Rethinking Special Events with Craig Cooper

Happy Memorial Day and thank you to all our fallen heroes and their families, not only this weekend but every day. This month, Bob talked to Craig Cooper, an Administrative Battalion Chief with Las Vegas Fire & Rescue. Craig serves on several committees including the International Association of Fire Chief’s Urban Search and Rescue and the Nevada Joint Terrorism Task Force. He also assisted with the National Fire Prevention Association’s Active Shooter Hostile Event Response Protocols. Craig completed his Master of Arts in Security Studies from the Naval Post Graduate School with a research focus on leveraging emergent crowd behaviors in public policy and response.  You can read Craig's research at https://calhoun.nps.edu/handle/10945/67119.  Craig introduced us to the chaordic zone, which is the space between order and chaos and addresses the fact that humans will seek order in times of potential or developing chaos. This zone occurs during attacks at special events where the crowd will seek to render aid to themselves and others and move towards more order in a time of high stress. First responders may view crowds during these events as victims, but planners need to realize and plan for the people in the crowd who will be rendering aid before first responders are able to access the scene. More time needs to be spent thinking about what can happen (in a positive light) before first responders get there instead of just how things will happen once they arrive. They also discussed how dispatch centers need to be included in the planning process, a theme that may sound familiar from other episodes. Craig’s passion project, which was a surprise for us to learn, is a series of children’s books he started when his oldest daughter was little. He completed the first book, with illustrations completed by his wife, and has several more story boarded. The topic is how a single piece of misplaced trash can impact the environment. We hope Craig gets the time to finish his series and gets it published!