Mutual Aid

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Los Angeles County is divided into areas for mutual aid.  Each city pledges that in the event of a major incident and mutual aid request that they will send at least 50% of the on duty patrol officers immediately to any area mutual aid request.  They won't wait to ask the chief, they won't try to evaluate if it meets their standards of a major incident, they won't wait to see if the officers are really needed or if they can spare them.  The officers report to their agency, collect their gear, get signed off by the watch commander and off they go to the mutual aid command post.

The area I work in can send at least 100 officers within a few minutes of the request.  My agency is expected to send three officers since we field six patrol cars most of the time.  I suspect that every time we have had a mutual aid request we have actually send more that three.  Typically, we will call in Reserve Officers to back fill the Regular Officers in the city.  Sometimes we have also sent Reserve Officers to the mutual aid request. 

Other officers who are on duty are also sent to a major incident.  Detectives are put in uniform and either back fill the Regular Patrol Officers or are sent as additional responders to the mutual aid request.  Command staff might go and we have sent clerks and dispatchers too so they can assist with those duties.  We have held over an shift that is about to go home and called people in on their day off.  These procedures need to be approved, planned and practiced before a major incident happens.  It makes life much safer for the officers and the general public; that's what the SGT Says.