District of Columbia

http://www.dc.gov/

Organizations

The District of Columbia is a member of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. The Homeland Security Act of 2002 defined the National Capital Region as the District of Columbia; Montgomery and Prince George's counties in Maryland; Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William counties and the city of Alexandria in Virginia; and all cities and other units of government within the geographic areas of such District, counties and city. The District is located in FEMA Region III; the Defense Coordinating Office responsible for brokering and arranging federal military support for the District is in Philadelphia.

Organizations	Federal	State	Local	Total
Law Enforcement Law Enforcement Includes organizations at the federal, state and local levels that have the police powers to make arrests and investigate criminal matters.	17	0	3	20
Emergency Management Emergency Management Organizations tasked with responding to natural disasters, attacks using weapons of mass destruction and other emergencies.	1	1	0	2
Homeland Security Homeland Security Organizations responsible for activities -- such as infrastructure protection, border control and planning for the aftermath of terrorist attacks -- handled mainly by the Department of Homeland Security.	6	2	0	8
Counterterrorism Counterterrorism Organizations, such as the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces, that work exclusively on terrorism cases.	3	0	0	3
JTTFs Joint Terrorism Task Force A multiagency task force, run by the FBI, that has the lead in investigating terrorism within the United States.	1	0	0	1
Intelligence Intelligence and Fusion Organizations that collect, analyze and share information about domestic threats.	5	1	0	6
Fusion Centers Fusion Center A place where information from multiple agencies in a state or region is sent to be analyzed.	1	1	0	2
Totals	32	4	3	39

Initiatives

• Counterterrorism

  The FBI's Washington Joint Terrorsim Task Force. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia is the nation's largest, enforcing the criminal laws of the United States and the District and thus serving as both the federal prosecutor and the local district attorney. The national security section handles all terrorism, terrorism hoax, export enforcement and espionage matters; investigations into leaks, mishandling or other disclosure of classified information; and other sensitive matters that implicate national security and/or have significant extraterritorial aspects.

• Intelligence

  The District of Columbia was one of six states (through the NCR) to initially test the Department of Homeland Security's Homeland Security Information System - Intel (HSIN-Intel) pilot, which allows fusion centers to directly share classified information to identify trends and patterns that may represent links to terrorism. The District is a member of the Middle Atlantic-Great Lakes Organized Crime Law Enforcement Network (MAGLOCLEN), the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC), and the National Capital Region Law Enforcement Information Exchange (NCR-LInX). In 2010, the Metropolitan Police Department was designated as one of 12 state agencies to participate in the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) initiative.

  At the federal level, the FBI's field office operates a Field Intelligence Group (FIG) focused on threats to the District. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Field Intelligence Group in Washington has jurisdiction over the District and Virginia.

• Fusion

  The Washington Regional Threat and Analysis Center (WRTAC) (formerly the Metropolitan Washington Fusion Center), is operated by the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and is the District's citywide all-hazards fusion center. Almost 100 local, state and federal agencies participate in the WRTAC, which is one of 12 initial pilot sites for the Nationwide SAR Initiative. The WRTAC and the MPD are collaborating on the Terrorist Incident Prevention Program (TIPP), a private industry suspicious-activity partnership that feeds threat information to the WRTAC from more than 60 types of high-risk businesses and industries. The WRTAC is also a member of the five-state NCR Fusion Center Directors Exchange Program, which includes analyst exchanges, regional Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) exchange, Terrorist Screening Center notifications and exchanges of criminal or border crime data.

• Homeland Security

  The District of Columbia Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency (HSEMA) manages the District's emergency operations to prevent, respond to and recover from natural and man-made emergencies, and serves as the central communications point during regional emergencies. The HSEMA operations division runs a 24/7 Emergency Operations Center (EOC), the city's main operational control and communications facility during an emergency, disaster or special event. To assist in critical infrastructure protection, a DHS Security Advisor in Washington works with the HSEMA.

• Law Enforcement

  The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) is the primary law enforcement agency for the District of Columbia. The MPD is a partner in the National Capital Region Law Enforcement Information Exchange (NCR-LInX), a system that links local databases and allows investigators to develop leads for terrorist incidents in the NCR. The FBI's Washington field office is among the busiest of the agency's 56 field offices. The office has more than 750 agents, and on any given day, more than one-quarter are working counterterrorism cases.

• Emergency Management

  The District of Columbia Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency (HSEMA) is the city agency for coordinating disaster/emergency preparedness. The District of Columbia Emergency Preparedness Council (EPC) is the principal body that addresses planning and implementation efforts identified in the District Response Plan (DRP).