Within the police there is something called chains of command, this is a command structure that
was created in order to help and assist police officers as well as some other emergency services to
deal with a major incident as efficiently as possible.
There are 3 chains of command in total
• Bronze command, this can also be known as the operational command.
• Sliver command, also known for as the tactical command
• and lastly the gold command, and is known to also be the strategic command base.
As an insight, each level of command is slightly different from one another, is based differently and
what happens is also different.
Bronze command is based at the operation itself, directly at the scene where the incident took
place and would consist of the main emergency services depending on the type of incident,
however the commands are all set up by the police officers and controlled by all the officer at the
scene but commanded by a commanding officer usually a superintendent or an officer at an
inspector rank.
The Bronze command is usually based for the firearms officers and it's their job to carry out the
functional responsibilities that is related to a tactical plan.
The number of commanders at each level all depend on the seriousness of the incident at
depending on the seriousness will depend of the commander that is appointed and their skill level.
It's the job of the bronze commander to allocate the roles and positions of all other officers,
however this all depends on the orders that are given by tactical command which must be
followed.
The tactical command is again set up and controlled by members of the police and also consist of
members from each of the emergency services.
For the police, it's the job of the tactical commander at the silver command base to create plans
and tactics that can be easily implemented without risk and always considering the safety of all the
officers and civilians involved in the incident to then be passed down to operational command
(Bronze) to be executed and hopefully lead to success.
This command is not directly involved with the incident at the scene and therefore not considered
in the hands on approach like the operational command; the commander at this station would be
based somewhere within the outer cordon, possibly in some form of operational room.
The choice of commander does also vary the same as bronze commander and the person would be
selected based upon the scale of the incident and the skill and level of responsibility that they have
, this could be a firearms or even a public order commander.
But as a whole it's their job to fully communicate with the bronze commander and ensure that
he/she is fully understanding the objectives of the tactical plan.
The strategic command (gold) would only come into play if and when is needed, depending of the
scale at which the incident has exceeded to and if it requires more hands on from higher ranking
officers at which can't be dealt or handled with singularly by sliver command.
Dependant on the type and cause of the incident it can be the case that gold command is the first
command station the be established before anyone is involved.
This command would be controlled by a senior officer, often a ranking officer as high as a chief
constable and it's their primary job if they are forced to take action on an incident, to create a
number of strategy's that will help to deal with the incident and keep in under control, this in turn
will also create support the bronze and silver commands.
The officer would be no where near the scene, but located at a distance and can vary from a police
station to even a council building, it can all vary depending on the location of the incident and
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