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The Barnstable Police Department recently received a $126,121 grant from the state Executive Office of Public Safety and Security to train and update training for 82 telecommunicators, including dispatchers, and 10 new police officers in emergency medical dispatch. Everyone currently assigned to the communications desk has had the training, Sweeney said.

The events of Sept. 11, 2001 changed airport security forever. Many of the policies put in place in the aftermath of those terrorist attacks persist today. Agents from the Transportation Security Administration and Federal Aviation Administration, in particular, are tasked with following those directives to ensure safety at airports. However, a series of high-profile incidents-such as a November 2013 shooting of a TSA officer at a Los Angeles airport-raised concerns that airports lack sufficient manpower, training and resources to adequately prepare these personnel for that assignment.

According to a Police Magazine survey, nearly 50 percent of police departments use K-9 teams. Due to the nature of their assignments-which can include tracking suspects, detecting narcotics, investigating suspected arson, and assisting in search-and-rescue efforts-these dogs and their handlers go through some of the most rigorous training of any first responders. When one of these specially-trained dogs alerts officers to the presence of contraband or tracks the scent of a suspect, police may be given probable cause to conduct a full search. If that search reveals something incriminating, a defendant may try to suppress the evidence by attacking the grounds for conducting the search. Since the reliability of a K-9 alert contributes directly to whether probable cause exists, these cases often explore the quality of training and training records to depths seldom reached in human-only cases. This body of law provides public safety professionals uniquely clear guidance on what constitutes best training practices for K-9 teams.

The responsibilities of a fire department span a wide range of tasks, but patrolling streets and acting as a deterrent to crime are not typically among them. That is exactly what firefighters in our nation's capital were told to do, however, igniting a debate that could spread to other areas around the country.