Southwest Florida's fusion center — a 10-county information sharing hub for fire, health, emergency management and law enforcement — became fully operational in February 2012, led by Tom Storrar, a 44-year veteran of the Collier County Sheriff's Office. It is one of eight fusion centers in Florida. Fusion centers in Miami, Orlando and Tallahassee, the state hub, are recognized by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Storrar remains at the helm of the Southwest Florida center, but the other four employees — two full-time analysts, a full-time IT worker and a part-time agent — have either retired or been reassigned by their various agencies.
"My take on it is they just had staffing issues they've had to deal with," Storrar said of the agencies that pulled their workers.
In the coming weeks, Storrar hopes to add two full-time analysts to the center's ranks. He then intends to transition the center into a recognized node of the Tallahassee fusion center, which will give them more network connectivity and bring more training opportunities.
"We'll be like a satellite office of Tallahassee," Storrar said.
Fusion centers became popular after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, though they have drawn the ire of some civil liberties groups due to privacy concerns. Their mission is to share information, resources and expertise to detect and prevent criminal and terrorist activities.
The Southwest Florida center does threat assessments for large regional events (races, air shows, etc.); compiles a weekly roundup of crime trends, major arrests and information of interest to the public safety community; and does geographical profiling of series of crimes to determine where and when a suspect is likely to strike again.
Eventually, Storrar would like to establish partnerships with the private sector.
"I believe more than ever that sharing of information between law enforcement agencies must be embraced for all agencies in the near future," Collier Sheriff Kevin Rambosk said in a prepared statement, adding that the planned transition will better facilitate the exchange of information and save resources.
The center is partially housed in the Florida Department of Law Enforcement office on Terminal Drive in Fort Myers and at an undisclosed FBI office in Lee County. But they are moving exclusively to the FBI office soon due to space constraints at the FDLE office.
"We haven't been able to mature (the fusion center) to the level that I think it should be," Storrar admits. "We're on the road, and we will reach our goals and objectives of being a mature center in the not too distant future."
©2015 the Naples Daily News (Naples, Fla.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
