Long Island Tactical Consortium

About the Program

Category: Criminal Justice and Public Safety (Best in Category)

Year: 2010

Long Island, New York has several fairly large law enforcement tactical teams fielded by local, county and state agencies. By and large, these teams are fully capable of handling their routine tactical workload without the necessity of requesting outside help from nearby teams. The Long Island Tactical Consortium was formed in 2009 to facilitate greater interaction among these teams and foster operational efficiency through greater economies of scale. Working together allows these groups to share training costs so that outside instructors can be brought to Long Island less expensively, thereby increasing training opportunities while at the same time reducing the costs for each agency involved. Many tactical courses provided by Association like the National Tactical Officers Association can accommodate 20 or more students. It is very difficult for even large tactical teams to dedicate this number of officers to a course and still cover their regular duties without incurring substantial additional costs to their agency. Initially, the consortium began with seven member teams. A key objective of the consortium is to better prepare the region’s teams to operate together should there be very large disaster, critical incident or catastrophic event that overwhelms a single team. Participation in the consortium also creates greater cooperation, interoperability and has allowed for the creation of a joint team capabilities guide so the each team is familiar with the personnel and equipment possessed by all the other regional teams. This greatly simplifies the request process should a team need additional manpower or a specialized piece of equipment.