Dominick Maldonado’s text message could have been the words of a foreign or domestic terrorist. The article discusses how this trouble young man went into the large western Washington shopping mall full of early holiday shoppers and opened fire with a semi-automatic assault rifle. He wounded six people and took five more hostages in one of the mall?s music and video shops. Four hours later, the SWAT hostage negotiation team convinced him to surrender.

What is not disclosed in the article is the behind-the-scenes work that had been done by the Pierce County Terrorism Early Warning (TEW) group. For the past four years, the TEW and Geographic Information Service Department (GISD) have worked cooperatively to build quick response plans for the county?s critical facilities. The quick response plan they built for the Tacoma Mall paid off with huge dividends on November 20. These quick response plans are part of a web-based program know as the Threat Response System, used by the TEW to provide law enforcement, fire, and medical aid officers with the critical information they need to provide an effective response during a disaster, terrorist attack, or an active shooter. The Threat Response System can be accessed on scene via wireless laptop computers, providing responding officers with necessary data.