Changes designed to keep terrorists at bay have been designated for the the state department. It's all a part of a larger, statewide plan to keep Tennesseans safe.
July 16 marked a terrorist attack in Chattanooga that was never supposed to happen.
"Our mission is to keep terrorist attacks from occurring in Tennessee and one occurred," said Office of Homeland Security Director Rick Shipkowski.
Homeland Security has decided to completely restructure, shuffling staff and organizing into four bureaus:
- Administration
- Bureau of Analytics which includes cyber security
- Bureau of Preparedness which covers training and exercises
- Bureau of Operations which is over terror-related investigations
"We took a good hard look internally," Shipkowski said the Chattanooga lone wolf attack was a wake-up call.
Homeland Security was one of several departments making adjustments as part of the Governor's Public Safety Action Plan.
The 2016-2018 plan was the brainchild of the Public Safety Subcabinent, which included state leaders from Dept. of Safety and Homeland Security, Dept. of Correction, TBI, Board of Parole, Dept. of Children's Services, Office of Criminal Justice Programs, Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, Tennessee Law Enforcement Training Academy, Governor's Highway Safety Office, Dept. of Military and the Dept. of Health.
While Homeland Security staff, said the July shooting that killed five servicemen would have been hard to prevent, they decided they could do more to weed out threats and respond to them. That included buying special equipment for local law enforcement and training with them in case of an attack.
"The 911 call isn't going to go to Rick Shipkowski," Shipkowski said, "it's going to go to some police department or fire department."
The office received $1 million for technology to help with cyber security and scanning social media and the web to keep up with the changing threat.
"An individual can be radicalized online and react before anyone knows. In the past they would try to travel overseas and we could try to interdict them," said Shipkowski.
And their last focus was on schools, which are considered a soft target. Now a school safety team will review emergency plans and the office will help schools train for the worst.
"As opposed to fire drills now students and faculty have to understand what to do with an active shooter," Shipkowski explained.
As the community grows so does the threat, making it more important to stay ahead of anyone who would do Tennessee harm.
The local cyber team was stationed at the Tennessee Fusion Center with TBI. Members detect up to a dozen suspicious alerts a week.
