New Hi-Tech App Pinpoints Active Shooters And Critical Incidents To Help Emergency Responders

The boy on the floor was already dead. Nearby lay a teenage girl, hit by an active shooter in a Central Regional High School hallway, that was littered with shotgun shells.

Berkeley Township police arrived first. They had to leave the students there, as they made a left into another hallway. Their first mission was to "neutralize" whoever had shot the students. Their second mission was to rescue the victims. Then the Ocean County Swat Team would take over.

Fortunately, the scene at Central Regional this morning was a drill, to demonstrate the new "Critical Respone Group" phone application introduced by Ocean County Prosecutor Joseph Coronato.

All of the information first responders, including police departments, first aid squads, fire companies and other emergency responders will ever need in an emergency is all logged into the application which can be accessed by a touch on a key pad.

That includes room numbers and door entrances, the location of emergency responders, victims and perpetrators, he said.

All of the information of a particular building, which is usually found in voluminous documents in file cabinets in school and public buildings, is already programmed in the phone application in visual aids, Coronato said.

That eliminates confusion in an emergency, when seconds count, where police may be unfamiliar with the building or area they are entering. First responders can also communicate in real time. The graphics will also change in real time, as the situation progresses.

"This technology is the result of the United States Military Operations Command spending more than a decade and billions of dollars fighting the global war on terror,' Coronato said. "It is the concept of the NFL playbook taken to an astonishing level and I plan to maximize its utilitization."

The cost to purchase the program from BAE Systems, Inc. for each town or district is minimal, around $3,000. The cost is paid for with drug forfeiture funds, he said.

Participating agencies already involved in the program include:

Central Regional, Jackson, Manchester, Stafford, Toms River High Schools and the Berkeley Township school districts. The Brick Township and Point Pleasant Beach school districts are in the initial phase of participation, said Al Della Fave, spokesman for the Ocean County Prosecutor's Office.

The sprawling Central Regional High School - which Superintendent Triantafillos Parlapanides once describe as "the biggest ranch house in Ocean County" was selected as one of the first districts due to its size.

The application insure that emergency responders are no longer hampered by poor communication and lack of coordination between agencies, Coronato said.

Photo: Patricia A. Miller

Video: Courtesy of Ocean County Prosecutor's Office