BOSTON -- Boston Police met with security officials for area hospitals to work on a plan of attack in the wake of a series of attacks at Massachusetts General Hospital.
"Were going to bring them in and were going to train them just like we would Boston Police officers so that they understand what will happen in a major incident in a hospital," said Commissioner Ed Davis, of the Boston Police Department.
Hospital security will be trained at the police academy to follow protocol.
They will be required to contact Boston Police immediately during an incident, to keep witnesses on scene, and to be good witnesses themselves.
"Why it's important to get plate numbers, why it's important to get identifications and descriptions of people so we can use them in our ongoing investigation," Davis said.
The Boston Police Patrolmen's Association worries not everyone is cut out for this stressful work.
"That could undermine actual delivery of services and I'm not sure that isn't a band-aid approach. If they want police officers in hospitals then lets put police officers in hospitals," Thomas Nee, Boston Police Patrolmen's Association
Until they do, hospitals like Tufts Medical Center will continue to assess its security daily and like everyone else struggle with how to reinforce its own staff
"We've looked at different types of weapons, chemical mace, batons, and there has been discussions with in my department do we need to go beyond that," said Thomas Atkinson, Director of Public Safety Tufts Medical Center.
Security at Mass General and Tufts Medical Center are not armed but at Beth Israel they area. They started carrying them after 9/11.
The meeting was the first step in reinforcing and coordinating the efforts between the hospital and Boston Police.
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