Ruby Ridge And Waco Case Summary

With consideration to law enforcement responses at Ruby Ridge and Waco, as a public manager, my takeaway is how critical collaboration is to the successful outcome of a crisis. Both responses had many different moving parts that appeared to function without effective collaboration. Effective collaboration could have provided a vetting capability for decisions. For instance, the rules of engagement revision made by the Federal Bureau of investigation (FBI), at Ruby Ridge, could have prevented the unnecessary death of Vicki Weaver, if the decision required higher authorization for approval.

Additionally, the standoff event at Waco lacked effective collaboration. The lack of collaboration was indicated by both negotiators and tactical commanders having trouble receiving information from each other; despite both sides indicating that information satisfactorily flowed upward, from their respective cells, to the command element (Dennis, 1993). There was an obvious breakdown in communications that impacted collaboration and ultimately joint strategy. The negotiators believed that had they been able to conduct operations their way (taking a

As previously mentioned, law enforcement operations at both Ruby Ridge and Waco, had many different moving parts, with different organizations fulfilling different roles. Had the various organizations planned and trained for the types of operations they were conducting. It is likely there would have been better outcomes. In fact, one the seven significant recommendations that resulted from the U.S. Justice Department’s investigation into Ruby Ridge, called for “a crisis response team, including specially trained crisis managers …. [and] periodic joint training exercises … (U.S. Department of Justice, 1994, p. 4). Implementing the disaster preparedness function of emergency management could have facilitated collaboration and a joint