Zombie CSU (11 page)

Joseph Sciscio, a detective with the Bensalem Township Police Department in Pennsylvania, adds: “Considering this is a small suburban town I would expect everyone from the chief on down to be involved along with the solicitation of other agencies including local sheriffs, surrounding jurisdictions, even fire, police and public works departments for less involved tasks of traffic control.”

“If the search area is anywhere near a waterway,” adds Chief Ken Coluzzi of Lower Makefield Police in Pennsylvania, “then the marine search units will be called in as well as helicopters. The search will be expanded when additional help arrives. Additional personnel usually begin to arrive within ten minutes or so.”

McKinney says: “Let’s assume that this department is bringing all available resources to bear in this case. First off, the street officers responding to the scene will call in the suspect’s description and any other relevant pieces of information. A supervisor will almost certainly make the scene and will order officers in the area to set up a quadrant around the suspect’s probable location. In this case, officers will set up along the boundary of the forested land. The supervisor might order officers to park along the roadway next to the forest. Those officers would remain at their posts until dismissed by the supervisor. The supervisor will order his or her communications personnel to contact neighboring jurisdictions and the suspect’s information would be forwarded to them. They would be responsible for mobilizing their own response. Beyond that, the key concept here is officer safety. Unless the officers responded to the scene soon enough to see the suspect going into the forest, they would never blindly charge in after him. Witnesses may state that he is not armed, but suspects are always treated like they are. That’s just sound tactics.”

Small towns, however, are not as isolated as they once were and help is often just a phone call away, as Michael E. Witzgall (a former member of Marine Corps Force Reconnaissance, who served with SWAT in Dallas, Texas, and now works as a tactical training consultant) points out: “Most small towns have inter-jurisdictional agreements of cooperation with neighboring cities. A request for help in the search would be sent out and those that could help would show up; however, due to manpower constraints and vicarious liability, many of those agreements are no longer observed. The requesting agency is in charge.”

“A small town would be forced to call upon multiple outside resources,” agrees McKinney. “They may call upon the County Sheriff’s Office, who would be able to provide additional personnel, and possibly even a helicopter. If a helicopter were available, then that would become the primary search tool. It would search the area with heat-sensitive cameras, etc.
¹¹
Another resource would be the state police. Troopers are generally in short supply, though. They respond to any agency requesting assistance, but it may take them several hours, at the earliest, to get any sort of presence in the area. If the search continues beyond a few hours, the state police would definitely have helicopters, dog teams, and professional trackers available. Still another resource would be the game warden and the Forestry Service. In most states, both of these entities have police powers, and they are highly qualified to search wilderness areas. The trouble is, there are very few game wardens in any one region, and so you may only get one or two officers to respond. However, the best resource for a small town (like the one in our medical research center scenario) would probably be a nearby large city, and a large city would have all the resources the state police have, and probably even more. Also, a nearby large city police department could deploy their personnel within thirty or forty minutes of being called. They would certainly have a helicopter unit, and also multiple dog teams. If the forested area goes into the large city’s jurisdiction, they would also have personnel specifically trained in how to operate in that environment.”

According to Chief Coluzzi, “Civilians may be used in situations where there is clearly insufficient police staffing. Many towns have CERT
¹²
Teams (Citizen Emergency Response).”

I asked my experts to explain how the search itself unfolds.

“The first step is to get people in the area,” advises McKinney. “You have to have people assigned to the crime scene itself, and others to interview witnesses. What you have left over, you assign to the quadrant. Once the quadrant is established, it basically turns into a waiting game for most of the officers involved. If a helicopter is available, they do the majority of the search. If dogs
¹³
were to be used, all other personnel would back out of the affected area. Believe me, you don’t want to meet up with a search dog off its leash. Ouch!!!”

Ted Krimmel, a sergeant with the South Central Bucks County Emergency Response Team (SERT) adds, “A biting incident could be classified as an aggravated (felony) assault. It being a felony, more resources could be brought in for the search.”

Witzgall lays out the steps used to manage a pursuit: “First you establish a chain of command and a command post location; and then inventory all available materials and assets. You break down all manpower resources into teams and appoint team leaders for each team…and you make sure all teams have radio or cell phone communications.”

McKinney adds, “Now, in this zombie situation, if the manhunt gets huge, and county and state police agencies get involved, the largest jurisdictional entity would usually assume ultimate control. For example, between county and state agencies, the state would be the larger entity.”

“Most searches of this manner are based on terrain denial,” Witzgall says, “Meaning that while you have people (and dogs) in pursuit you also want to get officers in front of the suspect to cut off his advance. If the on-scene commander knows his stuff, he will break the area down into grid squares (or use a military 1:25000 topographical map) to cover the search area. Each team (or several teams) would be assigned a grid square to search. All roads (improved or gravel) would be monitored. Once the suspect is sighted several things can happen. Teams may be jumped ahead of the suspect. Dogs and mounted units may be redirected toward the suspect. Trailing teams will be told to speed up and, if possible, surround the suspect. And aviation assets will circle the suspect to maintain visual contact.”

Sgt Krimmel describes how the actual takedown would be handled: “If the subject were spotted, he would first be given verbal commands, typically first ‘Police! Don’t move!’ followed by commands to either kneel or lie on the ground. The officers would also notify the command post or dispatcher of their location (if they know) and situation. If the subject obeys commands, he would be approached by a contact officer and handcuffed in what cops call ‘an arrest without incident.’ Failure to comply would be met usually with OC spray or K-9 application (both are usually very effective). In Pennsylvania officers are required to use the minimum level of force necessary to effect an arrest. Failure of the OC or K-9 might result in TASER use or baton strikes to effect the arrest. If the subject were to attack the officers or K-9s, obviously the officers would defend themselves and the dogs bite, of course. Once again, you might see combinations of OC, K-9, Taser, and baton strikes. Officers work within a concept called the ‘use-of-force continuum.’
¹⁴
In a nutshell, the practice is to always approach a suspect with the next level of force up from what they are using. If a suspect comes at you with a knife, you use your gun. If the suspect comes at you barehanded, you use one of the established intermediate, or less than lethal, force options.”

But less than lethal force is not the only option, as Chief Coluzzi explains. “Officers can use TASERs, batons, pepper spray, beanbag rounds, hand gun 40-caliber automatic or AR15 commando rifle.” However he adds a serious note of caution. “If officers spray the subject with tear gas that has an alcohol base and then they use the TASER they could light the subject on fire. Officers are taught not to use TASERs in these situations.”

Also known as a “flexible baton round,” the beanbag round is actually a small cloth sack filled with #9 lead shot. Though intended as non lethal, there has been an average of about one death per year from these rounds. I asked him to discuss their use. “In Lower Bucks County South, patrols carry shotguns loaded with less lethal rounds. These may also come into play in a situation like this. I can tell you from seeing these rounds used operationally, they will break bones and definitely slow somebody down. The less lethal rounds are usually deployed at areas with lots of fatty tissue (thighs, buttocks, upper arms) to cause maximum pain, with minimal injury. If used at close range, they will break bones and occasionally penetrate skin.”

And if the beanbags didn’t work? McKinney says, “Cops are usually pretty inventive. If they were to run into a subject who was attacking them and their dogs and usual police defense techniques weren’t working, they would try something different. Many police use of force policies cover ‘weapons of last resort.’ If the weapons and techniques being used were not getting the job done, the officers are encouraged to ‘improvise, adapt, and overcome.’ In the situation based on your zombie scenario, the subject (zombie) hasn’t used a deadly weapon, nor displayed one. The subject has done nothing that would authorize deadly force that the officers know of. A tactical retreat may be in order. Calling for more officers to assist, while maintaining visual contact with the subject (from a distance) may be another. Unfortunately, in my experience as a cop, once the fight starts, it doesn’t stop, until it’s resolved. There won’t be a chance to back off in a tactical retreat, let alone fight until additional officers arrive. In my experience, especially during my days in uniform, the people in the fight initially are usually the people at the end of it. A lucky cop will have backup with him before the fight starts. Usually, they are over quickly. As an aside, I have had people try to bite me as I was arresting them more than once. I was able to dodge the bite every time. A zombie biting or attempting to bite cops might not register with them as uncommon, at least not at first.”

Detective McKinney adds, “Officers are not forced to remain within this continuum if the circumstances don’t allow it, or it isn’t practical. A 90 pound female patrol officer forced to arrest a violent WWF wrestler or NFL linebacker is justified, for example, in going straight to the gun to effect an arrest. No one would reasonably expect her to try to subdue such an individual with her baton. So…when dealing with a dead body, intermediate force options probably won’t work. In that case, the gun is going to come out sooner or later.”

The Zombie Factor

When closing in on the zombie, the officers are not likely to put themselves at any risk, even if the suspect is believed to be unarmed or out of his mind. As Witzgall sees it, “Because this person may be mentally ill—at least in the officers’ minds—they may treat this as a dangerous situation; but differently than a murder suspect. Therefore dog handlers would not turn the dogs loose on the suspect (they would always be on the leash). More than likely, officers would make contact from a distance to avoid further agitating the suspect. They might even bring in a negotiator, though in this scenario that won’t be effective,” he admits. “More than likely transport after arrest—because the police believe him to be mentally ill—would be done by ambulance to a county hospital. If the suspect tries to bite, we generally put something over his head.”

Sgt. Krimmel adds, “I have seen hoods and shields placed over biter/spitters’ heads to avoid injury. Most cops feel that spitting on them puts them at increased risk of contracting disease and possibly taking it home to their families. As far as transport is concerned, most police vehicles have Plexiglas shields between the front and back seats to avoid physical contact or spitting from the arrestee.”

So the idea of an infected zombie biting cops and hospital workers is a bit less likely.

The danger in our scenario would come from a secondary source: the victim. The guard was bitten and transported to the hospital. It’s doubtful the guard would die en route unless he had arterial damage—and the 911 operator coached our witness through first aid. More likely the guard would die after being admitted to the hospital; and Romero establishes that this takes quite a few hours, since the little girl in
Night
was bitten hours before Barbara and Ben get to the house and doesn’t die and reanimate until either very late at night or, as is suggested, close to dawn. The real threat would come with how hospital protocols are handled, and we’ll explore that in Chapter 3.