Ops room duties

This is a lecture note delivered by Aguiyi Henry on the 13th November 2014, to all“ OFFICERS SECURITY FORUM ” Gombe, on the Ops-Room Duties.
Good morning officers and great men of this security forum,
For the purpose of our interactive discourse this morning, I will be discussing with you the operational room duties.
My name is Aguiyi Henry. Am from south-east of Nigeria and presently serving in the Kaltungo Area .


MY OBJECTIVES FOR OUR TODAY’S TOPIC ARE:
1. Definition of the OPS room
2. To discuss the functional duties of the Ops-room operatives
3. List of items that can be found in the Ops Room
4. Method of making entries into the station Diary and other Registries found in the Ops room.
5. Other suggestive ideas on how best we can improve in our Ops Room duties.
Before driving you further with my today’s topic, I will like to share a certain insight with you all, for two days now I have being making some serious observations, deeply examining the combatant movement of some soldier-ants passing through my door-way and retiring into a particular hole with all their goods, there and then I decided to block that very hole with a more heavy object and even killed some of the ants, just to divert their movement and actions from their original track. Behold the next morning I still saw the very object being moved out from the hole and all the surviving ants still performing their activities and duties as usual, then I said to myself, here are ordinary ants performing their duties, taking away the barriers and obstacles of time, working and functioning as if nothing happens, still determined to complete their task, with all high sense that none of them is indispensible in their great task ahead. Today this unique actions of the soldier- ants has raise in me a high moral consciousness, to strongly believe that, I and you can do better in overcoming every obstacles of our job through active learning and team-work participations.
Quote:
‘A roster crows only when it sees the light, put him the dark and he’ll never crow. I have seen the light and I’m crowing’
By Muhammad Ali…
Today we all will see the light and crow forever with the new knowledge; we are going to share here.


OBJECTIVE 1
DEFINITION OF OPS-ROOM
Ops-room is a place or arrangement put in place for the monitoring, control, coordinating and processes necessary for the physical security of the organization premises, including the facilities and materials within the premises and at the same provides skeletal administrative and operational services after working hours and during weekend and public holidays.
I want you to underline the keywords Monitoring- means the act of observing something and sometimes keeping record of it
Control- exercise authoritative control or power over something
PHYSICAL SECURITY
This can be describing as security measures that are designed to deny unauthorized access to facilities, equipment and resources and protect personnel and property from damage or harm.
It involves the use of multiple layers of interdependent system, which include the uses of CCTV, surveillance security guards, protective barriers, keys and locks, access control, protocols etc.
Here we can say that the functions of the Ops-room are both operational and administration in scope.
Operational aspect: provides support services for the care and custody of suspect and detainees and interviews and interrogations, and in monitoring of suspects interactions with outsides and operatives as well.
While it’s administrative mechanism, served as a coordinating centre of all protective and physical security measures installed to ensure the safety of an organization’s installations and personnel.
The physical security measures are:
1. Determines potential intruders
2. Distinguishes the authorized from unauthorized people (using access card badges)
3. Delay, frustrates and ideally prevent intrusion attempts
4. Detect intrusion and monitor, record all actions necessary.
5. Trigger appropriate incident responses (e.g.) by security guards and police
The major goal of all this deterrence methods is to convince any potential attackers that any successful attack to the office building in question is impossible due to strong defenses and presence of duty officers, and no unauthorized activity can occur without being seen.
The purpose here, is for us to understand that Ops-room is specialized place where all these operations of preventing and protecting all officers and buildings from unauthorized intruder are coordinate, monitored, controlled and processed from, in fact is the very part of counter and interval security measures of the agency.
It is very sensitive and important that its assignments precedence over every other duty.
Note here: that as Ops-room officers or O/Cs, you don’t allow your mind to escape the attention of OPS room details and records, what I mean is that every activity, observations or development must be recorded in the relevant diary or register.
Why am emphasis on this, is that is more proper to have a detailed logging of events, development and activities, of which could likely turn out as the only defense the OPS-room officers would have for or against any act of commission or omission.
Such duties also play deferent role as they could raise that something amiss happing security wise.
So if you find yourself as the (DO) or higher supervising officers go through the diaries at least ones or twice a day.

OBJECTIVES 2
Discussing the duties of the OPS room operatives
OPS room by traditions is under the control supervision of the administration department, it operates 24hours and its operations are on shift patterns.
The team maximum number should be 12member per shift
The functional duties of this team comes directly under the supervision and control of the departmental security officers (DSO) but at other times which is not working hours, the duties of the Ops-room personnel’s will be controlled and supervised directly by the duty officers (D0) who is equally the team leaders or O/C team whom sometime appoints a desk officer that his/ her job should be of making officials entries into the station Diary or other registers as directed
Such entries should be:
(1) Reporting for or off duty of personnel including official operations and assignments
(2) Handing and taking over by Ops-room operations and movement of key personnel in and out of the office premises.
(3) Removal of official vehicles and other moveable properties from the promises etc.
While other duties are the screening and monitoring of visitors to the organization, careful custody of suspects and detainees, monitoring the CCTV of items found in the Ops-rooms.


OBJECTIVE 3
List of items found in the OPS rooms
(a) Station Diary and registers: for logging information and maintaining record of events and development as it happen within the office premises.
(b) Telephones: for receiving messages and making contacts with the relevant officers
(c) Fax machine: for the same purpose
(d) Pens and pencils of various colors: for writing and making entries
(e) Closet of drawers and lockers: for storing valuables
(f) Battens handcuffs/leg chains: for handling difficult suspects.
(g) Wall clock: for keeping time
(h) First Aid kits: for emergency accidents
(i) Fire extinguishers: for emergency fire out break
(j) Standing vehicle
(k) Fire arms and ammunitions: for the office patrol
(l) Writing desks and chairs: for the duty officers and visitors
(a) Local, state and national maps, including street and route maps sketches
Entries into the station Diary and Register that are stationed in the Ops-room are normally done by the O/Cs or whoever he authorizes do so on his/ her behalf.
But for easy and fast documenting and entries, the O/C appoint a desk officer, authorized by him to do all the entries or logging into the office registers,
Things necessary to be documented are:-
(i) Reporting for and off duty by personnel by including operations.
(ii) Handing and taking over by OPS room operations.
(iii) Movement of way personnel in and out of the premises especially of tor working hours was trends and public holidays.
(iv) Removal of official vehicle
(v) removal and returning of ways to the offices
(vi) removal of any moveable properties from the premises
(vii) Removal of any OPS room accoutrement (e.g.) Firearms, Maps, Torchlight of Lamp, Hand cuff etc.
(viii) reporting of visiting round officer
(ix) Report of patrol under taken by the duty officer (DO)
(x) All inspection visits to the cell.
(xi) All relevant incidents reports and complaints by members of the public and member
(xii) Feeding hospitalization and released of suspects and detainers
(xiii) Detention orders recorded and particulars of the suspects in respect etc.
Others functions done collectively by OPS room personnel are
(a) Monitoring and coordination of the activities of the guard force
(b) Monitoring the close circuit Television CCTV and other electronic gadgets installed at strategic location
(c) Careful custody of suspects and detainees needs
(d) Coordinating and monitoring of visitors to the organization
(e) Ensuring that all electrical appliance are switched-off after office hour
(f) Ensure that all offices are locked and keys deposited at the key-rack after working hours
(g) Checking and determining the functional states of all firefighting equipment, other items and security lighting etc.


Objective 4
Method of making entries into the station Diary registry
Each page of the station diary or register is divided into three or four columns, in the first columns form the left hand side, you entered the several numbers, which ran continuously from the first day of each month to the last day of the same month.
The second column contain the time of making the entries, the timing runs continuously from the commencement of the day at immediately after midnight to the last munities of the outgoing day, it is always entered in military fashion (e.g.) 0001hours, to represent one minute after 12oclack etc.
The third column, which is the reference or cross- reference column is optional, in it is entered the several members of entries made previously in respect of the subject matter in question, where cross of the reference column is found to be unnecessary and cumbersome, no details occupy this column thus making a fourth column unnecessary.
In the last or Details column is entered the information of significance, it starts with a subject, a vide entry or cross reference entry serial number if any, the complete or full details of the information the full names and identification number or code of the writer and his/her signature. File subject matter is always underlined with black ink while ink of construct color is used to record the full information
The duty officers, visiting round officers and DSOs personally make entries in respect of the duties and observation made personally by them
Dating is made horizontally after leaving or making a spacing of one line from the last entry of the previous day (No line is jumped) cancellations and mutilations must be bracketed and the correct word written neatly above it important message must be understand in red into diary.
S/NO
01
02
03
04
TIME
0800hours
0805hours
1200hours
1400hours
C/R
120hours
ENTRY
HANDING OVER DUTY;
TAKING OVER DUTY ;
MOVEMENT OF OFFICERS;
VAID ENTRY;
05 1400hours INCIDENT REPORT ;


Objective 5
Other suggestive ideas on how best we can improve in our Ops-Room duties.
Profound solutions to the Ops-rooms pitfall of our Ops-room operatives
1. From my own opinions, I stand to advice that officers while posted to Ops-room should take their duties more serious with maximum psychological alertness and concentration on their duties in the Ops- room.
2. Then when off duty, operative should subject themselves to full physical relaxation to enable them attain the maximum alertness and concentration required for affective Ops- room performance when next they report for duty.
3. Such beat being a serious front of every security agency, call for discipline behavior from the operatives, it altar be handled in professional manners, all techniques observation so that no event or situation of security significance is handled with care.
Other things which I will love the management to address for us as far as ops-room is concerned
a. To provide a complete first-aid box and training of officers in that field with knowledge of what to do in terms of crisis or emergency situations.
b. Provide daily order file and entry registers like arms and suspects movement registry to the Ops-room
c. Familiarized the officers with different ways of drafting reports especially on the incidents reporting, in case the need arises at any situations.
d. Providing the ops-room with Hot-line of the police ,fire services and other relevant emergency organizations which be necessary to contact during emergencies situations like uncontrollable fire out break
e. Providing us with trainings on knowledge on stress management


SUMMARY
We said that Ops-room is a place or arrangement put in place for the monitoring control and processes necessary for physical security of the organization premises, of which we described physical security as a security measures that are designed to prevent any unauthorized access to facilities, equipment and resources and to protect personnel and property from damage or harm.
And for the purpose of these discussions, we viewed Ops-room as to be the specialized place where all these operations of preventing, protecting of offices and personnel’s from unauthorized intruders are coordinated from.
Then we further discussed on the functional duties of the Ops-room operatives and items that are easily found in the ops-room.
Finally some suggestions were made on how officers can improve in ops-room duties and also more emphasis were point on the needs training of officers on crisis ,incident and emergency handling incase of such occurs while discharging their normal ops-room duties.

Questions………………………………………………………………………………….


BRIDGE OUT
In our next discussions, we will be talking in details on how Ops-room incidents and emergencies can be best handled in diligent manners if the needs arises.
Thank you officers.