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LAPD Officer Don Thompson, a 26-year veteran and bomb squad member, was on his way to work when he witnessed a fiery crash on the 405 freeway.

Firefighters who work at San Francisco International Airport are receiving additional training on how to respond to airplane crashes following the Asiana Airlines accident in which a teenage girl was run over and killed by two emergency vehicles while lying wounded on the runway. Commanding officers from the San Francisco Fire Department's airport division will receive 40 to 80 hours of advanced instruction next year at the Fire Training Research Center at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Saturday. Instructors from the center already have provided basic disaster response training in San Francisco to 80 of the department's firefighters and paramedics.

If State Police troopers want to do anything in their career, it's save a life. So when staff at Tufts Medical made the desperate call for troopers to escort Ryan Brooker's car into Boston, that his future depended on it, this became a story about State Police service, about doctors and nurses, and about a young man thankful to simply live his life again.

Examine past incidents critical to the advancement of law enforcement tactics and culture when responding to issues of public safety.

AT&T Inc. says it will publish reports on the number of requests for customer information that it receives from law enforcement agencies, the latest move in the telecommunications industry toward fuller disclosure amid debate over government surveillance programs. The announcement Friday by the nation's largest telecom company came a day after rival Verizon Communications Inc. said it will make public the legal demands it has received. Dallas-based AT&T says it will publish a report twice a year online. The first one, covering requests received this year, will be out early next year.

The best gift they are ever going to get, Merry Christmas and welcome home! The University of Arizona Dept. of Intercollegiate Athletics hosted a surprise welcome celebration for Master Sergeant Chris Campbell of Davis Monthan Air Force Base for him and his family during the first half of the No. 1 ranked Arizona Basketball team vs. Southern.

The number of law enforcement line of duty deaths in the U.S. dropped to its lowest level in six decades in 2013. Preliminary data released Monday in the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund's annual research bulletin noted that this was also the second year in a row the number of fatalities dropped and that the fewest number of officers were killed in firearms-related incidents since the 1800s

New York State is offering a unique training program for law enforcement today in Utica, aimed at giving agencies resources and information to better address critical incidents, such as the death of one of their own in the line of duty or as a result of suicide. The state Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) developed the TRAUMA (Trauma Resources and Unified Management Assistance) program as part of its mission to offer trainings for law enforcement agencies and officers so they can better serve their communities. DCJS Executive Deputy Commissioner Michael C. Green said: "As a former prosecutor, I have seen first-hand the toll that a line-of-duty death or devastating injury can have on a department. Men and women on the front lines of this state's fight against crime may be reluctant to share their grief or on-the-job experiences with co-workers, family, and friends, which can lead to extreme stress. The aim of this training is to provide a line of defense for those officers to help themselves, each other and their families."

In recent decades, the nation's prisons have become packed with inmates who suffer from a diagnosed mental illness. As policymakers try to reverse that trend, they're looking at an array of different options, and here in Massachusetts, that's led to increased training on how police officers should interact with mentally ill individuals.

Oskar Zepeda has had pretty much one mission in his life: kill or capture. After serving nine tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, he now has a new target - child predators. Zepeda, 29, is part of a 17-member class of veterans trained in computer forensics and sent to Immigration and Customs Enforcement field offices. They aren't paid, and there's no guarantee they'll have a full-time job when their one-year stint ends. But the interns are finding the purpose of their new mission outweighs financial considerations.

All commanders, starting at company level, are ordered to assess the command climate in their units within six months. The Army wants specific emphasis on handling sexual assaults. Army Directive 2013-29, issued Dec. 23, tells commanders to conduct command climate assessments using the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute Organizational Climate Survey. The DEOCS survey measures organizational, equal opportunity, equal employment opportunity and sexual harassment/assault response and prevention issues.

Over-the-top, paranoid, excessive, obsessive, "it ain't gonna happen to me," or "that kind of stuff doesn't happen here." Pick your adjective or catch phrase used to describe prepared officers. "You don't need all that stuff on-duty,": a full-size handgun, spare magazines, concealed or external body armor, back-up gun, spare flashlight, tourniquet or battlefield dressing, patrol knife, all on your person with a 5.56 carbine spare magazines carried in a shoulder bag in the patrol vehicle as well as rifle rated Level IV armored plates and carrier, and even more equipment in a bag in the trunk.

Firefighters and law-enforcement agencies in Riverside County are practicing or discussing new federal guidelines that, in order to save more lives, recommend sending armor-wearing medics into mass-casualty attacks before shooters or bombers are subdued. San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies and Rancho Cucamonga firefighters, meanwhile, are years ahead of the guidelines that the Federal Emergency Management Agency issued in September. The tactic is a departure from the common practice of making firefighters wait in safe areas for the all-clear from police before entering a scene to tend to the wounded. The impetus for change, said San Bernardino County sheriff's Lt. Danielle Boldt, began with the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado that killed 13 people.

The Army released its "Training for Full Spectrum Operations" field manual in December 2008. A few short months later, work had already begun on revisions. The increasingly complex battlefield is prompting the service to rethink the way it trains for war. Troops can find themselves conducting offensive operations, defending against an attack or carrying out stability operations - building schools, meeting with local tribal leaders to help improve citizens' conditions - all in the course of one day. "It's not specifically that you conduct offense, you conduct defense, then you conduct stability operations," said Lt. Gen. Thomas Miller, commanding general of the First Army, Fort Gillem, Ga. "The approach is that those are always intermingled together … It's just the dynamic nature of the fight."

Police psychologist Jack Digliani has just produced the 5th Edition of his Police and Sheriff's Peer Support Team Training Manual which he has always made available for free here on CopsAlive.com. He is also recommending that police officers agencies, and other law enforcement professionals consider doing an Annual Proactive Check-In. What is a Proactive Annual Check In? The Proactive Annual Check-In (PAC) provides police officers… and other agency employees with a confidential setting within which to share information about current life circumstances. It is a proactive program designed to offer a positive exchange thoughts, ideas, and information.

A revamped Navy facility is making waves to see how ships fare in the unpredictable conditions out on the ocean. Officials unveiled the new maneuvering and seakeeping, or MASK, facility at Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock, Md., on Dec. 19, which simulates the kinds of waves sailors might encounter underway and tests how ships would handle them. "The engineers in this facility for the past 50 years have evaluated the maneuverability, stability and control of virtually all of our surface ships and submarines in the fleet today," NSWC Carderock division commander Capt. Rich Blank said at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Evaluation and feedback forms now include promoting a healthy organizational climate as a performance factor. The Air Force defines "organizational climate" as the way airmen in a unit perceive and characterize their environment. In other words, you'll be graded on how well you do at setting the tone around you. Promoting a healthy organizational climate is listed as a leadership skill under the performance factors section of the new officer performance reports. It is listed as a primary duty on the enlisted performance reports. "We'd like every airmen to go look at the rewrite of the Air Force Instruction so you know how you're expected to perform and be rated," Grosso said. "If you have any questions, talk to your military personnel section."

Several months ago I taught a class on successful strategies and tactics for implementing on-line training and education. The class curriculum required a "status report" on the state of computer based training in public safety. In preparation for the class I conducted a web based survey of public safety trainers and senior staff officers. The reason for this specific group was to better understand and hear from trainers in the classroom and those in budget decision positions.