Editor’s Note: The St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office has recently investigated cases, the Leonardtown High School lockdown on Sept. 3 and the PNC robbery/kidnapping on Sept. 24, which required expansive use of it’s law enforcement capability.  Here, Sheriff Tim Cameron describes the behind the scenes activities that occur when investigating major cases and how his department handles emergencies.

TBN: When the 911 call is received for something like a kidnapping, bank robbery – an event that has real consequences which can be a danger to not only hostages, but to the general public – What is the first thing that is done to start the law enforcement ball rolling?

 
 Sheriff Cameron

CAMERON: When the 911 call comes in, there is an immediate simulcast to all St. Mary’s law enforcement personnel. Some times as the 911 operator is recording the call and entering information into the computer, someone else will launch the simulcast and what they are typing goes out to everyone at the same time it is being typed.

TBN: Once Sheriff’s Deputies are informed, at what point do other law enforcement agencies become involved and who and how is that handled and coordinated?

CAMERON: Everyone in law enforcement in St. Mary’s receives the simulcast, then the incident is coordinated, beginning with the first unit to arrive at the crime scene. In the case of the bank robbery, we had a unit arrive within minutes of the 911 call. From that point on, until command is set up, the responding unit is letting us know what he or she has found, what needs to be done, and who needs to be notified. While that is happening, in a case like Sept. 24, we called in all off-duty officers, because with a case like this we knew we would have to set up road observation points and check points for the victim’s vehicle. When the first deputy responded, it was still an active kidnapping and finding the vehicle was first in importance.

At that time Captain John Horne – Assistant Sheriff assumed command of the situation and he began coordinating the effort. Then when we found the woman and her child at Green Holly Elementary School in Lexington Park, that set up another round of communications. When we found the Tahoe at the CVS we were up to three crime scenes. This all happened very quickly in the morning.

As it turns out, the time of day helped our operations because of the increased traffic. It slowed down everyone and we were able to perform better inspections of vehicles passing through static roadblocks.

TBN: If the situation involves a school or schools, what are the differences in the way the situation is handled from a law enforcement perspective?

 
 Schools are immediately
 protected when an incident
 involves, or is in close
 proximity to a school.

CAMERON: Protecting the children is very important to us. We immediately call the school board and set up a command center at affected schools – in this case Green Holly. Lt. Edward Willenborg – Commander – Special Operation’s Division has all the school service deputies under his command, so h