The police recruits arrived in pairs in the woods outside Seattle. For days, they had been calming their minds through meditation and documenting life’s beauty in daily journals. Mindful and centered, they now faced a test: a mentally ill man covered in feces and mumbling to a rubber chicken.
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We know firefighters risk their lives to save others during fires.
But did you know there's something that happens after the flames are out that could be putting them in danger?
It's their uniforms, which carry all of the toxins they encounter on the job -- toxins that can ultimately lead to serious health problems, like cancer.
What researchers have discovered

There has been no shortage of surprising and disturbing revelations since the nation’s focus landed on police violence, following the August 2014 shooting Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. One of the most stunning discoveries was how little was truly known about police shootings of civilians: There was simply no reliable record.

In an effort to establish a memorial for EMS workers who die in the line of duty, the National EMS Memorial Foundation is collaborating with the White House on an online petition to show support for H.R. 2274.
The bill will ensure that a commemorative work is created in the nation’s capital that will recognize the EMS providers who died in the line of duty, and will honor the dedication of EMS members nationwide.
In March 2015, the IAB and DHS Office of Health Affairs hosted an Active Shooter Summit, which brought together first responders from major cities in the US and UK to formulate best practices or recommendations on integrated Active Shooter/Hostile Events (ASHE) response.

As the recent events in Paris so tragically demonstrate, we continue to face ongoing threats in an uncertain world. Active shooter events, the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and the threat of complex attacks like those seen in Beslan, Russia; Mumbai, India; and now, Paris, France must be considered as at least plausible, if not probable.

The IAB recently adopted a new white paper titled Prevalence of Untreated Severe Mental Illness in U.S. Communities Places Unmanageable Burden on First Responders and Law Enforcement. This document presents the issue that our nation's public mental health system is not adequately resourced to meet the treatment needs of individuals with severe mental illness.

Each year, the IAB's Science & Technology SubGroup collects research and development priorities from within the membership. The priorities become the basis of the annual IAB Research & Development Priority Survey. The end product of the survey is the annual R&D Priority List, which is shared with the federal science and technology community to help focus research and development funds towards first responder needs.

The IAB recently adopted a new publication titled Training Trigger: Crude Oil Rail Shipment. This document looks at the shipment of crude oil by rail and the derailments and incidents involving trains carrying this hazardous materials. The paper provides fast facts on the topic as well as recommendations for agencies who respond to crude oil derailments.
