Capt. Trey Sorensen – Pasadena FD and Sgt. Bobby Crees Pasadena PD

Just after 6pm on January 7th, the fire ignited in Eaton Canyon, California. In a matter of hours, powered by sustained 60 mile an hour winds, with gusts as high as 100 miles an hour, the fire spread through Pasadena and into the neighboring area of Altadena. In the days that followed, the Eaton fire grew to become one of the worst fires in California history, killing 17 people, burning more than 14 ,000 acres, destroying more than 9 ,400 structures, and damaging more than 1 ,000 others. In the city of Pasadena, approximately 150 structures were destroyed, but because of the efforts of the police and fire departments, no one in Pasadena lost their lives. My guests today are Captain Trey Sorensen from the Pasadena Fire Department and Sergeant Bobby Crease from the Pasadena Police Department. Trey was the evacuation group supervisor and Bobby was the command post supervisor during the first 14 hours of the fire. Although the fire burned for almost two weeks, for this debrief we will be looking at the first 12 hours of the fire and how the police and fire departments struggled to save lives as an uncontrollable fire tore through their city.

Contact Info:

Capt. Trey Sorensen – [email protected] 

Sgt. Bobby Crees – [email protected]

My guest today is Kim Pastore.  Kim’s husband Jorge Pastore was killed on November 11, 2023 while attempting to rescue hostages with the Austin, TX SWAT Team. This was a case we covered previously with the Team in Seasons 4 Episode 5 released on November 11, 2024.  However, Kim has graciously agreed to sit down with us and debrief the incident from her perspective.  This is an episode we have wanted to do for a long time to consider the spouses perspective on a LODD as well as consider the best practices for handling a LODD that an agency, team and individual offer can engage in to make this process as easy as possible for the family.     

Contact Info:
https://www.jpastorefoundation.com/

My guest today is John Dowd. John is a former navy SEAL who 15 years ago started SOFware, LLC a company that develops software and consults with elite units in their assessment and selection processes.  John and his team work with many of the world most elite units assisting them in not only choosing the right people but also helping them develop over their entire careers.  John’s views on selection and the lessons learned by his team over the past 15 are extremely valuable information for any team to help guide how you evaluate and select personnel.

Book Recommendation:

Assessment of Men: Selection of Personnel for the Office of Strategic Services: The OSS Assessment Staff, Rinehart & Company, Inc. ASIN: B000M6BR7W

Contact Info:

You can reach John and his team at [email protected], and can learn more about their software, FORGE, at https://sofwarellc.com/forge. 

My guest today is Casey Glass.  Casey is the founder of Warfighter Health and Performance and for the past 11 years has been a Special Operations Strength Coach for US SOF units.  Casey’s Grew up on a ranch in Texas.  In college, she played soccer at Texas Christian University and interned with the strength and conditioning staff her senior year.  While pursuing her master’s in health and Fitness at Purdue University she became their Graduate Assistant Strength Coach.  She then went on to work for the University of Arkansas for 4.5 years starting as a paid intern and leaving as the Associate Director of Olympic Sports Strength and Conditioning.  Eleven years ago she accepted a position that would change her life working in the Human Performance Program for a US Special Operations unit working to improve our warfighters’ operational performance and resilience.  Last year she founded Warfighter Health and Performance an organization designed to bring the experience and skills our SOF units are receiving to law enforcement special operations units.  

Book Recommendation:

Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers by Robert Sapolsky - ISBN-13: ‎978-0805073690

Building the Elite by Craig Weller & Jonathan Pope - ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0578918099

Contact Info:

https://www.warfighterhp.com 

https://www.linktr.ee/warfighterhp 

On June 28, 2022, the Greater Victoria Emergency Response Team (aka GVERT) was working as a quick response team for narcotics surveillance when a call went out of an active bank robbery in progress.  Two suspects, covered almost completely in body armor and heavily armed with SKS rifles were robbing the Bank of Montreal branch in nearby Saanich BC.  The suspects had herded all of the bank patrons and employees into the back of the bank and then proceeded to wait more than 12 minutes in the entrance vestibule of the bank hoping to ambush and kill the responding officers.  In accordance with their policy of remaining covert until suspects left the bank to avoid creating a hostage situation, responding officers from Saanich, Central Saanich and nearby Victoria PD descended on the area and inserted into covert locations around the bank.  

The GVERT team left the surveillance and headed immediately to the bank.  As they arrived on scene and gained situational awareness, the two male subjects, covered head to toe in armor and armed with SKS 7.62 x 39 rifles with high-capacity magazines, exited the bank. The team raced into the parking lot in their surveillance van, deployed a flashbang, and began to exit to effect arrest.  As they did the suspect nearest the van calmly turned and opened fire on the van.  In just a few seconds, 6 of the 7 operators in the van were shot, some multiple times.  All of them were injured and at least one of them was at immediate risk of death.

The remaining team members and patrol officers returned fire eventually killing the suspects.  What transpired over the next few minutes can only be described as a heroic performance by team members and army of patrol officers and other first responders who quickly transitioned from taking the suspects into custody, to searching for a possible third shooter, clearing the bank, freeing the hostages, dealing with numerous IEDs and most importantly providing care and transport for their injured teammates.  

This is the first of a two part series that will look at this event through the several different perspectives.  This episode will be unlike any previous episode of the debrief because of the sheer number of people we were able to interview.  The agencies, patrol officers and teams involved in this incident gave us access to more than a dozen people who responded to the event.  As a result, we will be seeing incident from the perspectives of the team commander, team leaders, detached sniper element, assaulters, medics, and even the patrol supervisor for the day.  It is our hope that doing so will allow us to understand not only what happened, but how their training allowed them to succeed in an almost unwinnable situation and how their lessons learned from the event informed future training and tactics. In this first part we will look at the timeline of the event itself, in part two we will sit down on video with three of the team members to look back at the events and formally discuss lessons learned.

In keeping with the standard policy of the debrief we will not mention the suspects’ names or objectives in the hopes that they will be lost to the sands of time.  We will however mention the names of responding officers as they are heroes and need to be remembered as such.

One additional note, this episode has a corresponding decision-making exercise created by the California Association of Tactical Officers.  Please be sure to run that exercise with friends or your team.

My guest today is a true legend in the field of decision making, Dr. Gary Klein.  Gary is the author of the book Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions, and five other books. His work includes groundbreaking research into the cognitive models we use for decision making including the Recognition-Primed Decision (RPD) model, the Data/Frame model of sensemaking, the Management By Discovery model of planning in complex settings, and the Triple Path Model of Insight. He has developed methods including the Pre-Mortem method of risk assessment, techniques for Cognitive Task Analysis, the ShadowBox training approach, and also helped pioneer the Naturalistic Decision-Making movement in 1989. Dr. Klein has decades of work experience in dozens of work domains, including military, healthcare, and emergency response. I am excited to have Gary on the show because his work with military and emergency response work provides a great framework for us to not only understand our decision making but also how to improve it through training and simulation.  

Course Discussed on Show: 

https://www.shadowboxtraining.com/courses/masterclass-in-practical-decision-making/ 

Gary’s Books: 

Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions – ISBN13 - 978-0262112277

Seeing What Others Don't: The Remarkable Ways We Gain Insights – ISBN13 -978-1610392518

Book Recommendation:

How to Stay Smart in a Smart World: Why Human Intelligence Still Beats Algorithms by Gerd Gigerenzer – ISBN13 - 978-0262046954

Contact Info:

ShadowBox Training – Accelerate Expertise

Gary Klein - WELCOME

On November 11, 2023, Austin Texas Police officers responded to a call of a stabbing. The Caller advised that there were several subjects that had been stabbed. When officers arrived, they made contact with one of the victims who advised two additional family members were still inside the residence with the suspect. Patrol officers forced entry into the residence and were immediately met with gun fire from within the residence. APD SWAT was requested to assist, upon arrival an emergency entry was made to save the lives of the victims. The suspect barricaded himself in a bedroom and ambushed the entry team as they made entry killing Officer Jorge Pastore and seriously injuring Officer John Conner. With me today are Sgt. Rafael Rosales and Ofc Kevin Olejar who are here to share the event and to discuss lessons learned.

In keeping with the policy of The Debrief we will not be mentioning the suspect by name or discussing his agenda as we hope they are both forgotten.  We will however be mentioning the names of the officers because they are heros and need to be remembered.

This episode will be dedicated to the memory of Jorge Pastore – EOW 11/11/23

http://www.jpastorefoundation.com/

Contact Info 

Sgt. Rafael Rosales

[email protected]