Urban Shield' tactics against guerilla war at home

D/FW Metroplex – You learn from the latest war how to fight the war of the present.

Just like Iraq and Afghanistan, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Algeria before brushfire war came to the U.S., the American government is playing catch up in the face of a rising tide of terror tactics carried out against citizens who are busy in the ordinary pursuit of happiness.

The enemy uses your resources, attacks you where you live, where your children get their education, where you get your health care. He uses your customs and laws, rules and procedures against you and your friends and family.

His goal: To convince you, me – we the people – that there really are no friendlies in our neighborhoods, that terror lurks behind every smiling face, that our precious children are forfeit to his onslaught.

Urban Shield is in full operation in this regional capital - the Metroplex - for the weekend. Civil police officers acting as urban domestic war fighters will be training in the tactics of their war. It's one example of an effort to teach the people how to fight back, one in which the model is for the civil professionals to do the fighting for the people under the organized training and tactical regimen of the Department of Homeland Security.

Though there are many exercises unknown to the public, here's the line-up of drills that the public will be able to see through media outlets, particularly television.

The chief planners of the exercise, Chief Carl Smith of the Midlothian Police Department and Matt Feryan of the Plano Office of Emergency Management, will hold a media briefing at 3:30 pm on Friday, Nov. 8, at the North Central Texas Coucil of Governments offices, 616 Six Flags Drive, Arlington.

They will brief newsmen on the multi-layered, full scale exercise in response to man-made disaster situations.

Four sites will be open to the media, where filming will be allowed.

1) Emergency Medical Services and Bomb Squad teams will respond to a mock attack at Stipes Elementary School, 3100 Crosstimbers Dr., Irving, from noon until 2 pm on Saturday, Nov. 9. It is a replicated “Columbine” style assault in which medical services providers will operate at close quarters in a hostile situation and bomb squad members will assess as many as 100 backpacks for bomb-making explosive materials.

2) Fire fighters will show their skills at rescuing people in collapsed buidings at Tarrant County College, 4801 Marince Creek Parkway, Fort Worth, from 2 to 4 pm on Saturday. By shoring, lifting and moving collapsed walls and keeping well-intentioned but inexpert people from complicating matters by injuring others needlessly, fire firghters and rescue squads mitigate disaster. Experience has shown that crowds who quickly assemble to try to help actually cause more harm than they do good.

3) SWAT operators will take on an active shooter situation at Baylor Medical Center, 4500 Gaston Ave, Dallas, from 4-6 pm on Saturday. The simulated exercise will closely parallel experience gained in hospital attacks at Knoxvile, Tennessee, in September 2010; Johns Hopkins at Baltimore, Maryland, September 2010; University of New Mexico Hospital, January 2011; Naples, Florida, July 2011; a double homicide in a shooter situation at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, March 2012, and a recent shooting in a hospital at Danbury, Connecticut.

4) Perhaps the most interesting exercise of all is one aimed at prevention of violence, in which intelligence units will develop a case against simulated suspects who are wanted in a high risk warrant situation at the Duncanville Agricultural Barn, 2237 Cockrell Hill Road, Duncanville, 8-10 pm. SWAT operators will rely upon information developed by a Regional Fusion and Intelligence Center to get their suspects under control with a minimum of violence, according to organizers of the event.