ILEAS Mutual Aid

 

Background
One of the primary missions for ILEAS is to coordinate statewide mutual aid for law enforcement in Illinois. For years, police and sheriff's agencies have worked together locally and developed literally dozens of different mutual aid arrangements. Over 20 years ago, agencies north and west of Chicago formed a mutual aid organization called the Northern Illinois Police Alarm System (NIPAS). It was based on the Fire Mutual Aid Box Alarm (MABAS) that had existed already for many years. Over time, NIPAS grew to include dozens of police agencies.
Participation/Activation
To participate in the ILEAS mutual aid alarm system a department must be a legitimate, publicly funded law enforcement agency and sign a mutual aid agreement. Your agency will then file a "pre-plan" for mutual aid requests involving up to 50 departments and multiple pre-designated staging areas.

If you have a disaster or emergency that taxes you beyond available resources, one call to the ILEAS contract communications center - Northwest Central Dispatch (1-847-590-3500) - and the help you need will be sent immediately. Please download, review and have the activation protocols handy when you call. If Northwest Central Dispatch is not available when you call, the back up center is Peoria Dispatch at 1-309-494-8000.
Intra-State Mutual Aid
When ILEAS was formed in 2002, it expanded the NIPAS model statewide. The box alarm system provides each agency three big advantages for dealing with major crises where the individual agency's resources are overwhelmed:
  • With a signed mutual aid agreement, every participating agency is on solid legal footing to exercise police authority outside their jurisdiction when responding to a call for assistance pursuant to the agreement. Additionally, every agency involved has signed the same agreement statewide and the risks, liability, authority and cost distribution are clearly spelled out.
  • The mutual aid response is "pre-planned" and therefore less chaotic during the emergency. The onerous and time-consuming task of calling individual agencies for help is moved from the stricken agency to ILEAS.
  • It provides an established platform for potential reimbursement of costs if a state or federal disaster is declared.
Inter-State Mutual Aid
The State of Illinois is a signatory of the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, commonly referred to as the EMAC. As a member of ILEAS, any police agency in Illinois could voluntarily participate in requests for assistance from other States. In September of 2005, Illinois responded to an EMAC request for officers after the Hurricane Katrina disaster. The Illinois Emergency Management Agency reached out to ILEAS for assistance and ILEAS responded by sending 300 officers to Louisiana for a month. Click here for more information on EMAC.
Video
In March of 2006, ILEAS produced an 8-minute video explaining the ILEAS mutual aid alarm system for law enforcement agencies. That video is now posted behind the secured site - password necessary. In June of 2006, ILEAS produced a new public version of the video that is available here. This video is posted in varying sizes, depending on the speed of your Internet connection.

It is best to right click the largest version your computer can handle and download the file to your PC and play it from there. ILEAS has put the video on DVD and is attempting to distribute them to all ILEAS members. If you would like to request a free copy, please contact Angela Page.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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