Time for a break......

Time for a break..

Having discovered that my time here only encompassed 1 holiday. This was not good news I have had pretty full on weeks with only a single day off thus no time to actually explore this part of the country.

So Easter, which here is only the Friday but true to form we met up at Atterbury , and I now have a memory stick full of information GOOD JOB DONE.

So Saturday and Sunday to explore , now I have a real interest in the National Parks which we have visited before such as Yellowstone ,Grand Canyon, they are great, a bit of research found Mammoth Caves a few hours’ drive from here in Kentucky.

 

Looking through the brochure of tours Grand Tour seemed fun.

 

And it was,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Only here would you get a restaurant 35 feet underground, with a toilet as well!!!!!!!!

                                                                                

 

The guide described it as a 4 mile walk through the rock and it was pretty much but it was spectacular. 

                                                                            

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So to Sunday and a leisurely drive back via Santa Claus, yes there is a village dedicated to Santa , with a variety of appropriately named areas, unfortunately for me Santa appeared to celebrate Easter so it was all closed ,but worth the  visit.

Project Lifesaver

Today I was lucky enough to have met Mike Pruitt.

He is a fire-fighter at Wayne Township fire dept., Indianapolis

He is also the coordinator for Project Lifesaver in Indianapolis.

Project Lifesaver has been around for about 12-13 years ,it uses relatively easy use tech, based on radio waves.

“Citizens enrolled in Project Lifesaver wear a small personal transmitter around the wrist or ankle that emits an individualized tracking signal. If an enrolled client goes missing, the caregiver notifies their local Project Lifesaver agency, and a trained emergency team responds to the wanderer’s area. Most who wander are found within a few miles from home, and search times have been reduced from hours and days to minutes. Recovery times for PLI clients average 30 minutes — 95% less time than standard operations.”

http://www.projectlifesaver.org/

th

                                                                                   

This is a quote from their website, speaking to Mike he confirms that their average find time is 30 minutes.

I was aware of Project Lifesaver and that previously there was an attempt to use it in the UK however at this time there are no deployments of it .Here they use it on autistic kids with great find results.

Kent Police have looked at Tech tracking recently , this is cheaper and has a longer battery life than anything that we looked at.

With such impressive results and ,reluctantly I would say in these time of financial austerity with resources being reduced, we should  look more seriously at such tech?  

 

Well that was really fun.........

Well that was fun.

Today we went to Muscatatuck, this is a search(in all forms) playground .Let me explain, information about the venue is available on.http://www.mutc.in.ng.mil/     so I am not giving away secrets

This is Disneyland for those who search, and want to improve search skills, not only for the SAR community but police and military.

We were given a tour of the facility, you can practice water rescue on a sunken village!!!!  

 

 

 

 

 

Practice open search on hug areas of hills and variable terrain

Practice building search (and various agencies do) for everything from IEDs to small concealed hides, some of the roads includes exploding vehicles.

The ability to collapse, and raise a multi storey car park for the purpose of search and dog search for hrd is very impressive.

 

 

This is a great venue …….a bit far to travel but  

Day off..

Today was a day off, I have noticed as have those around me that snow appears to follow me wherever go ,this clearly does not bode well for the great British summer ,but that’s another story.

So off to Columbus, Indiana: to be fair not at its best in 6 inches of snow and many places closed due to the weather but nice enough to visit, Few interesting pics taken.

Took a trip out to some waterfalls, and then to see something quintessentially American: covered bridges.

                                                           

These were nice in the snow and as a lot of places were shut due to the snow one of the only things to see…..

Apparently  its going to get better ,the chap on the weather channel said ,no time frame given

hectic times....

Since my running with coyotes, it’s been pretty hectic.

A visit to the Indianapolis government centre in central Indianapolis was good.

Very interesting to see the emergency planning operations centre, which has not only a base station but at least 3 mobiles as well, this can be used for anything from a missing persons search to major disaster, and has been.

A days training with the Indianapolis dog section was an experience, different situations that they work under and are required to deal with require different skills from both handler and dog.

 

Search and Rescue - a better response ?: Search and Rescue - a better response ?: First wee...

Search and Rescue - a better response ?: Search and Rescue - a better response ?: First wee...: Search and Rescue - a better response ?: First weekend at Camp Attebury : This is the first chance after a hectic weekend I have had a chanc...

We dont have this problem

Last night, went to meet Mid-West Search h and rescue team, in a lovely park just outside Indianapolis.

http://www.midwestsearchdogs.org/index.html

Bit chilly yes, they had set out several scenario areas, which were being worked by different team.

Went into a large open search area and watched a team work very well, supported by a land search team

They also ran 2 HRD search areas.

Now the reason for the title may become apparent about now, there are in this park lots of deer, there are lots everywhere here, but then came the coyotes, we don’t have that problem..  

Where we were based was apparently the scavenging area that they like to use and they just wanted us to move on, however running a trail/track with a dog towards a pack (and there was) of coyotes may not be everyone’s idea of fun.  Challenging conditions for all yes but this is what is practically there search areas so they train with it .

The search training begins at 18:30 and we left there just before 23:00 a good evenings training.

I am meeting up with this team again in a few weeks …may even be warmer.

Search and Rescue - a better response ?: First weekend at Camp Attebury

Search and Rescue - a better response ?: First weekend at Camp Attebury: This is the first chance after a hectic weekend I have had a chance to write anything. Camp Atterbury:   bit bigger than I thought 30...

First weekend at Camp Attebury

This is the first chance after a hectic weekend I have had a chance to write anything.

Camp Atterbury:  bit bigger than I thought 300,000 acres is big, home to the Indiana state guard and reserve training.

Also as mentioned home to the Dept. of Homeland Security Search and Rescue Centre for Indiana.

I am lucky enough to be here for around 3 weeks (was originally one but my Canada problem prompted this as an option)

The SAR centre is a great facility and provides training for SAR –State/County wide .Police training facilities for SAWT teams and specialist search .Government agencies in search and disaster management, so a huge raft of activities.

This weekend has been a Basic/inter trailing dog course.

About 12 attendees from various depts. including Police, Fire and Rescue and the voluntary sector.

Run in near sub-zero temps, which I am being blamed for bringing) but some very good training done and lessons learnt.

The next few days will be an opportunity to really find out how the location works what can we learn from it , could a place such as this exist in the UK ?

Camp Atterbury

So today was arrival at Camp Atturbury.

Lillian Hardy is the oic here, the facility itself is within over 2000+ acres of military property.

Thus its fairly secure. It encompasses rubble search, trailing, tracking, hrd, and classroom options for search managers and all aspects of search.

The facility itself spans many acres at this point I have no pics (its military what do you expect)

Yes I have landed here earlier than expected but have been welcomed with open arm’s and Lillian is very receptive to everything.

Should be able to update a often as poss  as not too sure about wifi options but please  let me know via e mail if there are any requests or questions.

Will put pics and info as soon as possible

Search and Rescue - a better response ?: Great Lakes SAR K9

Search and Rescue - a better response ?: Great Lakes SAR K9: Today was the second day that I had met up with Great Lakes SAR K9 this time Julie, had arranged for some other handlers to meet up at a...

Search and Rescue - a better response ?: Great Lakes SAR K9

Search and Rescue - a better response ?: Great Lakes SAR K9: Today was the second day that I had met up with Great Lakes SAR K9 this time Julie, had arranged for some other handlers to meet up at a...

Great Lakes SAR K9

Today was the second day that I had met up with Great Lakes SAR K9 this time Julie, had arranged for some other handlers to meet up at a local training venue.

 

 

 

First the venue, Kohler-Andrae State Park, about 2 miles of sandy beach 8 or so miles south of Sheboygan, a great venue due to the multiple surfaces it offers, today not only the sun, but it was as still as anything.

There of the team were able to be there:

First up was Mike Clutter , Mike is a conservation  Warden for Dept of Natural Resources.

Mikes dog, Navi is a bloodhound, a lot smaller and lighter than many European counterparts, Navi  is a man tracking scent discriminatory dog.

Basically, he will track from a scent item (in this case a pair of jeans to source. This is the traditional view that there is of bloodhound deployments, the dog sniff the item and finds the offender.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mike is unique on the team in as much as he uses the dog at his normal place of work to track poachers and other offenders in that arena, when working he is usually armed so the non-protection option with the friendly bloodhound is not an issue.

Navi worked well on a 20 Min plus trail from a pair of jeans to Grace, the track layer and her son.

Not a long track but enough to see the dog work at a good rate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We moved on to the HRD( Cadaver) aspects of their work and the multi-disciplinary ways that dogs here are deployed.

The methods of teach for HRD are to use as near HRD components as possible.

 

 

This is where thing’s may get a bit squeamish.

The training items used are shown here, the one looking like a bird feeder contains human hair and teeth.

The tubing (yes its plumbers pipework) again contains human teeth.

 

The pots contain placenta, and I will go no further with that

 

 

The polystyrene cup block of concrete is called a blood block, yes that’s right cement and blood mixed. These have a hook in them to allow them to be raised above the ground BUT also to be floated and water deployed for training in water scenarios.

 

 

I saw 2 demos Grace and Scout a Belgium malinois and Julie and her mally .

Both were successful in conditions not ideal, for scent related work but a good demo and finds

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conversations with the team show that SAR team commitment is universal the enthusiasm that they have is the same as we are lucky enough to have in KSAR and the dog team there.

However the type of deployments that these guys are sent on or requested for is far beyond what NSARDA would allow and to be fair what we as police would ask for .

For example as well as open search , trailing one of Julie’s dogs also will search and detect “Live plant” which I thought was quaint but of little value, transpires that live plant are as we have now open area cannabis grows.

On the HRD front, being deployed by the police to murder scenes, or as I was told a 20 year old body recovery, would we ask SAR to do this?.

One of the great drives here is one which I think is going to happen to UK policing…, money.

This was a great day meeting some truly inspirational individuals. I wish them all the best and will keep in contact.

   

Hard decisions......

So the problem was ....I had got as far as Fargo North Dakota in reasonable time, the weather reports for the final part of my journey were not good,and exploratory journey on Tuesday ,200 miles to Bismarsk,was bad the roads being compacted ice and snow,it took nearly 7 hours to do this ,so return to the relative safety of Fargo.
Watching the weather is a British obsession ,but watching the hourly updates for possible breaks in conditions which would not become good ,just treacherous i not much fun.
I was in contact with the people in Canada and keen to get there but the chances of any breaks in the conditions were remote , with even more snow forecast,so regrettably I made the decision to do like the duck and head south.
Whch i did ,I have contacted the Indianna state SAR teams who are vry accomidating and ar heading ther , but was given the details of a team in Wisconsin at the Great Lakes K9 SAR who would be able to meet and have a chat etc.
On Wednesday 13/3 I stopped in Oostlberg,about 10 miles south of Sheboygan Wisconsin.
To meet up with Julie Cramer,who is the training director for the team.
 http://www.glsark-9.org/index.html  

After an afternoon of chatting and going over some things that they do issue that they have come across ,.I have been invited to their training day today, which should be great and a chance to see how they and local and sates police work and liaise.
They run trailing/air scenting dogs (bloodhounds) they are also able to provide HRD (Human remains detection dogs) as well as open area search options.

And this is where things differ ...they are called to burglaries and crime scenes and are used to great effect.........Discuss!?!

Their training options are different again some of which we could use others I’m guessing we wouldn’t/couldn’t .

Today promises to be an interesting day,

Ice road truckers.......

Today was a challenge , arguably an easy drive of some 255  miles from Minneapolis to Fargo North Dakota.Under normal circs this would have been great with time to stop at viewing point's on the way, however: this snowy stuff is becoming a pain.
I have taken ,to checking the state of the roads before I start, may sound a bit extreme but trust me on this one its well worth it up in this part of the world.


Minnesota highways said all was good as did North Dakota,and to be fair to them up to about 150 miles out of Fargo it wasn't too bad , bit icy in places but then things went a bit wrong.

gNow I am generally quite happy in the snowy stuff, bit this was a bit more than that tis road is a 3 lane interstate,the track you see is sheet ice in the 3rd picture you may identify the problem , swirling snow form the drifts at the side of the road.

This was not fun at all

Still I did get to Fargo and am now stuck here , this could mean a dramatic rethink of options as at the moment , Canada is closed due to the roads being iced up .

Let see whayt tomorrow brings apart from -17 degrees which is what it is as I write this 

Search and Rescue - a better response ?: Further North.....

Search and Rescue - a better response ?: Further North.....: The trek continues: another 500 miles encompassing Chicago, which to be fair was done as the sun was coming up and the rain coming down so l...

Further North.....

The trek continues: another 500 miles encompassing Chicago, which to be fair was done as the sun was coming up and the rain coming down so likely as not i didn't get its good side ,out of there and the past snow storm (Winter storm Saturn , I'm learning) is very evident with drift bigger that 2 cars (proper 4x4 cars not little cars like Skodas,for example),but the rain continues and hopefully will wash some of it away.

Saw a sign to "Law Enforcement Officers Memorial " clearly had to pull off .
A few points here:
1. This is in the equivalent of Junction 8 (M20) or Clacketts ie a service area.
2. The memorial itself was not defaced ,damaged etc
3.The people that were there were reading it .

        Make your own mind up but I do not think such a monument would last in our service stations.

The stones are around 6 ft tall so its quite an impressive memorial to Police officers .

 

And Just to show some snowy pics and some which i thought were amusing 

I would love to come back in the summer......

   

 

Brilliant.......

 

SNOW !!!!!!!

 

I now have a series of "travel days" which may sound like a lot of fun ,however I can assure you they are not.
I had a journey of roughly 1850 miles to do from DC to Regina SK, I tried to break it up into chunks that were manageable. That entailed driving about 600 miles today starting at silly o'clock and finally arriving at a little place 100 miles outside Chicago at around 15:00.
No too bad all in all and the interstate is not as bad as you may think , most of it you can do 70mph on which may appear slow , but to be honest the view (apart from Indiana,and some of Idaho....) want that bad .
Still short drive tomorrow of only 512 miles to Minnesota which should be 8 hrs.....


I didn't see this but would have liked to so have stolen it from a friends facebook......

Safer Shores

Another good day , I was invited to go to Safer Shores, this is an organisation that provides intervention(hope ) and healing to children victims and families affected by abuse.
Yes it s a bit off track for my project but was incredibly informative as far a police work is concerned.http://www.safeshores.org/

 This is their office ,bought a few years ago it was previously a school that ran down.
This photo (like many I take ) does not do justice to the interior.
The organisation Safer shores has transformed the inside to something that a victim of abuse would feel comfortable within, and they have done it very well , the on site facilities include
social services
Medical facilities
Police detectives who specialities is child interview's
AND

Family support units

All under one roof.

I met several individuals there all of who showed commitment to the depts they worked in, is this something that would work in the UK , their dependency on private funding for something that alot would see as the police and special services job indicates to me that no it wouldn't , this said it doesn't mean that we should not consider the options.

One of the other things that occurs here is training for police detectives involved in child abuse cases. i sat in on one of theses lectures , given by forensic medical officers(Drs) all of who are specialist in paediatric medicine and abuse. I listened to this and found that the depth that was gone into exceded anything that I had heard before in the UK. I asked if this was the norm, and apparently it is .

   
I also met Cpt Lewis Douglas who is in the process of re writing the missing person procedural document, for thre DC police, 800 pages ,good luck with that one



 

  

 

WINTER STORM: SATURN

They say you have to be flexible, adaptable etc to do a travel fellowship, and they are correct, best laid plans for me had already been thrown out by the NPS cancellation.

My new plans were looking great , yes a bit of a drive but it would be fine....

WINTER STORM SATURN:
http://www.weather.com/news/weather-winter/winter-storm-saturn-state-by-state-impact-20130304


The weather channel here is almost compulsive viewing ,the enthusiasm of the presenters beggars belief at times , not something that I can see our TV weather people doing I must confess, but it could be the way ahead, still we do not generally have to get to the point of naming winter storms,

W\S Saturn was forecast to cause major problems in the area running from the central Midwest along to the east coast and many places in between.
Talk of 20 inches of snow was being bantered about , my meetings yesterday were tempered with ,
"If it snows the government buildings may well be closed"

Sure enough it snowed and a call the following morning confirmed that all government buildings were closed ,

I must confess I didnt thisnk it was too bad but apparently the government do this to stop roadway congestion and allow the roads to be cleared, and they were .

National Centre for Missing and exploited Chldren visit

Yesterday was my first officially set up visit, I had arranged to go to the National Centre for missing and exploited children and see Caroline Humer one of the operatives there.
Its a very impressive building but like most of the buildings and venues has no parking .

Alexandria itself is a colonial area of DC and has a very European feel about it.





I first Patrica Williams who is a case manager, she explained the way the calls are logged when received and what management plan there is , how the files are retained open until they are advised that the  person has been found.
http://www.missingkids.com/home

** An interesting point to note is hat the Centre here is federally funded , it provides free training to police in a variety of subjects including profiling ,crime management, etc. This is provided by federally funded depts such as those below.
Whilst there is not direct UK equivalent , Missing people, are a charity who receive no funding at all from government.https://www.missingpeople.org.uk/

Then Janice Mertz who is a supervisory special agent , talked about the role that the FBI have within the centre, how, they look at sexual exploitation and Crimes against Children , she spoke about some of the different teams that they have that are deploy able and available to police depts within a short period of time, this includes full search support in terms of numbers, equipment ,electronic support on the ground.

Frank Conner, from the US marshal service , gave a comprehensive talk about the role of this dept , they are given the names of "offender" or runaways, this may include a sex offender who has breached bail by being in company of a child,or crossing a state border, and they go and get them, simple as that really they will actively hunt/pursue offenders across state lines and borders ( it appears Mexico is a heading point for a lot of the offenders)

I also met Robert G Lowery Jr who is the current Executive director of the organisation, he is an incredibly knowledge individual who enthusiasm is evident , they are as a dept at the forefront of developmental tactics and advice for searcher's and law enforcement (police) in all areas of child missing person search. They are about to release a document (which although i have is not on their site yet) relating to Autistic search which is very insightful and will be of benefit to all.  

Today is realistically the last day I had o see Washington DC before I start in earnest the real reason i am here.
So firstly the weather: They say a storm is brewing ...they even named it ,which is good because apparently they only have 4 more names for the winter storms,even the chap on the Weather Channel didn't really know what would happen after that,we will see,but 12 inches of snow cold pose a problem.
Today,having put a geocache out ( a travel bug that would like to see the USA before returning home) headed into DC.
TIP 1: If you are going into DC at all do it on a Sunday, parking is FREE everywhere , I parked to as near as can be called" just outside the White House" ie:Constitution Avenue,near to the Washington Monument

 

Very impressive and in a very long but well maintained strip called the National Mall, at one end is  the famous Lincoln Memorial, which is huge and has a big statute of Lincoln inside .

At the other end is the Capitol Building.

Very impressive location, one ting did strike me , walking through this area there are literally dozens of memorial areas to different facets of both military and non military endeavour some are big some just a plaque in the ground.

A group of what can be best described as school kids aged 12-16 very noisy, very boisterous for want of a better description,going through the area heading towards the Lincoln memorial, as they got to a memorial site ,ALL fell silent ,and walked past in an orderly ,respectful manor ....they even took the compulsory baseball caps off. I saw them past 3 sites where the same behaviour was replicated ,unprompted , and they didn't appear to be cadets on a day out or anything similar .

 

My day was however targeted towards fulfilling PT 1 of a lifelong ambition . PT1, the reason will be more apparent as this journey progresses. PT 2 comes later but some will have already figured it out.

The National Air and Space Museum,on Independence Avenue (to the right as you look towards the Capitol building) holds many original aircraft,including "The Wright Flyer", the original aircraft in which flight was invented ,its housed in a good assessable room with lots of info boards etc.

 

I will confess I spent a disproportionate amount of time in this room,but its had not to when you consider the effect that this one invention has had.

 

 

I also visited the Judiciary square , this holds the national Police (Law enforcement ) Officers Memorial, this is an impressive memorial with the names of officers who have been killed in the line of duty etched for eternity in swaths of stone around a flowing constant( I didn't write that its one of the descriptions there) but that's hat it is , apparently they have to pay a rent for the memorial, thus there is a shop round the corner.

 

   attend the funeral of a 

My Photo does not do this memorial Justice, and reminded me that although not lost in the line of duty ,work colleagues of mine are preparing to attend the funeral of a police officer,who died in service ,my thoughts are with them.

 

The association that runs this have adopted, adapted  Proverbs 28:1and its very apt;

 

"The wicked flee when no man purseueth,but the righteous are as bold as lions" 

 

Around the memorial are several statues of lions , I visited the equivalent memorial in London on the d i went for my Winston Churchill interview.

 

An eventful ,thought provoking day, and hopefully I have worked out how to do this blog properly otherwise you will see words and no pictures .