Civic Disturbance Emergency Response (Sentinel City)

Lucreshia Jackson

American Sentinel College of Nursing & Health Sciences

SIM432PE

28th September 2022

Civic Disturbance Emergency Response (Sentinel City)

Civic disturbance refers to the situation that disrupts the community and therefore requires to be intervened to maintain safety within the public (Moeller, 2018). The situation could be a strike, a riot, or a demonstration within a community. These situations can result in disorder, violence, assault, or vandalism within the community. The following report, therefore, focuses on the civic disturbance in Sentinel City.

During my bus tour in Sentinel City, there were reports through the media and public of the incident along Coty hall that contributed to civil disorder. According to the laws in Sentinel City, the City Hall is a point where the residents in the City gather t raise their issues and concerns about the city government. However, on this particular day, the number of residents that had gathered along the City Hall was huge, and they could be heard complaining about the huge tax increments in the City. Most of these demonstrators were from low businesses tired of being blown by the huge tax increment, and the city Mayor was not addressing their issue. This demonstration was accompanied by a few hours of confounding between the city residents and the law enforcers.

Therefore, this scenario resulted in two significant effects on the public’s health and needed an emergency reaction. This incident resulted in so many death cases and others suffering both minor and major injuries. According to the media reports, the affected included the disabled, the children and the elderly, who constituted 40% of the overall deaths. The incident had no red flags, and therefore, the authorities delayed responding since they were unaware. The death of hundreds of residents created public tension, and those affected were at risk of suffering mental disorders, which could result in another public health concern. Secondly, this incident created a significant risk and spread of the COVID-19 virus. This is due to the breaching of the protocols set to prevent the spread of the virus. The residents in the scenario interacted freely without keeping a social distance, and during confrontations with the police, the residents came into contact with each other. This is against the COVID-19 protocols set by the health ministry. If residents were infected with the virus, they infected hundreds of the residents. The residents who burnt cars during the demonstration caused air pollution due to the smoke from the burning tires, which could have affected the respiratory health of many residents.

The emergency response team in Sentinel City includes the public teams, such as the local authority and the private teams, which include the media and the Red Cross crew. The local authorities have the duty of communicating the progress to contain the incident and ensuring that the COVID-19 protocols are taken into account. The police officers’ job is to disperse the demonstrating residents to restore law and order and prevent vandalism and looting during the incident. The Red Cross teams would provide first aid services to injured residents or officers during the incident. On the other hand, the media would air all the ongoing activities during the incident, including the measures being taken to contain the situation.

Risks and benefits can accompany the media involvement in the civil unrest incident. The advantages include ensuring that information quickly reaches the local authorities about the incident to take action to contain the situation. The media will also act as a mediator between the public and local authorities by urging them to come together and find a solution to the situation to avoid more incidences leading to such civil unrest. The risk of media being involved would create public tension. This is because the media usually air scary images of dead or badly injured individuals, creating fear in public.

Some of the public resources that would be used to help respond both in the short and long term include telehealth services and electronic posters. Telemedicine is appropriate since communication through telemedicine services ensures constant communication between the healthcare officers and the patients’ families in virtual settings through online and doctor services or video calls. Electronic posters are another method that would help the healthcare officers in Sentinel City provide information on how to stay safe from the COVID-19 virus. The posters could include images of people keeping social distance, washing their hands using clean running water and soap, wearing masks and other protocols. The images could also display inappropriate behaviours such as not observing social distance or sneezing uncontrollably in public settings.

To avoid this incident, the response team in Sentinel City has to re-adjust its plans by employing the four phases of emergency management. The faces include the preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery phases (Nojavan et al., 2018). The first phase will help lessen the probable impact of the disaster as there will be the identification of hot spots, emergency operations will be set up, and an action plan will also be formulated. The second phase will involve taking quick actions such as training officers to handle civil unrest or training the residents on how to run for their safety during civil unrest to prepare for emergencies. The third phase involves protecting the public after the disaster strikes, such as setting centers for offering first aid or a partial curfew that limits people’s movements, thus minimizing civil unrest. The fourth phase involves the creation of protocols or action plans to solve civil issues peacefully, lowering strike incidents (Nojavan et al., 2018).

The emergency management team in Sentinel City should therefore utilize the four phases to prevent future occurrences of fatal incidents such as the one experienced along City Hall. Therefore, they should look for loopholes in their emergency management plans to avoid the occurrence of unaware civil unrest in the City.

References

Moeller, S. D. (2018). Dangerous Exposures. In Journalists in Peril (pp. 115-122). Routledge.

Nojavan, M., Salehi, E., & Omidvar, B. (2018). Conceptual change of disaster management models: A thematic analysis. Jàmbá: Journal of Disaster Risk Studies, 10(1), 1-11.