In their presentations, ASAC Peter Kowenhover and St. Louis County Police Department Chief of Police Jon Belmar stressed the importance of developing partnerships long before a crisis occurs. Those partnerships include fellow law enforcement agencies as well as developing relationships with the community you serve. Attempting to build these critical relationships during or after an incident is too late.
ASAC Kowenhover described the chaos after the bombing at the Boston Marathon in 2013. The crime scene covered a 15-block area and casualties included three people killed and over 260 injured. The amount of evidence at the scene was overwhelming. A physical evidence collection team, a digital evidence collection team and cellular telephone analysis team were established. Relationships between the FBI, Boston PD, and other federal and state agencies, established long before the incident, were critical to information sharing and coordination. ASAC Kowenhover mentioned that because of the previously established relationships everyone worked well together from the start, which is critical in the early stages of such a complex investigation.
Chief Belmar was in charge of the police response
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While not on a scale anywhere near the events ASAC Kowenhover and Chief Belmar were in charge of, the community I police has been in a crisis of its own. In recent years the precinct I oversee has been subjected to brutal gang violence. There have been seventeen gang related homicides, many of the victims, teenagers, have resulted in federal prosecutions. Weekly meetings with members of the FBI Gang Task Force, HSI and my agency have helped develop trust and eased coordination with the continuing investigations. Each agency has a role and cooperates fully with the other agencies. The weekly meetings have helped foster positive working