Wayne County Emergency Center Case Study
WOOSTER — Two officials from the Wayne County Emergency Management Agency spent four days analyzing situations being reported to the Cuyahoga County Emergency Operations Center during the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.
Director Joe Villegas spent the first two days of the convention, July 18 and 19, in the EOC, and planner Barb Pittard was there the last two days.
Both served as situation unit leaders. In their roles, they worked with representatives from the FBI, Homeland Security, law enforcement, fire, public works, public health, human services, transportation, FEMA, the Coast Guard and Red Cross.
Information would filter in from all of these partners, and during shifts worked by Villegas and Pittard, they had to decipher …show more content…
Not much later, there was another item reported about a uniform shop being robbed. As it turned out, the two incidents were not connected.
One of the weird things to arise during Pittard’s watch involved people putting stickers on police officers. When it first came across her computer, she did not think anything of it, she said. Then more officers were involved in getting stickers applied to their skin. One officer reported feeling a burning sensation when he removed it. Others reported feeling sick.
Field tests were done on the stickers, but the tests did not reveal anything, Pittard said. Stickers were sent to Columbus for further testing. “Unfortunately, I’ll probably never know the outcome of the tests, but I will try,” she said.
The stickers were rectangular and yellow. On it was written, “I am special.” What Pittard found peculiar is there were no reports of these stickers being applied to any citizens, only law enforcement officers.
During the protests, people were taking bottles into portable toilets and filling it with the chemical mixture, urine and feces in the commode, Villegas said. The belief was they would throw the them, “But, they didn’t throw the bottles,” he said. “They just carried them
Director Joe Villegas spent the first two days of the convention, July 18 and 19, in the EOC, and planner Barb Pittard was there the last two days.
Both served as situation unit leaders. In their roles, they worked with representatives from the FBI, Homeland Security, law enforcement, fire, public works, public health, human services, transportation, FEMA, the Coast Guard and Red Cross.
Information would filter in from all of these partners, and during shifts worked by Villegas and Pittard, they had to decipher …show more content…
Not much later, there was another item reported about a uniform shop being robbed. As it turned out, the two incidents were not connected.
One of the weird things to arise during Pittard’s watch involved people putting stickers on police officers. When it first came across her computer, she did not think anything of it, she said. Then more officers were involved in getting stickers applied to their skin. One officer reported feeling a burning sensation when he removed it. Others reported feeling sick.
Field tests were done on the stickers, but the tests did not reveal anything, Pittard said. Stickers were sent to Columbus for further testing. “Unfortunately, I’ll probably never know the outcome of the tests, but I will try,” she said.
The stickers were rectangular and yellow. On it was written, “I am special.” What Pittard found peculiar is there were no reports of these stickers being applied to any citizens, only law enforcement officers.
During the protests, people were taking bottles into portable toilets and filling it with the chemical mixture, urine and feces in the commode, Villegas said. The belief was they would throw the them, “But, they didn’t throw the bottles,” he said. “They just carried them