to get those additional resources for what was a
Herculean job Metro did.

There just would have been no inauguration -- let's face it, without
Metro. We would've been sitting here by ourselves telling the
president, "It's 12:00 now. Metro's broken down, so nobody's come."
That's just how indispensable Metro has been. And the reason people
felt so safe, despite the crowds, was precisely because of the job
each and every one of you did during that time.

I regard it as a unplanned event. Sure, there was planning; and sure,
most of the planning worked, but I think it is most valuable because
of what you could not possibly have planned for. So, I'm going to take
this opportunity -- even given my questioning, to thank all of you for
the work you did then, and especially for your testimony concerning a
brand new threat that none of you could have contemplated and may be
upon us.

Thank you very much.