Metro goes mobile

The simple things in life often make the difference.

Things like food, shelter and an organized environment where chaos can be brought under control.

Such explains the new white trailer Metro Police officers have recently started hauling to crises in the valley -- a practical tool to centralize complex operations and make life a little easier for police.

It's referred to as the mobile command center, a 6,000-pound Wells Cargo model purchased for $22,000. It extends just over 20 feet in length, can be hitched to Metro trucks and offers police two simply furnished rooms on the inside.

The back end includes a bathroom, counter space, a microwave, cellular phones, and radios to monitor and communicate on police and aircraft frequencies. The walls have erasable boards for mapping out plans and charting operations.

A table and chairs in the front end are set up for planning, debriefing and negotiations with barricaded suspects. A television and videocassette recorder permit police during standoffs to view TV media coverage -- often a critical issue should cameras broadcast live SWAT maneuvers during standoffs with gunmen.

The rig has its own running water and feeds its heater, air conditioner and other power needs through a generator that can be powered by batteries or propane. A retractable awning on the side will prove desirable in the summer months when shade is hard to come by.

Police say the trailer is an investment that proved its worth the first night on the job, and two times just this past week.

In December, Metro's Search and Rescue team had been called out to Red Rock National Conservation Area after a hiking party met disaster on White Rock.

"It was 18 degrees and 30 to 40 mph winds," Sgt. Clint Bassett said. The trailer "was a life-saver. We were able to sit in comfort and make our plans in an environment like being in town, in our own house."

On Monday about midmorning, police towed the trailer to San Marcos Court near Pecos Road and Carey Avenue after several rounds from a high-powered rifle were fired at police inside a house and a man had barricaded himself in a back bedroom. Austin Sands, 53, was arrested and booked into the Clark County Detention Center on multiple felony charges.

During the five-hour standoff, the mobile command center served as a base from which to orchestrate SWAT and negotiating efforts. The resource proved a boon, if only to keep Metro officers from having to improvise in the field as they typically have in the past by using neighbors' homes or apartment clubhouses for things like water, bathrooms and telephones.

"People often offer us their homes to help, but we'd rather not have to impose on them," Officer Steve Meriwether, Metro spokesman, said.

A technique employed by the first officers arriving on the scene that day likely won't end -- that of taking an erasable pen and marking out the home's layout on the hood of a patrol car to alert other arriving officers and SWAT to known doors, rooms, windows and possible locations of people inside.

What will change, however, is that the information quickly can be transposed onto drawing boards inside the trailer.

"On Monday, the mobile command center helped us to establish a climate-controlled, secured location for negotiators and people in charge of the incident to maintain the situation and know what's going on," Meriwether said.

The setup also proved helpful Monday night when Search and Rescue headed out again to Red Rock, this time to Juniper Canyon where climber Warren Hollinger fell about 4 p.m. while scaling a rock wall.

The rescue effort lasted over nine hours in the cold. During that time Metro's people were able to rest and fuel up on hot soup and stew inside the command post, as well as coordinate the search party.

"We were able to eat, drink, stay warm, use the boards to do our planning and have a place to brief the press," Bassett said.

Most police departments have mobile facilities to use as command posts for crises, Bassett said. Many opt for motor homes, as Metro did years ago. What made the 1976 motor home ideal for Metro Police also proved to be its greatest downfall: its engine.

Engines break down, especially if not regularly used.

That was factored into the department's decision to go with a trailer that can be towed by police trucks almost anywhere in the valley.

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