The Mission of Medical and Police Services Team (M.a.P.S.) is to assemble a self-contained, highly trained and specially equipped team.  They will be able enter a hostile or unsafe environment under an active threat (e.g. shooter, bomb threat or armed assailant) to remove injured personnel from threat area in a timely manner. The mission DOES NOT include the tactical elimination of the threat, nor the infiltration of the threat’s command center, but rather the safe and timely removal of injured persons in the threat area.

            Unlike the classic Law Enforcement Tactical Teams, whose mission is dynamic or stealth entry into a hostile area to eliminate threats, or apprehend the assailants.  The Medical and Police Services Team is a Medical Rescue Unit that is designed to be on scene in a relatively short amount of time, rescue and treat down or injured persons in a hostile threat environment.

Background:

          With the increasingly violent nature of society, Law Enforcement and Fire/EMS have identified a need for a Tactical Response Plan.  Domestic abuse, Clandestine Drug Labs, School or Work-Place Violence/Shootings, Hostage Taking and  are not exclusive to large cities.  Violence is more frequently targeting emergency responders as secondary or even primary victims.

           The State Police and Regional Tactical teams are being deployed with more frequency now then ever before.  For a suburban town like Oxford, with no assets committed to a regional team, it takes an outside tactical team more time to assemble than in other cities that have their own teams.  Should an unfortunate situation occur such as an active shooter during a domestic violence police call, it could take many hours for the Regional or State Police tactical team to arrive, evaluate and bring the situation to an end.  If the shooter, in this case, were to injure a police officer, EMS provider or innocent bystander, the injured party would have to wait for the tactical team to arrive, assemble and make the area surrounding that person safe for conventional EMS.  This would cost precious time and potentially cause a survivable, treatable minor injury, to become a fatal trauma. 

           The need exists to reduce the amount of time it takes to start medical treatment on those injured parties and the Medical and Police Services Team “M.a.P.S.” has been created to fill that need.  The team can be quickly assembled, evaluate the scene, formulate a “Rescue Plan”, make contact with the victim/victims, provide the appropriate medical attention, remove the victim/victims from the threat environment and have them ready for transport to an appropriate definitive care facility, while providing their own security.

            Having a tactically trained and specially equipped Medical and Police Team in place will greatly reduce the public outcry in case of the “Unpredictable Disaster” and reduce the Town’s liability in the subsequent civil litigations.