Preparing the National Capital Region to conduct a multijurisdictional and interdisciplinary law enforcement investigation

Abstract

When the DC Sniper shootings occurred in 2002, local law enforcement (LE) agencies in the National Capital Region (NCR) did not have a framework in place to investigate a large-scale multijurisdictional investigation involving dozens of federal, state, and local LE agencies. As of 2013, the NCR still does not have a framework. This thesis used multiple sources of information and analysis to develop a list of recommendations directed to the NCR Police Chiefs Committee about how such a framework could be developed and what some of the features should be. The sources of information included lesson learned from the after-action analysis of the DC Sniper case by the Police Executive Research Forum, academic research on collaboration, the National Incident Management System, and input from 19 multijurisdictional and intergovernmental subject matter experts (SME) in the NCR, including SMEs from the LE, fire, fusion center, and public information disciplines. In February 2013, the NCR Police Chiefs Committee endorsed the recommendations and started the process to create a framework for managing a multijurisdictional investigation in the NCR.