Analysts in Holland, Mich., came to the same conclusion this week that many of us already have: cross training firefighters and police to do one another’s job is not a good option.
This intensive four-year examination was not brought on by those looking for ways to better serve their public, but as a way to close budget shortfalls. I get that budget constraints are very real and that administrators cannot magically pull money from a hat.
But I also get that firefighting and police work are each difficult and specialized professions. Cross training police and fire personnel as EMTs makes sense, not as a means of saving money, but improving service.
The big problem with cross training fire and police is that it takes each away from becoming better at their primary job. In the end, you wind up with a watered-down version of both.
That said, awareness-level training for each discipline would likely improve relations and on-scene effectiveness.
I can see how the cross-training model is appealing to municipal officials, especially in areas that have relatively low crime and incidents of fire.
It would be very tempting to see those budgets as bloated — and prime for raiding — if the majority of police calls were DUI stops, residential alarms and the occasional domestic disturbance; and if the fire department mostly ran “smells and bells” and lift/assists calls.
Yet, officials do their communities a disservice if they build those departments with only the routine calls in mind. The day will come when that domestic turns into an armed standoff and when that funny smell is a fully involved multi-family structure.
When those happen, communities need fully staffed, fully equipped and fully trained responders. If not, responders and civilians will be hurt and killed. And that is not a morally or fiscally responsible position to take.